The birth of the Circle of Friendship dates back to May 31, 1854 . Founded by 132 members of the most distinguished of Cordoba society, it has its headquarters on Calle Alfonso XIII. Today it has more than 2,500 members and occupies an area of 4,210 square meters. Enjoy a heritage made up of the property itself, a library of around 17,000 volumes and an important pictorial collection with canvases by Julio Romero de Torres, Carlos Ángel Díaz Huertas or José María Rodríguez de los Ríos Losada , among others.
Said heritage is the result of the efforts of those bourgeoisie, for the most part, of the aristocracy, a minority, and of the reduced upper middle class, or petty bourgeoisie, who opted for the path of culture. Francisco Javier Valdelomar , baron consort of Fuente Quinto; Fausto García Tena , dean of our press; Duncan Shaw , mining expert and architect of the lead smelter near the Arroyo de las Piedras in 1861; the illustrious magistrate José Miguel Herares y Amico , the first president of the Círculo; Fernando Amor y Mayor , professor of Natural History; Juan de Dios Polo y Muñoz de Velasco , a Carlist brigadier; or the banker Pedro López Morales, etc.
On April 30, 1964, the Córdoba City Council, governed by Antonio Guzmán Reina, awarded the Circle of Friendship -unanimously by the municipal corporation- the First Gold Medal of the City . On March 31, 2006 , His Majesty King Juan Carlos I, granted this entity, under the presidency of Rafael Quintela Luque, the title of Royal. And, today, the Circle has received the 2012 Cordobeses of the Year award, which is given annually by the city’s newspaper, Diario Córdoba.
Since its foundation, the headquarters have registered the presence of illustrious visitors from the cultural, artistic and political fields, such as King Alfonso XII (1877) and Alfonso XIII (1921), Prince Humberto , future King of Italy (1871), Prince of Wales -future Eduardo VII- (1876), the former president of the United States of America, Ulysses Simpson Grant (1878) or Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía , when they were still Princes of Spain (1970). From the field of science we were honored by figures such as Isaac Peral (1890) or Alexander Fleming, which was presented in 1948 with Cordoban filigree silverware and a Cordoban hat. In the arts, names such as Frank Liszt (1844) stand out, when the room we are in was owned by the Liceo Artístico y Literario, and Isaac Albéniz (1873), who at the age of just eleven delighted the whole of society at the piano Cordoba with the piece La fille du regiment.