The most significant moment in the annual ritual calendar of the Cordoban town of El Viso takes place during the week of 6th January with the well-known Auto Sacramental de los Reyes Magos (The three Wise Men), which was declared of Tourist Interest in Andalusia in 1998.

It dates back presumably to the interval between 1836 and 1840 and, after periods of oblivion and an eventual revival in 1913, around a hundred locals take part nowadays in this staging every four years, either as actors in charge of representing the different scenes: from Annunciation to the Adoration by the Shepherds and the Three Wise Men, or as members of the choir or the dance troupe, inspired by the jota viseña, a popular dance traditionally performed by olive pickers, whose choreographic movements are still alive in the collective memory and which have been adapted to the music of the choir, made up of Christmas carols.

Its continuity is guaranteed thanks to the high participation of neighbours, the organisation and financing by a cultural group and the collaboration of the local authority and other public and private bodies, as well as the spectacular nature of the representation, which attracts a lot of neighbours and visitors.

The researchers Francisco Valverde and Carmen Fernández explain that the performance of the “Auto de los Reyes Magos” belongs to an ancient Hispanic cultural current born in the Middle Ages, known as “The cycle of Christmas literature”. This type of literature, which reached its highest splendour with the arrival of the Renaissance, survived quite strongly until mid-17th century and went into decline in the second half of the 18th century.

Prior to the 20th century, no written sources have been found supporting the origins of the Mystery of the Kings that is performed in El Viso. Oral and written sources agree in affirming that the origin of this representation is directly related to the Franciscan friars of the convent of San Alberto and their exclaustration. It seems that, after the suppression of the convent, many of the friars settled in El Viso when they were forced to leave it. The presence of monks in the town may have led to the spiritual and cultural development of El Viso, and may have been the cause that made the birth of representation in the town possible. Another certainty is that the play performed in El Viso is an adaptation of a much longer one called “La infancia de Jesucristo” (Jesus Christ’s childhood), a dramatic poem divided into twelve colloquies, whose author was the Malaga-born Gaspar Fernández Ávila in 1735. “La infancia de Jesucristo”, also known as “Los Coloquios” (The Colloquiums), was an extraordinary success from the moment it saw the light, as demonstrated by the fact that in the first decade of its existence it went through five editions.

Very little is known about the performances carried out in the 19th century, as we do not know where they were carried out, how, when or what text was used. Despite this, it is significant that the two copies of Fernández Ávila’s work that are preserved in the village date from this century, which seems to show they may have been used to create the text that was performed.

During the 20th century this tradition went from being practically forgotten to being recovered thanks to the intervention of Miguel Linares Moreno, who staged it again in 1913. The changes that have taken place since 1913 to the present day have been fixing the different elements of the performance, innovations that, after each performance, have remained or, if not accepted, they were discarded. One of the characteristics of this dramatization is the joint authorship, that is to say, no one is the author, but everyone are authors. Each Viseño (inhabitant of El Viso) feels it as his/her own, making it one of the collective signs of identity of this municipality.

It was declared an Element of Tourist Interest in Andalusia on 11 April 2008.

Escenificación Auto de los Reyes Magos. Photo. Elena Ramírez Guerra. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Preparando los decorados para la representación teatral. Photo: Elena Ramírez Guerra. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Escenificación Auto de los Reyes Magos. Photo: Elena Ramírez Guerra. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Escenificación Auto de los Reyes Magos. Photo: Elena Ramírez Guerra. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

COPE Pozoblanco. (2023). El Auto de los Reyes Magos de El Viso en Canal Sur. [Video File].