Maria Pita

When we entered one of the largest and most beautiful plazas in La Coruna and found out it was named after a non-royal woman, I had to find out who Maria Pita was and why she was held in such high esteem. Plus, our beloved Melia hotel bears her name.  As it turns out, she lived quite an interesting life (married 4 times and lived to be in her 80s in the late 1500s - holy smokes!).
So, we searched out her home, which is now a museum, to find out more about this Galician heroine.  It turns out that Maria Mayor Fernandez de Camara y Pita (Maria Pita) helped defend La Coruna against the invading British Armada, led by Francis Drake.  She was eventually honored by the King of Spain who gave her a military officer's pension - a true rarity in that time for a woman.  Her heroism inspired many others, which is her true mark in history.

 

The most interesting thing about Maria Pita's home-museum was that when she died they performed a complete inventory of all the belongings found in her home.  For the casa-museo they gathered objects from the time period of her life (1554-1643) and re-created her household using the items on the inventory list.  A few of these photos are dark, but in general you can see how humbly the people of those times lived.

A timeline of her life, in gallego:

A historical narration school book telling the story of Maria Pita: