Cathedral of León

the Cathedral Santa Maria of Regulated - Plaza de Regla. '''León'''
Called familiarly the “ Pulchra leonina ”, textually the " lioness soignée".

Built at a strategic place of the city, the cathedral of León, in Spain is a masterpiece of the beginnings of the Spanish Gothic. Built for the carcass work heavy castings between the medium of XIIIe century and the end of XIVe century, this very homogeneous Gothic building is the only cathedral of Spain to have adopted the French taste for the high largely enlightened hurled naves.

History

On the current site of the cathedral, Legio VII Geminated had built thermal baths and other public buildings. There is recently overdraft some of these Roman remainders, with dimensions the southern frontage.

With the Reconquista, these buildings were transformed into royal palace. In 916 the king Ordoño II (914-924), king recently gained the battle of San Esteban de Gormaz, against the Arab . In thanks with God of this victory, it yielded its palate to build the first Spanish cathedral. Under the episcopate of the bishop Fruminio II, the building is transformed into crowned place. It receives the remainders of the king Ordoño II, deceased with Zamora into 924.

The church was kept and governed by monks about Saint Benoit, and most probably its structure was similar to that of so many of other existing for the period Mozarab of León.

The chronicles speak about the passage of Mohammed ibn-Abi Amir known as el-Mansour, Al-Manzor in Spanish (938-1002), the victorious one in Arabic, at the end of the first millenium, by devastating the city and by destroying its churches.
The damage caused with the cathedral had to be easily repaired, since into 999 was crowned, in an event full with splendor, the king Alphonse V Noble the (999-1028).
After a succession of confused policies and companies of war, in 1067, the Cathedral was in a pauvretée situation of extreme.
That assigned to the king Ferdinand Ier Large the, 1035-1065: that which, after having transferred the remainders from Holy Isidore of Seville to León, “was implied in the favors with the latter”. It was for the period of the expansion of Romance art .

With the assistance of Urraca, sister of the king, one starts the construction of one second Romance cathedral. Although initially Romance, its style is basically Gothic, built out of brick and masonry, with three naves finished by semicircular Abside S, the power station devoted to holy María, as in the preceding church. By examining his structure one can note that it was subject to influences Mozarabe S, using it of the arc out of horseshoe like decoration.

It was devoted on November 10th, 1073.

This cathedral was preserved until the end of the next century. When reaches the throne last king de León, Alphonse IX (1188-1230), one assists in the city and the kingdom with an important social change, of artistic creativity and cultural development.

Work of the third cathedral started about 1205 and its fundamental structure is finished in 1301, although work of the southern tower continues until XVe century.
Most of construction resting on the Roman remainders, a hypocauste of IIe century, which weakened the solidity of the foundations of the pillars. The accumulation of moisture and the infiltration of water caused serious difficulties with the project superintendent. In addition, the majority of the pillars of the cathedral are stone of bad quality, of calcareous type, with a low resistance to the atmospheric agents. Moreover, its slim style is a challenge with the matter; the supports are supremely fragile, the lines were reduced to a total purification, so that some architects of the time questioned that such a project can be carried out in the long term.

All these difficulties are certainly the more important reasons for which, end of XIVe century, one already started to see cracks in its architecture.
At that time the southern frontage felt some, which caused to unbalance the pillars of the turns. To consolidate them, one built the “silla reina” (chair of the queen), work of the Jusquín Master. In 1631, it was necessary to destroy part of the vaults of the central nave. The municipal council calls upon Juan Naveda, architect of Philippe IV of Spain (1605-1621-1665), it covered it cross of the transept with a large cupola, by breaking resistances of the Gothic system, different from those of the baroque.
All this work put the southern frontage, the bedside and the vaults, again in danger. Those had to be rebuilt in 1694.

The cathedral saw ravelling great architects, like Giacomo of Pavia, while the evils continued to worsen. The seism of Lisbon in 1755 has affected all the building, particularly the stained glasses. In the year 1830 stone separations accelerated in the southern bedside and, it to save, Sánchez Pertejo reinforced the thrusts of all the frontage.

The municipal council has fears a fatal outcome, when in 1857 started to fall from the stones of the vaults. At this point in time the royal Academy of Beautiful arts of San Fernando intervenes, and the government charged work with Matías Laviña. This one started to dismount the four pinnacles which surrounded it, but the danger of a total collapse was made more imminent. To its death, work was entrusted to Hernández Callejo, that claimed to continue to dismount the building, when his load was withdrawn to him.
Juan Madrazo continued, in 1869 the restoration, with the projects of Matías Laviña. This one was a specialist in the French Gothic. It modified in particular the provision of the vaults, remade the arch of the southern frontage again and planned all the cathedral as we find it aujourd'hui.
Demetrio of los Ríos succeeded to him in its load in 1880. Purist, it continued to give to the cathedral the primitive aspect, according to his rationalist thought, and dismounted the Western frontage, which had been made by Juan López and Juan de Badajoz el Mozo, in XVIe century. With its death Juan Bautista Lázaro was appointed architect of the cathedral, which concluded work from architectonic restoration in most of the building, and in 1895, he undertook the task difficult to recompose the stained glasses. Those had been dismounted for several years and had been stored, with great deterioration. He was helped by Juan Crisóstomo Torbado, his collaborator.

