Qualla: Sant Mateu https://qualla.com/sant-mateu en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:03 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/0/n/sant-mateu-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Sant Mateu https://qualla.com/sant-mateu Sant Mateu: Introduction https://qualla.com/sant-mateu/ Photo credit Eduardo de Sant Mateu, CC BY-SA 3.0. Some of the funniest drawings in twentieth-century America began in a small stone town in the mountains of eastern Spain. Sergio Aragonés, the cartoonist who filled the margins of MAD magazine with thousands of wordless gags and conjured the barbarian Groo the Wanderer, was born in Sant Mateu on 6 September 1937. He would grow up in Mexico after his family left a Spain torn by civil war, but the town he came from was no accident of an unremarkable map. Sant Mateu was once one of the richest places in this whole region.

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Image: Eduardo de Sant Mateu | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/0/n/sant-mateu-wp/sp0n-sant-mateu-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Sant Mateu: The Master's Land https://qualla.com/sant-mateu/ Photo credit Manel Zaera, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sant Mateu lies in the Maestrat, and the name is worth pausing on. It means the land of the Master, the territory once governed by the grand master of a medieval military order, and this town stood among its leading settlements. That history left a physical mark you can still wal...

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Image: Manel Zaera | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/0/n/sant-mateu-wp/sp0n-sant-mateu-the-masters-land.mp3 0:06 2 full Sant Mateu: Wool and Stone https://qualla.com/sant-mateu/ Photo credit 19Tarrestnom65, CC BY-SA 4.0. That old wealth came largely from wool. In the late Middle Ages the Maestrat's flocks and the merchants who traded their fleece made towns like Sant Mateu unexpectedly cosmopolitan, tied into commercial networks that reached across the Mediterranean. The money went into building....

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Image: 19Tarrestnom65 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/0/n/sant-mateu-wp/sp0n-sant-mateu-wool-and-stone.mp3 0:06 3 full Sant Mateu: The Chapel on the Ridge https://qualla.com/sant-mateu/ Photo credit Eldelcarro, CC BY-SA 2.5 es. East of the town, up in the Serra de la Vall d'Àngel, stands the Ermita de la Mare de Déu dels Àngels, a hermitage set apart from daily life in the way these mountain shrines so often are. Reaching it means climbing out of the valley into thinner, cleaner air, and the reward is n...

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Image: Eldelcarro | CC BY-SA 2.5 es

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/0/n/sant-mateu-wp/sp0n-sant-mateu-the-chapel-on-the-ridge.mp3 0:06 4 full Sant Mateu: The Fastest Pen in the Margins https://qualla.com/sant-mateu/ Photo credit 19Tarrestnom65, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sant Mateu keeps its most famous export lightly, but it is a good one. Sergio Aragonés became one of the most beloved cartoonists in the world, celebrated for a speed and looseness of line that made drawing look effortless. For decades his tiny marginal doodles crowded the edges ...

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Image: 19Tarrestnom65 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/p/0/n/sant-mateu-wp/sp0n-sant-mateu-the-fastest-pen-in-the-margins.mp3 0:06 5 full