Defensa de D. Dolores Batlle y Caritg Viuda de Geli. Escrita por los Letrados D. Narciso Y D. Mariano Fáges, y presentada en la causa criminal pendiente en el Juzgado de primera instancia de Figueras, á consecuencia del asesinato D. Paulino Geli Hacendado, y Alcalde de Vilamacolum Perpetrado en la Madrugada del 2 Diciembre de 1866
Barcelona: Imprenta de Magriñá y Subirana, 1868. An incredible 19th century Spanish legal document issued during the defense trial of Doña Dolores Batlle, the wife of Don Paulino Geli, a prominent landowner who was also the mayor of Vilamacolum (Catalonia) and a staunch anti-monarchical Republican. On the night of December 2, 1866, Geli had his skull split open with an axe in the couple's bedroom, and without any leads the local magistrate and prosecutors focused on Geli's wife who was arrested and imprisoned. The prosecution alleged that Batlle was having a love affair with a man named Juan Deu y Pujol and wanted her husband out of the way while the defense focused on Geli's strained relationship with his mother, Teresa Llorens, over property and inheritance rights following his marriage to Batlle. While imprisoned, Batlle gave birth to a son, which added an emotionally charged element to the case. The pamphlet concludes on April 18, 1868 with no decision having yet been reached, although Batlle was ultimately exonerated. No one was ever convicted of the crime. Laid in is a broadside protesting the defense's depiction of Paulino Geli's mother and is signed in print by Llorens and other Geli family members.
The case became the basis for the acclaimed debut novel by the Catalan poet Maria Àngels Anglada who was married to Catalan researcher, archivist and intellectual Jordi Geli i Aguadé, the great-grandson of Paulino Geli and Dolores Batlle. Jordi inherited the historical estate Can Geli and its extensive private archives, which inspired Anglada to writer her novel. Les Closes (1979) employs a dual timeline, in which the narrator (modeled after Anglada herself) sorts through old family papers to reconstruct the truth while the "past" timeline relives the trial, emphasizing the psychological toll of the false accusation. Anglada used the novel as a means to denounce the historical injustice to Batlle and the misogynistic culture in which it occurred.
Printed wrappers (9 ½” x 6 ½”), 102, [2] pp. Wrappers worn, foxed and soiled with triangular piece missing from the bottom corner of the front wrapper and small circular piece missing to the top edge of the rear wrapper; a good only copy. Extremely scarce. There is no record for the book in OCLC and we could only find copies in Anglada's papers at the Biblioteca Fages de Climent and in the Bosch-Aymerich family archive deposited in the Municipal Archive of Castelló d'Empúries in 1992. Item #12761
Price: $3,500.00