Christian Embassy

Monday afternoon. All of us, in our respective groups, have enjoyed tasting a good plate of paella and local melon, all of it accompanied by the company of friends and the Moorish and Christian marches with which the band delights us.

The same thing happens as in the morning, but with the roles reversed: the Christian side is camped in the Cantereria, the Moors on the Santa María bridge and the castle is in the hands of the Moors.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, from their positions, the captains of both sides fire their arquebuses in unison; it is the signal to begin the act of shooting; the response is immediate: hundreds of arquebusiers speak at once and their voices announce to us the proximity of the Christian embassy.

Just like in the morning, the sequences are repeated: the trumpet calls for silence; the messenger rides off; the Moorish captain tears the parchment into a thousand pieces;… the Christian ambassador harangues his troops; and, as he advances towards the castle, alone, at a convenient distance from his escort, he talks to himself, remembering his childhood in these same walls that he now intends to conquer; and he remembers his mother, her prayers,… he speaks to those stones that were his city; he gets excited, he moves us.

Embassy, offers, challenges and, finally, a fight. The outcome is written: the town of Ontinyent becomes Christian again.

In Ontinyent, in the past, ambassadors were ex officio; that is to say, it was always the same people who recited the embassies; for the last forty years, they have been official: each year the people who recite the texts of Cervino are different. And, although the content of the dialogue is always the same, the tone of voice, the way of joining the words, the intonation, the pauses and silences, the gestures, the emphasis that each ambassador puts, everything is different, and makes us attend a new and vibrant embassy every year.

This act was declared an asset of intangible cultural interest by DECREE 4/2019, of January 18, of the Consell. The declaration is registered in the First Section of the General Inventory of Valencian Cultural Heritage.