In my never-ending pursuit of introducing you to the image of bats in the city of Palma de Mallorca’s coat of arms, as well as some other unimportant snippets that may well bore one or the other of my visitors, here’s another nice example of a fine symbolic bat as part of another splendid crest. The heavy cast-iron object is found on a lamp post in Plaça Josep Maria Quadrado, one of my favourite Palma small squares, not far from the Avingudes (Avenidas).

A curious thing about the Plaça Josep Maria Quadrado occurs to me. Why is a monumental statue in honour of Josep Maria Quadrado i Nieto (1819-1896), a Menorca born journalist, historian, writer and archaeologist, not placed here in the square emblazoned with his name and, supposedly, in his memory, but to the back of Palma’s Parlament building, in Carrer Palau Reial, in fact, right within the Jardins Bartomeu March? Anyway, Quadrado seems important to the island’s history for him having been the general archivist of the Balearic Islands at the Arxiu Històric de Mallorca (from 1845 to 1895), as well as a member of the Comissió de Monuments Històrics i Artístics de les Balears. He was also a member of the Real Academia Española as well as of the Real Academia de la Historia (Royal Academy of History), plus of the Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona (Academy of Literature).

The building in the background of the photo’s right-hand side is a remarkable piece of architecture from the Modernisme period, Can Barceló. I’ll tell you more about it, sometime soon.

The photo was taken in Palma de Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: January 27th, 2010. The time was 14:51:33.