… a few stories in a historical place
The purchase of the first building was made by Berenguer Vivot around 1443 and it was a modest property in the upper part of the city where the main centers of political-administrative, economic and religious power could be found. In addition, it was facing the blocks of houses where we could find the Casa de la Juraria, close to the important convent of Santo Domingo, the cathedral and the Almudaina castle. The construction was mainly with sandstone and wall.
His son, Ramon Vivot, acquired three more properties around 1489 with the intention of remodeling and improving his family home. One of these three properties was where the first printing house in Mallorca was established by Monsignor Bartolomé Caldentey, who provided the money, his house and the managment, and Nicolau Calafat, an artisan who provided the ingenuity and the workforce. In this place and in 1485, the Tractatus de regulis mandatorum by Juan de Gerson was printed, the first work printed in Mallorca. But in 1490 a Mallorcan bookseller had to republish in Italy a work that had been printed in this island 3 years earlier, which confirms that the life of the Caldetey-Calafat printing house was very short. In 1497, Ramon Vivot died while the ennobling works of his residence were in progress, but it will be his descendants who will continue them. From this period come the unification of archaic properties to add them to a house with a courtyard and staircase with greater monumentality. In his will, he tell us the time of construction of the Gothic staircase.
Thanks to the Tailles, we have knowledge of the medieval urban structure because it was a tax that taxed the heritage. This documentation listed all the properties and, to identify the blocks of houses, they were called by the name of the owner or the most important person in each one. And so it was that in 1576 the way to call this block of houses was ‘mosson Pere Vivot’. The Taille were a tax imposed on each household and the name of this tax comes from the ancient custom of accounting for money deliveries by cutting notches (‘taille’ in French) on sticks, and these were given to certify payment.
The information on the property confirms the important transformation of the building in the second half of the 16th century. The original Gothic typology was with an arch leading to the central courtyard, with a staircase and rear courtyard. The improvements in the property go at the same time that with the increase in the relevance of the Vivot family, when Pere Vivot i Pax came to be appointed with the position of Royal Procurator of the Kingdom of Mallorca. This branch of the Vivot, an ancient lineage of Mallorcan nobility, became extinct in the 17th century, merging with the Sureda family, and sometimes making reference to the Sureda of Vivot. In fact, the first title of Marquis of Vivot was granted in 1717 to Brigadier Joan Sureda i Vilallonga, knight of Alcántara and perpetual alderman of Palma.
The Mallorcan nobility, and everywhere else, used the institution of the trust to avoid the disintegration of their patrimony: the trust assets, that is to say linked, could only be sold for very specific reasons. So much so, that they could not even alienate themselves to pay debts. Nevertheless, when the owner of a fully entrusted estate did not have liquidity to deal with his creditors, it was necessary to arbitrate a payment system. In these cases, the solution used to be always the same: His Majesty ordered the seizure of the assets, which in the case of Mallorca, were administered by the Royal Court. In this way, it was ensured, on the one hand, that the debt was paid and, on the other hand, that the patrimony remained all together intact. In other words, the debt owners knew that if a moment came they could not answer their debts, His Majesty would intervene in their favor preventing them from losing the debts assets.
Well, in the 18th century, all of the Sureda’s property was seized except for their houses in Palma, parish of Santa Eulalia [this is the house we are dealing with], the Son Vivot property in the Puig d’Inca and the Son Albertí raft. The reason for the non-sequestration of these last properties is not, as it might seem at first, to leave them to keep their house, but that the reason was once again related to debts. Both the houses and the estates mentioned were already confiscated by the tribunal of the Holy Office. There is no doubt, therefore, that around the years 1745-50 the economic situation of the Vivot estate could not be more critical. All property was confiscated, some by the Holy Office and others by the Royal Court. Both institutions had graduated creditors and were responsible for administering the estate and making timely payments.
