According to the Real Academia Española (RAE), or Spanish Royal Academy, the coat of arms is the «art of explaining and describing the coats of arms of each lineage, city or person». It is also a form of artistic expression, an element of medieval law and of royal dynasties.
Reviewing old sheets of El Fígaro newspaper, we find some comments about Cuban heraldry. This motivates us to know about the coats of arms of San Antonio de los Baños and Vereda Nueva.
Each figure of armory or coat of arms has a significance, and determined by the laws of heraldry, can not be modified or invented. The heraldic symbols are not emblems exclusive of the monarchies or of the royalty that the republics must destroy or reject. For example, the Roman beam, the star and the Phrygian cap are republican symbols. A lyre or a laurel wreath means the same thing in Julius Caesar's time as it is today.
The little attention paid by the Cubans, from the establishment of the Republic in 1902, to the art of the coat of arms, has resulted in innumerable irreverences. The heraldic interpretation of the shield of Villa del Ariguanabo indicates the Catholic vocation of its inhabitants. In one of the barracks it is revealed that the Cabildo recognized the kings of Castile and Leon as the only sovereigns. According to the specialists of the subject, given the haste with which the City Council defined its heraldic symbols, it made some errors in the design of the shield of the locality.
Another curious case of heraldry at the beginning of the Republic is the coat of arms of Vereda Nueva. In its upper part, the beam of rods is crowned by a hat with the mambisa rosette instead of the Phrygian cap. In the upper barracks, the image of the most emblematic construction of the farmhouse: the church of Nuestra Señora del Pilar. Its lower quarter is decorated with three abundant plants from the fields of Vereda (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries): tobacco, corn and coffee. Below, a laurel branch appears, with a blue ribbon and the inscription '' New Path ''. So curious are the shields of two villages of Ariguanabo.
