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Between May 10 and May 13, 1931, over one hundred convents and other religious buildings weredeliberately burned down byanarchists and otherFar Leftanticlericalists inSpain during allegedly spontaneous riots that started inMadrid and spread throughout the country.[1]
On May 10, amonarchist group played a recording of the formernational anthemMarcha Real by an open window in theCalle de Alcalá while a large crowd were returning from theBuen Retiro Park. Some members of the crowd were enraged, and the following dayanti-Catholic riots andChurch arson swept across Spain.[2] While some cabinet ministers in the newly foundedSecond Spanish Republic wanted to intervene and restore order, other cabinet ministers opposed the idea. According to the canonical narrative,Prime MinisterManuel Azaña allegedly overruled those who wished to intervene by stating, "All the convents of Spain are not worth the life of a single Republican".[3]
Among the many works of Spain'scultural heritage that were lost during the 1931 arson attacks was the copy ofMarko Marulić'sDe institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum ("Instruction on How to Lead a Virtuous Life Based on the Examples of Saints") that once belonged toSt Francis Xavier. It was the only book, aside from theRoman Breviary, that the early Jesuit carried with him and constantly re-read during his missionary work inPortuguese India. St. Francis Xavier's copy of the book had been returned to Spain after his death and was long treasured inMadrid as a second classrelic by theSociety of Jesus. Writing in 1961, however, Marulic scholarAnte Kadič announced that recent inquiries about the volume had come up empty and that he believed that the Saint's copy must have been destroyed during the May 1931 arson attack bySpanish Republicans against the Jesuit monastery in Madrid.[4] According toClassicist Edward Mulholland, "It is estimated that the Jesuit Casa Profesa's library, which also burned, lost 80,000 volumes, includingincunables andfirst editions ofSpanish Golden Age authors likeLope de Vega,Calderón de la Barca, andQuevedo."[5]