This summer, it’s been ten years since Cecilia Giménez, a neighbor from Borja, turned the ill-fated restoration of Ecce Homo, painted on a wall of the Santuario de Misericordia church in Zaragoza’s 5,000 town, to a worldwide viral phenomenon. In the decade since the then 81-year-old woman’s intervention, adding an avalanche of memes and crazy and humorous comments to cross-border networks on Twitter has turned the world upside down. The original fresco became unrecognizable, more than 300,000 viewers from around 120 countries came to see it in Borja, making Ecce Homo the biggest tourist attraction.
Given its weathered, deteriorating condition, Cecilia Giménez amateurly and on her own initiative undertook the restoration of the small mural featuring the image of Jesus Christ, a work of little value by artist Elías García Martínez. (1858-1934), but she always argued that the priest knew this.
memorial in September
The benefits of the visits, which the city council has estimated at around 40,000 euros in the last year – the entrance fee of 3 – are used for the salaries of the two guides, the maintenance of the sanctuary, and scholarships for the orphans. resources from the town can live in a residence (two have already benefited). The council has also launched a campaign for tourists to learn about the gastronomy and heritage of the place, beyond Ecce Homo.
Including a documentary commemorating the past decade, due this September, mayor Eduardo Arilla is defending his already famous neighbor. “Cecilia is a love, she didn’t want to ruin the business, she just wanted to help her people and she succeeded,” he told El Periódico de Aragón. Cecilia Giménez, 91, suffering from the symptoms of senile dementia, now lives in a nursing home with her disabled son who has cerebral palsy (the other son suffered from muscular dystrophy at age 20).
The benefits of Ecce Homo image rights even pitted their heirs against those of the artist Elías García Martínez. In the end, both parties reached an agreement, mediated by the city council, which opened an exhibition to promote García Martínez’s work. Giménez had destroyed an artifact that was already in a very poor state of preservation, but made it famous through his intervention, creating a generous collection of merchandising where he received half the sales, although he gave up half of the sales. visits.
international interest
In addition to world media attention that caused a crisis of anxiety in the elderly woman, the controversial intervention sparked anger among restoration and arts professionals who called for the preservation and restoration of cultural heritage. In fact, professional restorers went to Borja to inspect the work and see the possibility of recovering the original image.
In this decade, Borja’s Ecce Homo phenomenon has been the protagonist of, among others, a comic opera written by Andrew Flack (Here’s the man) and composed by Paul Fowler for comedian Conan O’Brien’s televised program. Without going any further, this 2022 saw the already iconic image of Cecilia on the sweatshirt of Chilean actress Lorenza Izzo in the ninth episode of the first season of the Hacks series. His disastrous piece was also used in a review of Madonna’s latest album on the music website Pitchfork and by the judges of the popular show Rupaul’s Drag Race.
Although not directly involved in the collection of Ecce Homo, in November 2013 Borja parish priest Florencio Garcés, who led the visits, was arrested on an economic charge of allocating more than 210,000 euros from the congregation, sexual exploitation and money laundering. capitals.