Los agotes del Baztán

The Untold Story of a Cursed People and the Man Who Redeemed Them For centuries, the Agotes lived marked by stigma and condemned to ignominy. Forced to wear a red goose foot sewn onto their clothing, they were ostracized in churches, despised by the community, and persecuted by the Inquisition. An outlaw people whom history tried to erase from its pages. But amidst this contempt, an unthinkable story emerges. Juan de Goyeneche, a young nobleman from Baztán who would later become treasurer to three queens and a key figure in the court of Philip V, falls in love with Blanca, an Agotes girl whose dignity defies the stigma. This forbidden bond will mark his destiny, but it will not prevent him from envisioning a bold dream: to build a new, prosperous, and just city on the Castilian plains, where the Agotes of the Navarrese Baztán Valley can work and live without the mark of infamy. To bring this vision to life, he will enlist the talent of architect José Benito de Churriguera, with whom he will shape Nuevo Baztán, a unique urban and industrial experiment in Europe, conceived as a beacon of modernity and hope during the turbulent years of the War of the Spanish Succession under the reign of Philip V. A magnificent historical novel that pays homage to those condemned to oblivion and an unforgettable journey to the heart of a marginalized community that dared to imagine its own redemption.