The Country's Poet...

Twenty-five years into independence, a boy named Juan Zorrilla de San Martin was born in Montevideo. He grew up in Uruguay while the British were busily improving the cattle industry and helping the country's economy thrive. Zorilla was a highly educated, well respected, multi-faceted local luminary--a lawyer, poet, anthropologist and ambassador among other occupations--by the time that President Ordonez was elected in 1910. At this time, Uruguay's economy held first world status and the new visionary president was about to transform the cultural landscape into one of socially progressive modernism. Education, health care, and sufferage would become universal for all citizens...

During the height of Uruguay's renaissance and prominence, from 1910 to the 1930's, Zorrilla would spend his summers on the Rambla entertaining prominent guests as well as his family and friends. By then, his son, Jose, had become the preeminent sculptor of dozens of civic monuments. Palacio Legislativo would be complete and Palacio Salvo erected. The national soccer team would win gold in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics and the newly built Centenario Stadium would host the first World Cup, which Uruguay won in 1930. Even in death he continued to inspire, with parks, monuments, museums and schools all dedicated to his memory...

Regarded as one of Montevideo's greatest citizens, his summer home, just a few blocks from our apartment, is now Museo Zorrilla...







A self portrait in his latter years...
And one as a younger man, with a sculpture in front, created by his son...