Just like the cave painting has its Sistine Chapel in Altamira, the Romanesque is in Leon, specifically in the Royal Pantheon of San Isidoro .Here, the quality and quantity of the drawings is such that it is unparalleled anywhere else, and there is no need to be an expert to realize it.
The Royal Collegiate Basilica of San Isidoro (that this is its full name) is a set of religious constructions that have been overlapping and terraced over eleven centuries.
The Collegiate Basilica has a church whose main altarpiece deserves a careful visit on its ownIn principle It was a simple monastery that was built in the sX next to the Roman wall to house the remains of San Pelayo .Today is a church, a cloister, a museum, a library, a tower... a group of Romanesque buildings with Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque&Hellip;
In spite of its beauty, the south facade does not attract much attention when it comes to see the nearby cathedral, a Gothic wonder where there are.However, the Basilica Collegiate Church has a church whose main altarpiece deserves a careful visit by itself.
The museum guards unique treasures, such as the Chalice of Dona Urraca (11th century), which some identify with the Holy Grail, or the Ark of the Ivories ( s.XI).
The library stores 800 scrolls, 150 codes and more than 300 incunabula, among which the Visigothic-Mozarabic Bible of the sX stands out
The Romanesque cloister It is the oldest in Spain .Alli the Courts of Leon were held in 1188 and there was written the Magna Leonesa Letter, recognized by Unesco as« the documentary testimony before iguo of the European parliamentary system» ;.
Y The group dominates the so-called Torre del Gallo , crowned by a gold-covered copper-shaped weather vane, a symbol of the city and a strange oriental origin, possibly Persian.
However, the wonder of wonders is very close, at the foot of the church: the pantheon.In a square of only 8 meters side, dozens of tempera paintings (experts say no they have to be confused with the frescoes) they cover all the ceilings and walls.
On the tombs of 23 kings and queens , infants and leoneses counts, the unknown artists today unfolded a book of images that narrate the Gospel as a comic, the only way that those who did not know how to understand history, who were then the vast majority.
The figures of the New Testament (from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion), are dressed in medieval clothes.From a distance it can give the impression of that it is Byzantine mosaics, when in fact it is painting on stucco.
Vivid colors that seem painted yesterday; lack of perspective; geometric volumes, as corresponds to the purest Romanesque style.
A wonder that amazes and we are lucky that it is very close to all of us.
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