Sins, corruption and the magic of the stonemasons: the secrets of the Lonja de Valencia

ValenciaIn the heart of Valencia's historic center, opposite the Central Market and very close to the church of Santa Caterina, stands a Gothic building that puzzles visitors. One might think it's a temple, but in reality, it is the Merchants' Exchange. At the entrance, satirical and obscene figures abound, such as men and women touching their genitals and birds defecating on buttocks. At the exit door, however, everything is harmony. The writer Juan Francisco Ferrándiz (Cocentaina, 1971) is so fascinated by this Gothic building that it has inspired him to write a book about its construction in the late 15th century: La Llotja de la Seda

(Silk Exchange) (Rosa dels Vents / Grijalbo), which Josep Alemany and Imma Falcó have translated into Catalan.As he walks through the hall of endless columns, the author of El judici de l'aigua (The Water Trial) (2021) and L'hereva del mar (The Sea Heiress) (2024) explains why he chose it to write a book about. He sees the imposing building, constructed for merchants to conduct business, "like a purgatory." "I have always been surprised by the harmony of the Llotja. You notice that there is a will for it to resemble a church, to have that mystical quality. Who knows if they were inspired by Ramon de Perellós's Journey to Purgatory,

[from the late 14th century], which describes a similar hall of columns. The Llotja could be this transitional space where the merchant purifies himself from the sin of usury," explains Ferrándiz.

The novelist also argues that the builders took as a model the House of the Forest of Lebanon that King Solomon had built near the Temple of Jerusalem. In short, for the author, the Llotja is the monument to the change of mentality in the 15th century: the idea that effort and talent allow one to prosper, that making money is not sinful, and that destiny should not be dictated by family or place of birth.In one of the rooms, the writer stops in front of one of the "scarlet" stones brought from Mallorca: it is the key to a real corruption case that Ferrándiz includes in the novel. "Due to an exorbitant price, someone asked: «What is happening here?» They began to investigate and found inflated invoices and accounting manipulation. It is a historic corruption case starring Pere Sancruïlla. It seems that corruption has always been part of our Valencian idiosyncrasy," comments the author ironically. The building has lived a thousand lives: from a silk trading center to a military barracks, a numismatic market, and the setting for the civil funeral of Blasco Ibáñez. Today it still stands as a reminder of the work done by Valencian stonemasons to build a building declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996.

An accused witch and a devout woman

The stonemasons and everything that involved raising a temple for man's activities and not to worship God are part of the plot of the Valencian novelist and lawyer. Through real characters, such as Joan Ibarra and Pere Compte, who were the builders of the Llotja, and others of fiction such as Francesca, Ferrándiz explains the construction of the building. Although Pere Compte is the most recognized name, the story reveals other figures such as Francesc Baldomar, the ideologue of the building, and who according to Ferrándiz endowed Valencian architecture with a unique symbolism. The novelist is fascinated by Ibarra because he was an unknown and, even so, they placed him at the same level as Compte.

The protagonist women are indeed the product of the author's imagination. Francesca, Iborra's wife, is persecuted and accused of witchcraft.