page_title: The Order of Toledo
section_title: Relation of the Order to the City of Toledo
hierarchical_section_title: The Order of Toledo / Relation of the Order to the City of Toledo
caption_attribution_description: English: Toledo in 2017
context_page_description: The Order of Toledo was an avant-garde association of young writers and artists studying in Madrid, Spain, who made frequent weekend trips to nearby Toledo. Members immersed themselves in the mystique of the city's labyrinthine streets and mosaic history to seek out individual and shared adventures. The Order was founded by Luis Buñuel in 1923 and continued accepting members until 1936. Membership included such luminaries as Salvador Dalí, Federico García Lorca, and Rafael Alberti.
context_section_description: It was the mystique of Toledo that inspired the Order and that kept the members coming back, not just for the duration of the Order, but for the rest of their lives. Toledo is a city with a long and sinuous history dating back to Antiquity. It has served as the main venue for councils of the Holy Roman Empire and as the capital of Spain. Its renowned co-existence of Christians, Muslims, and Jews is a testament to the cultural fecundity of the city. After the capital moved to Madrid in the 16th century, Toledo lost much of its former renown. In the Romantic period, Toledo was re-discovered and became an increasingly popular destination for travelers.
  Romantic pictorial representations by El Greco and the literary representations by Bécquer were foundational to the perspective of the Order. Alberti mentions in the account of his initiation how the churches of the Plaza de Santo Domingo el Real “at night seem as if they are descended from some cloudy and mysterious firmament of El Greco.”  The moment is indicative of a surrealist twist to the Order—waking and dreaming both within and outside of one's own consciousness. Bécquer had been fascinated by Toledo in the 19th century and made a routine of returning there to write and ideate. He loved the “urban singularity, special compendium and synthesis of multiple cultures, the mystery that pervaded its ancient and labyrinthine streets, at the margin of progress.”  The city was a kind of living, breathing ruins—a place at once ancient and forgotten yet undeniably fresh.
  The Order, although it certainly imbibed the essence of this Romantic fascination with Toledo, also transcended it. What differentiated the Order from the Romantics was its willingness to immerse, not just observe. In the Order was an “invitation to lose oneself as a form of continual discovery of the city and to be able to soak up personal experiences there, beyond the usual routes of visits and promenades from the previous tradition.” 
  Visits to the city were ritualized in time and space. On Saturday afternoons, the members of the Order would depart by train from Madrid to the Toledo station, and from there they would walk to the Plaza de Zocodover and sip some red wine. Then came conversation and dinner, all fuel for the coming night wanderings. They might walk through the streets to the Plaza of Santo Domingo el Antiguo or the small Bécquer library, then continue walking until sunrise. They would return to the Posada de la Sangre, which was always dirty, but, in its age and constancy, inimitably so. And after just a few hours of sleep, they would reconvene in Zocodover, this time for coffee. Then they continued the visit—to the Cathedral and up to its bell tower, to the Alcázar, to the tomb of Cardinal Tavera—to all the high and low points of the city and everything in between. The visits always concluded with a meal in the Venta de Aires.
  
  The Order entered a literary and historic pantheon of itinerant musings in the city, but it left its own mark on the city by exploring beyond its tourist appeal:
  Instead of staying in hotels recommended by guidebooks, they [the knights of the Order] stayed in las Posadas de la Hermandad, de la Sangre, among muleteers, donkeys, and cobwebs—all of which were the same as those in the times of the Catholic Monarchs or Cervantes. They ate and drank incontinently, then entered the labyrinth of narrow streets…they made mockery of the consecrated monuments, but were kissing the stones because they had been trodden by generations and races and many people like themselves, the Grecos, Lopes de Vegas, Cervantes, Herreras, Quevedos, Calderones, amazed and restless. They were looking for sites of fear; they were walking expecting surprises.
caption: Toledo in 2017
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