Vic, Spain
Vic is the capital of the comarca of Osona, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Vic is from Barcelona and from Girona.
Geography
Vic lies in the middle of the Plain of Vic, equidistant from Barcelona and the Pyrenees.Vic has persistent fog in winter as a result of a thermal inversion, with temperatures as low as -10 °C, an absolute record of -24 °C and episodes of cold and severe snowstorms. For this reason, and also for the relatively moist summers, the region's natural vegetation includes the pubescent oak typical of the sub-Mediterranean climates of eastern France, Northern Italy and the Balkans.
Names
Originally known as Auso, it was known in Latin as Vicus Ausonae. From Latin vicus, it became Vich in Old Catalan.In 1538, Lorenzo de Padilla writes Vic Bique and it appears as Vique in the Memorial of the Bishop of Vic, Antonio Pascual In 1715, Spain's Nueva Planta decrees for Catalonia gave the city the Spanish name of Vique; an invention which tried to avoid a consonant ending that is uncomfortable in the Spanish language, applying the logic of cases such as Mastrique. However, this artificial variant only remained for a time in Spanish official texts and, as early as 1789, it reappeared in the gazetteer as Vich.
In 1913 the new orthographic regulations by the Institute for Catalan Studies of 1913 eliminated from the Catalan language the mute h at the end of the word and in intervocalic position to simplify the spelling. Other analogous cases are those of Montjuïch, Hostalrich and Reixach, which are now written as Montjuïc, Hostalric and Reixac, respectively.
Since 1982, the official name has been Vic.
History
The town has been described as "a hotbed of secessionist sentiment".A car bombing by the Basque separatist group ETA in 1991 killed 10 people in Vic.
Ecclesiastical history
The bishopric is a suffragan of the archbishopric of Tarragona.Education
- The Universitat de Vic
Demography
Miscellaneous
The remains of Jaume Balmes, the Spanish philosopher of the 19th century, are interred in the cloister of the cathedral. His first centenary was celebrated at Vic by a Catholic Congress. Architect Antoni Gaudí designed two basalt and wrought iron lampposts for the Plaça Major of Vic in honour of Balmes's centenary. The lampposts were inaugurated on 7 September 1910 but destroyed in 1924.Other natives of Vic include:
- Trinitarian Saint Michael de Sanctis
- Joseph Sadoc Alemany,, born in Vic, later Archbishop of San Francisco
- Caterina Coromina i Agustí, religious woman beatified in 2006