San Pedro Alcántara has a woman's name

The town was founded as an agricultural settlement in 1860 by the Marqués del Duero, who is said to have named it in honour of his mother

Joaquina Dueñas

Friday, 31 March 2023, 11:47

The origin of San Pedro Alcántara is linked to the birth of an agricultural settlement, or colony, founded by the politician and soldier, Manuel Gutiérrez de la Concha Irigoyen (Marqués del Duero), in 1860.

"Before the colony there was no population in this area, with the exception of the known Roman settlement", explained local historian José Luis Casado.

The Roman town was located on what is now San Pedro Alcántara, although it is said to have been destroyed by a seaquake in the 4th century.

Casado published an article under the title 'San Pedro Alcántara has a woman's name', which analyses where this choice of toponym came from.

"There is no concrete data to confirm this, but in my opinion, it is a tribute from the Marquis del Duero to his mother. He was orphaned during the Argentine War of Independence, and he was very devoted to his mother, whose name was Petrona," he said.

Casado points out that the only daughter the Marqués del Duero had was also called Petra, and so the settlement was named after the mother and the daughter.

"It was common for these entrepreneurs, when they founded a colony, to name it after their children, as the Larios family did in San Martín del Tesorillo or that of the Colonia de Santa Isabel, in Cordoba, which bears the name of the wife of its creator, the Count of Torres Cabrera," the historian says.

What is not known is why Gutiérrez chose San Pedro de Alcántara instead of another Saint Peter. "Perhaps the explanation lies in the numerous letters and correspondence stored in the marquis's private archive," he said.

The first official chronicler of Marbella, Fernando Alcalá, published a book in 1979 in which he declared that, "...regardless of the evident devotion of the Gutiérrez de la Concha family to the ascetic saint from Extremadura, it is a tribute from the Marquis del Duero to his beloved mother, Doña Petra de Alcántara Irigoyen."

The saint from Cáceres was baptised as Juan de Sanabria, son of Alonso Garavito and María Vilela de Sanabria. He changed his name to Pedro in 1516 when he entered the Franciscan Order.

He ended his days in Arenas de San Pedro, now twinned with San Pedro Alcántara.

The official chronicler of Marbella, Francisco Moyano, says that, although the town's name comes from San Pedro de Alcántara, the name of the settlement never had the preposition 'de'. The reason: "Because the Marqués de Duero wanted it that way."

"There is no other explanation. He removed the 'de' from all the documentation concerning the town. He wanted to differentiate the name of the patron from the name of the town," Moyano explained.

However, there are some road signs and institutional documents in which the preposition appears.

"The exact name is in the gazetteer of the National Institute of Statistics, where it has always appeared without the de. The preposition appeared in 1970, but we don't really know why," José Luis Casado said.

In October 2009, the green light was given to eliminate it again in order to recover the original name as it appears on the coat of arms: San Pedro Alcántara.

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