In another quite different area, the young Ramon Mascort was internationally renowned by practising an Olympic speciality of archery. This activity, full of immediate satisfaction, was abandoned when his professional responsibilities required his full attention.

Galibern house, the trust’s headquarters, was built by a great-grandfather of Ramon Mascort Amigó, Ramon Galibern Casanovas (1817-1884), who still gives the house its name. In the mid XIX century, he went to ‘make America’, as the popular saying went, and settled in southern Brazil, where, after many years of effort, home yearning, common sense not to let luck go away, and savings, he was not only honoured with the title of vice consul of Spain in Bagé (Rio Grande do Sul), but also married Manuela Francisca de Rezende de Mello (1836-1928), a young girl from Rio Grande whose parents were from the Portuguese island of Madeira. When he achieved a solid position, he felt strong enough to come back home, build a house and devote fully to his family, thus returning to Torroella. Misfortune and disease affected their descendents. Only their youngest daughter, Clara (1861-1941), Ramon Mascort’s grandmother, survived.

Galibern house is impregnated with Ramon Galibern’s personal taste and is influenced by the memories of the American country where he lived. The house has been carefully preserved by his successors, although its contents were lost in a terrible historic disaster we would like to forget and which we should make our most so it never happens again.

The house is being carefully restored in order to welcome its visitors and frame the exhibitions that the trust displays. Its tactful restoration will continue until it can accommodate all the elements that our objectives require.

In 2009, a recently published book on José María Mascort, dubbed The Power of the Landscape, which is the first text devoted to this artist. Its presentation has coincided with the inauguration of an exhibition at the trust which displays a prominent part of his production. It bears the title ‘The Mascort works of the Mascort Trust. Visions to be remembered’. and it will be opened until 20th September this year.

We do not receive subsidies of any kind. All our publications and exhibitions are self-funded and visitors are admitted for free. We hope that we can continue like this for many years.
We are currently immersed in many projects and, although we believe that actions speak louder than words, we can announce that we have finished and are about to issue other books on unpublished subjects.

We also intend to hold other exhibitions and publish other books on subjects such as: glaze ceramics, Catalan ceramics until 1850, Spanish lustreware, Baroque jewellery, painting, ancient sculpture, maps and engravings, old photographs of Girona’s authors, old books and documents, wooden sailor boxes, etc.

As far as further publications are concerned, the book Montgrí (1850-1950). Cent anys d’història. Història i histories d’ un poble (already finished by the author) will soon be published. Another book will focus on the interior of grand, mid-eighteenth century houses. The Trust will also publish some monographic studies. The first one deals with the Ter battle, a rarely studied episode from the equally little-known Nine Years’ War, also called the War of the League of Augsburg, which took place between Torroella de Montgrí and Verges in 1694. Another monographic study will deal with the Medes islands. Both books will be based on unpublished sources.

Both the documents referred above and others of high interest in the trust’s archive are being –or will be- studied so they can see the light and be published. All our effort and commitment will be dedicated to that end.

RAMON MASCORT AMIGÓ
President of the Mascort Trust