The Twelve Labours of Hercules at Llíria and a new Documentary on New York
While working on Visions of Spain: Iberian Modernism in New York at the Turn of the Century, I have been thinking about the cultural landscape that shaped four of its protagonists: Rafael Guastavino, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, José Iturbi and Joaquín Sorolla.
The film begins with a parallel. New York is the product of many cultures, and so is Valencia, but the layers accumulated differently.
In Valencia, civilizations succeeded one another over centuries. Iberians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Muslims and Christians inhabited, traded with, conquered and transformed the same territory. Languages changed, religions changed, buildings rose over buildings, while customs and knowledge often survived the civilizations that introduced them.
In New York, cultures separated by centuries of European history arrived side by side through migration. Classical, medieval, Renaissance and modern traditions could coexist on neighboring streets, sometimes appearing in an order quite different from the one in which they had developed in Europe.
This is particularly visible in architecture. New York could embrace the classical vocabulary of the nineteenth century while technologies and forms rooted in much older European traditions were arriving alongside it. Guastavino’s tile vaulting is perhaps the most conspicuous example: an ancient Mediterranean building tradition transformed into something unmistakably modern and deployed across the rapidly changing urban landscape.
That thought has led me back to the landscape these four men shared and to the civilizations that had already left their mark upon it long before any of them was born. One of those layers can still be traced in Llíria, about twenty-five kilometers northwest of Valencia, the ancient Iberian and Roman city of Edeta.
In 1917, workers making improvements to the garden of a country house belonging to Francisco Porcar encountered something extraordinary beneath the ground: a virtually complete Roman mosaic representing the Twelve Labours of Hercules.
The mosaic dates from the Roman imperial period, generally assigned to the third century AD. Around its perimeter, twelve individual scenes recount the ordeals imposed upon Hercules: the Nemean lion, the Lernaean Hydra, the Ceryneian hind, the Erymanthian boar, the Augean stables, the Stymphalian birds, the Cretan bull, the mares of Diomedes, the belt of Hippolyta, the cattle of Geryon, the apples of the Hesperides and Cerberus.
At the center is something less expected. Hercules is not performing an act of heroic strength. He is shown dressed in women’s clothing and associated with spinning, while beside him stands Omphale, queen of Lydia, carrying the lion skin and club that ordinarily identify Hercules himself. According to the myth, Hercules was compelled to serve Omphale for a period of years. The mosaic reverses their familiar attributes: the great hero assumes the implements and clothing associated with women while Omphale assumes his.
The mosaic once decorated the home of a prosperous Roman family. Archaeological work at the site in 2021 revealed that the room in which it was found belonged to a much larger residence extending beneath the present-day Porcar house and the surrounding streets, much of it still unexplored.
What happened immediately after the discovery is almost as compelling as the discovery itself. Francisco Porcar ordered that the mosaic remain where it had been found, and there, in the garden of his property, Hercules and his twelve labours remained for twenty-five years.
In 1942 the mosaic was lifted from the earth of Llíria and transported to Madrid, where it remains today in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional. Why it left Valencia, and whether it might have remained closer to the place where it was created and discovered, is another story—one I will not pursue here.
This is only one of the layers I hope to explore as the research continues. The Journal follows the discoveries, encounters and occasional detours that accompany the making of Visions of Spain: Iberian Modernism in New York at the Turn of the Century and Paul Chaleff: Thinking in Clay. Readers interested in following these films as they develop are invited to subscribe.
Visions of Spain: Iberian Modernism in New York at the Turn of the Century is made possible in part through the support of the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund, Virginia Edmunds, and people like you who believe in the importance of independent documentary filmmaking.
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