An unusual Poison Garden

Alnwick Castle, home of the Duke of Northumberland, is best remembered on film as Hogwarts in the long “Harry Potter” franchise. There is no real historical connection between the castle or its occupants with Philippine history, except that it was there that one of the rare and much-coveted 1734 Pedro Murillo Velarde maps of the Philippines was found, tucked away along with many other treasures.

The duke had an upkeep bill of over 12 million pounds (P826 million by today’s exchange) following the collapse of an old culvert on his property, forcing him to consign 80 heirlooms to a Sotheby’s sale in 2014. One of the obscure items on the block was an 18th-century map of the Philippines printed by Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay, an indio who proudly etched his name on the copper plate. Though the map was rare, with less than 25 known copies extant, the auction house estimated its value to be between 20,000 pounds and 30,000 pounds  (P1.4-2 million). It was sold for 170,500 pounds (P12,255,310), way beyond the estimate, to an eager Filipino businessman, Mel Velarde, who likes to joke that he is related to the cartographer. However, since Pedro Murillo Velarde was a celibate 18th-century Jesuit, the only thing they actually share is the same surname.

The Velarde map’s current desirability these days is not for its aesthetic value, but for the fact that Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio has used this map to demolish China’s claim that the disputed Scarborough Shoal has been on their maps for the longest time. In the Murillo Velarde map—an official map of Spanish Philippines in 1734—Scarborough Shoal is Panacot (Threat); along with two other nearby shoals, Galit (Anger) and Lumbay (Sorrow), they were places boats had to stay clear of. On a lower portion of the map, near Palawan, you will find “Los Bajos de Paragua,” which are the disputed Spratly Islands today. China has not produced an older map to prove its “historic” rights, which are not applicable anyway.

Alnwick Castle has been owned by one family for the past 700 years and contains the rich rooms, paintings and tapestries that make a great backdrop for the Hogwarts School of Wizardry. Its website is down, and I was wondering what other Filipiniana lies unknown to us in the castle’s library and archive. After all, if a Murillo Velarde map was found there, you can’t blame the curious historian for hoping that there is something else and something more.

Another castle attraction I want to visit someday is a gated part of the garden, closed off not just for the privacy of the duke and duchess, but to keep visitors from straying inside to smell the flowers—and fall dead. For in Alnwick Castle is a Poison Garden with over 100 plants that were used over the centuries as medicine, but, with a different dose or composition, would have the opposite effect. The plants killed rather than cured. So while many manicured and landscaped gardens all over the world boast of fruits, flowers, herbs and trees, it’s only Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland, who tends a poison garden, where visitors are not allowed in without supervision lest they pick, touch, smell or taste any of the plants and curl up and die.

Inside the San Agustin complex in Intramuros, you will find a bare plot dedicated to Manuel Blanco, OSA, author of the luxuriously illustrated volumes of “Flora de Filipinas.” The plot was supposed to be filled with plants referenced in Blanco’s books, but it’s nothing but scorched earth today. Inside the museum is a reconstruction of a medieval apothecary with many bottles that would contain different leaves, bark, seeds, flowers and fruits—dried, ground, or boiled and distilled—to form medicine, ointments and unguents. Surely some of these plants were grown in the garden by the monastery infirmarian.

The cloisters in San Agustin surround a square garden to refer to the four cardinal points: North, East, West and South (which gave us the word “news”). All monastery gardens have a pond or water element, with fish and plants—an allusion to the Easter sprinkling hymn “Vidi Aquam” (“I saw water flowing from the right side of the temple, Alleluia”). Aside from plants and shrubs, a monastery garden must have trees, or at least one, to allude to the Garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit.

Nothing is left to chance in a heritage site. One must be inquisitive, ask questions, to know more.

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