Spain

"Discovering the origins of the architect Fray Diego Maroto." (2015)

In October 2016, twenty-four award winners from EUSTORY competitions met at a History Camp in Georgia. For this occasion they prepared posters about their projects and findings which were displayed in the National History Museum in Tbilisi.

My competition entry was about Fray Diego Maroto, a well-known architect of the 17th century who was thought to be Peruvian. In our research paper, we wanted to demonstrate that he is originally from Spain. Therefore we divided the project in two parts: a document about Diego Maroto’s life supported by verified facts and references and a novel, describing his possible life in Spain.

How did you decide on your topic?
I personally liked the topic because Spain has always been closely linked to America. The competition encouraged me to find connections between Spain, our environment and America, but it was difficult to detect how our small and centrally located city is related. Once it turned out that Maroto is the connection, it was obvious for which topic to go for.

How did you react when you came upon surprising points during your research?
I was surprised that during the research work every single detail counts, even though it seemed insignificant. Sometimes a date, that we considered as unimportant, turned out to be THE missing clue we had been looking for. There were moments we got stuck in our research. These experiences were frustrating but once we found a new source we were able to go ahead.

Take a closer look at Nerea’s poster here.

For her project on the architect Diego Maroto, Nerea was awarded first prize in the Spanish history competition.