They are two of the most appreciated monuments by the people of La Vila Joiosa and were witnesses of key moments in the history of La Vila Joiosa and Spain.
The villa was built in 1920 by Alfonso Esquerdo Iborra (nephew of the famous Dr. José María Esquerdo), a doctor who lived in Argentina. The villa was named after his wife, Giacomina Bellami de Borgi, daughter of an important builder, a freemason like Alfonso himself. Illustrious friends such Blasco Ibáñez, visited him there. Masonic symbols are evident in several places in the building, which is beautifully decorated on the outside, based on the medieval architecture of the three religions of the Book (Islamic, Christian and Hebrew).
At the end of the Civil War, the Town Hall housed Dr. Bastos, the famous traumatologist in charge of the Swedish-Norwegian war hospital in Alcoy, who, after the bombings, moved with that section of the hospital to La Vila, where he was arrested and harshly repressed at the end of the war. The president of the government, Negrín, visited him in Villa Giacomina in 1939 shortly before leaving for exile, but Bastos preferred to stay in his post in La Vila Joiosa until the end.
After the end of the war, the Italian Littorio Division, which took Villajoyosa for Franco's side, occupied the house for a while and caused the first damage. Its abandonment worsened from the 1960s onwards.
102 years after its construction, Villajoyosa’s Town Hall is going to put out to tender the drafting and execution of a project to restore the house for public or semi-public use. To do so, it will take advantage of the work it has carried out in recent years (photogrammetry by Vilamuseu; a diagnostic study of the damage to the structure by the Architectural Restoration Research Group of the University of Alicante; a topographical survey by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France or the documentary research carried out by the Municipal Archive and Vilamuseu).
A few metres from the Villa Giacomina is the Malladeta tower, built by Dr. José María Esquerdo, head of the Progressive Republican Party and one of the most prestigious Spanish politicians of his time (end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th), for Benito Pérez Galdós "apostle and leader of two religions: science and the republic".
The tower was Dr. Esquerdo's study, at the top of the Malladeta, controlling the psychiatric sanatorium built on Paradís beach, as a complement to the one he built in Carabanchel, in Madrid, in 1877. In both centres Esquerdo introduced neuropsychiatry and occupational therapy to Spain. In 2021 a first intervention has already been carried out on the tower to recover part of its original appearance.
The drafting, execution and management of the project will have a total cost of 850,000 euros and will be financed by the Municipal Land Patrimony (PMS). The works are expected to be completed during 2022.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)