Location of the mas
Mas Blanc is located to the south of the municipality of Sant Martí de Centelles, before reaching the place of Racó de la Font, to the east of the C-1413b road that, for large stretches, follows the route of the old medieval and modern royal road from Centelles to Sant Feliu de Codines. The house is at the level of the Turón de la Antigua (859 m) which, as a continuation of the crest of Puig Fabregar (933 m), surrounds the Racó de la Font or, as it is said in the old local documentation, Sant Martí del Racó
From mas Salgot to mas Blanc (c.1900-1925)
The property of the Salgot farmhouse passed, before 1925, to Marià Planas Escubós. He died in 1925 and, in order to form the inheritance of his daughters, he separated mas Salgot from the rest of the properties that were to be sold to form the inheritance of his daughters Maria Concepció and Júlia Planas Cabot. For the first time they document here the name of "mas Blanc" to refer to the same house: "the estate Mas Salgot or Mas Blanch of the term of San Martin de Centellas".
The name of mas Blanch or Blanc, coexisted with the traditional name of mas Salgot. It is possible that it is a denomination derived from the color of the house. Let us remember that the whitening of the farmhouses was a habitual resource of the traditional architecture as a way to protect the calcium mortar that connected the constructive devices; in addition, by state disposition in the middle of the 19th century the whitening of the country houses was obligatory. We have not found any other reason for the change of name, which could have been facilitated by the fact that the surname Salgot, at the change from the 19th to the 20th century, is no longer associated with the house because of the change of owners.
The mas, then, in 1925 passed into the hands of Maria Planas Cabot, who was also the administrator of the next sanatorium of the sanctuary of Puig de Olena during the central years of the 20th century. In these years after Maria Planas inherited the Mas Salgot or Blanc, the new name of the house was consolidated to the point that the old name, of medieval origin, almost disappeared from memory. The occasional use of the house as a complement to the Puig de Olena sanatorium, founded during the Second Republic (1935), where well-known writers and artists stayed, reaffirmed the use of the name, perhaps more poetic. Màrius Torres was, in this sense, the best known artist. After the death of Maria Planes, the property passed to the bishopric of Vic, which allowed the erection of an institute of consecrated life of diocesan right, linked to the bishopric of Vic and formed by a small community of nuns
The name of mas Blanch or Blanc, coexisted with the traditional name of mas Salgot. It is possible that it is a denomination derived from the color of the house. Let us remember that the whitening of the farmhouses was a habitual resource of the traditional architecture as a way to protect the calcium mortar that connected the constructive devices; in addition, by state disposition in the middle of the 19th century the whitening of the country houses was obligatory. We have not found any other reason for the change of name, which could have been facilitated by the fact that the surname Salgot, at the change from the 19th to the 20th century, is no longer associated with the house because of the change of owners.
The mas, then, in 1925 passed into the hands of Maria Planas Cabot, who was also the administrator of the next sanatorium of the sanctuary of Puig de Olena during the central years of the 20th century. In these years after Maria Planas inherited the Mas Salgot or Blanc, the new name of the house was consolidated to the point that the old name, of medieval origin, almost disappeared from memory. The occasional use of the house as a complement to the Puig de Olena sanatorium, founded during the Second Republic (1935), where well-known writers and artists stayed, reaffirmed the use of the name, perhaps more poetic. Màrius Torres was, in this sense, the best known artist. After the death of Maria Planes, the property passed to the bishopric of Vic, which allowed the erection of an institute of consecrated life of diocesan right, linked to the bishopric of Vic and formed by a small community of nuns
El mas Blanc to the work of Màrius Torres (1938-1942)
The function of the Mas Blanc as a punctual sanatorium favored that reference was made in press articles and literary writings, the latter written by people who were or who were at the next sanatorium of the Puig de Olena, located 4 km towards Sant Quirze. This was the case of the Catalan poet Màrius Torres (Lleida, 1910 - Sant Quirze Safaja, 1942), who, while he was admitted in the Puig de Olena from 1938, made brief stays of one day. In 1942, due to the aggravation of his illness and to be more comfortable at the house of his friend Maria Planas, owner of the Puig de Olena establishment, he stayed for 4 months. During these days, he set to music Provençal poets (Jofre Rudel, Peire Cardinal, Bernat de Ventadorn) and a poem by Paul Verlaine, as well as writing his last poems. Inside the house, in the old room, the desk used by Màrius Torres is preserved, and, in front of the sundial that occupies the facade of the building to the left of the house (see below), we can read, on ceramic, the poem he dedicated to Maria Planes