Work of the last decades was in the treatment of the stone, in an effort to preserve this architectonic wonder.

The principal Frontage

With five arches finely cut of XIIIe century, three gates of one great depth and a great richness statuary intercalate two very acute arcades, and a central rosette, flanked by two Gothic turns of 65 and 68 meters respectively.
With the central gate throne Holy Marie the White one, Nuestra Señora Blanca, with the soft smile (it is a copy: the original is in the vault absidale). The statues of the jambs of the central gate are of an elegance raffinée
On the lintel, the topic of the Last Judgment, opposes in a very expressive way the fate of happy and that of rejected. The tympanum of the left Gate recalls various episodes of the life of Christ.
On the right, the gate of François saint presents Dormition and the Crowning of Vierge.

The nave, vessel of light

Its dimensions are, 90 m length, 29 m broad and 30 m height. Divided into three nave of the entry to crossed transept, and five naves of the transept to the principal furnace bridge.

The exceptional ornament of stained glasses which lights the vessel of light dominates Plaza de Regla - 1200 m2 of surface, distributed on 125 panels and 57 medallions - is single in Spain, it is the most important glaziery of Europe after that of Chartres, and strongly compromised the solidity of the unit, the last restoration date completion of the XIXe century.
The oldest stained glasses are of XIIIe in XVe century, equip the pink with the principal frontage and the three central vaults of the apse; those of the Saint-Jacob vault have already a Renaissance pace; those of the nave, carried out more tardily and until the contemporary time, illustrate three broad topics: in bottom, the vegetable kingdom and mineral; behind the triforium, civil characters and blazons; on the high windows, the theory of the Happy one.

In the déambulatoire and the transept, many Gothic tombs; to notice that of the bishop gift Rodrigo, surmounted by an arc with lobes, in the vault of Virgin LED Carmen, on the right of the high altar.

The trascoro

Of Renaissance style, it was carried out according to the plans of Juan de Badajoz; the triumphal arch, framed each side by four splendid alabaster low-reliefs, work of Esteban Jordàn, releases the prospect on the nave.

The High altar

The Retable, painted by Nicolàs Francés, is an example of the international style of XVe century. On its left remarkable Mise with the tomb of Flemish influence is allotted to the Master of Palanquinos.
With the foot of the furnace bridge a money mounting shelters the relics of saint Froilàn owner of Leon.

Images of Pilgrims and Jacques saint in the Cathedral

With the central gate of the Western frontage, with the right-hand side of Pierre saint, holy Jacques pilgrim is supported by a small column used by the piety of the jacquets. One finds it with the gate of the Virgin, through whom the pilgrims passed. This gate is also called del Dado, to remember the following miracle it: a player converts himself into seeing bleeding the face of the Jesus Child against whom, furious to have lost his money, it had thrown his des.
With the gate of the last Judgment, Holy François and holy Dominique, discussing with king Saint Ferdinand, are pilgrims of exception who belong to the procession of happy on the way towards the paradis.
Funerary sculpture, made it also reference to the pilgrimage, either by the crowd of the helped pilgrims, bearing double sack and shell (tomb of the bishop Martìn II Rodriguez), or by the image of the apostle himself, which replaces holy Jean the evangelist in a martyrdom (tomb of Domingo Yàñez, in the cloister.)
Jacques saint, in homo viator, guide also several pilgrims, topic which knew a certain diffusion.

The Cloister

Before penetrating there, one sees the northern gate of the transept, sheltered bad weather, which preserved its polychromy and which is dedicated to the Virgin of the offering placed on the pier. The arcades of the cloister date from the construction of the nave, of XIIIe - XIVe century, but the vaults with their very worked keys were altered in XVIe century by Juan de Badajoz. The walls of the galleries decorate mural frescos of Nicolàs Francés, Romance and Gothic tombs.

The Museum of the Cathedral

El Museo catedralicio, is one of best kind and the room devoted at the time Romance counts more than 50 parts dating from XIIe and XIIIe centuries.
One preserves an ivory Christ of XIIIe century, some sculptures of Juan de Juni and his disciples, a missal of XVIe century and several liturgical ornaments same the époque.
It also shelters number of ivories, paintings, fabrics, ceramics and manuscripts old, the whole exposed in the rooms which surround the cloister.

In the library there are several manuscripts wisigothic and a specimen of Lex Romana Visigothorum.

The cathedral also shelters many tombs, with of which that of Ordoño II, king de Galice from 914 to 924, being particularly richly decorated.

External bonds

Gallery of images, the ten first relate to the cathedral.

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