The Casa Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation in collaboration with the Toledo City Council has opened in the San Juan Bautista Hospital the exhibition "The lineage of the Wise King From the triumph of the cursed lineage to the creation of the county of Medinaceli'. which will be open to the public until 6 January. The exhibition in homage to Alfonso X in the VIII Centenary of his birth exhibits 36 original pieces, genealogical trees and various documents of extraordinary value from the origins of this duchy and its direct link with the Wise King belonging to both the Ducal Archives of Medinaceli as well as to other national and foreign archives and libraries.
The exhibition covers a little over a century of Spanish history, taking the lineage of the ascendant lineage of the wise king as one of the key explanations of his imperial ambition, his legislative work and the alliances he forged with other European royal houses. It continues with his descending lineages, starting with a succession crisis that pits a father, King Alfonso X, against his second son, the infante Don Sancho, whom he publicly curses.
The enthronement of this "cursed line" who, against the king's will, disinherited the first-born daughter, opened up a long period of instability that would lead, almost a century later, to a new civil war and the assassination of King Don Pedro by his brother, Don Enrique de Trastámara. It was in this context of the lack of legitimacy of the monarch that the County of Medinaceli was created in favour of the person who represented the first-born line of Alfonso X, who had been disinherited in the previous century.
As an epilogue, the exhibition evokes the construction of two memories, that of the new reigning house of Trastámara, which seeks its legitimacy in the Infantes de La Cerda, and that of the House of Medinaceli as the continuation of the first-born line of the former kings of Castile and León.
The inauguration was attended by numerous authorities from other entities, such as the Toledo Consortiumthe Historical Archive of the Nobilitythe Royal Academy of Fine Arts y Historical Sciences of Toledo or the Army Museumand the coordinator of the VIII Centenary.