It appears in 1798 as the owner of this estate in Mateo Estade i Bibiloni, who in his will left the house to his daughter Margarita, married to the doctor Francesc Oleo i Carrió. The property to the daughter, and his wife Isabel Gomila as usufructuary, but the following year the wife died. The course of time meant that in 1816 Francesc Oleo took ownership of the estate, taking the name of the current owner and until today, Ca n’Oleo. In 1820 it is recorded that his residence was of large proportions (800 m2) and occupied numbers 3-4-5-6-7 of the block of houses. He developed an important professional task as a doctor, introducing the vaccine against Jenner’s smallpox and important was his decisive intervention in the fight against the bubonic plague epidemic that appeared in Artà, Sant Llorenç and Son Servera in the month of May from 1820.
At the end of the 19th century, the estate and its staircase became an icon of Palma’s Gothic architecture thanks to the numerous descriptions and representations by travelers and scholars. This contrasted with the lack of knowledge of the estate’s medieval past, which underwent a profound and careless transformation of the entire inherited structure. Like new openings on the facade and the old ones, entrance portal, pillars and arch, and the interior were hidden. The bulk of the transformations consisted of the skimpy use of space and the conversion of a single-family dwelling into multi-family buildings.
The Lull·liana Archaeological Society from 1937 had its headquarters provisionally in Ca n’Oleo until the ownership passed to the Junta de Construcciones del Estado Español, and the acquisition by the Ministry of Education and Science in 1975. From here on the building will remain closed without any intervention due to a case of threat of ruin. In 1986, the Ministry granted the use of Ca n’Oleo to the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB).
The UIB called a competition for preliminary architectural projects in 2001 to carry out the reform of Ca n’Oleo. The jury awarded the first prize to the team formed by the architect Pere Nicolau Bover and, a still student architecture, Maria Nicolau Planas, his duaghter. The UIB entrusted these architects with the drafting of the basic project and execution of the consolidation, conservation and restoration works for the Ca n’Oleo building, in accordance with the review of the award-winning preliminary project, where the categorization of the spaces is fundamental with the aim of highlighting the 15th century facade and staircase.
Restoration work began in 2005, with architect Maria Nicolau taking over the reins of the restoration, and lasted until 2011 due to the complexity and neglect that the estate had suffered for more than 25 years.
C.S.R.
References:
- “Rehabilitación Casal Gótico Can Oleo, Palma” a la web de Maria Nicolau Arquitecte
- “Ca n’Oleo (Palma, Mallorca, ss. XIV-XVI): Vestigios, documentación, Nuevos hallazgos” de Francesca Trugores Truyol i Miquel Àngel Capellà Galmés dins el llibre “La casa medieval en Mallorca y el Mediterráneo: elementos constructivos y decorativos” coordinat per Tina Sabater (ISBN 978-84-18932-11-3).
- “El segrestament del patrimoni Vivot com a conseqüència de la pèrdua del fideïcomís de Desclapés (1746-1753)” de Antònia Morey Tous dins les Memòries de la Acadèmia Mallorquina d’Estudis Genealògics. 1993 n.5.
- “Intelectualidad y medicina: Los Oleo” de Miguel Ferrer Flórez dins les Memòries de la Reial Acadèmia Mallorquina d’Estudis Genealògics, Heràldics i Històrics. 2012 n.12.
- Sobre l’edifici de Ca n’Oleo a la web de l’OpenPalma
- Dossier de “REFORMA I REHABILITACIÓ DEL CASAL DE CAN OLEO”. Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB) i Conselleria de Educació i Cultura del Govern de les Illes Balears.
- “Cròniques de Palma” per Bartomeu Bestard. Ajuntament de Palma.
- La primera imprenta mallorquína. Los impresores Caldentey y Calafat. Bolletí de la Societat Arqueològica Lul·liana: Revista d’Estudis Històrics, ISSN 0212-7458, N. 31, 1953-1960, pàgs. 467-503
Special thanks:
To the Fundació Jaume III of the Balearic Islands for the free availability of its Spanish-Mallorcan translator. The Jaume III Foundation (Balearic Culture and Dignity) is a non-profit cultural entity founded at the end of 2013 with a clear and overwhelming objective: to dignify the Mallorcan, Menorcan and Ibizan languages.