The monastery of Santa María la Real, in Aguilar de Campoo. First Part: the church.

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Contrary to the famous pitcher of the popular story, precisely the one that ended up breaking from going to the fountain so much, this beautiful monastery of Santa María la Real, condemned to ostracism and ruin after the famous Mendizábal Disentailment, which occurred in 1836, It ended up being consolidated thanks to the efforts and the noble initiative for its recovery, carried out by the Friends of the Aguilar Campoo Monastery Association, better known today as the Santa María la Real Foundation, of which it is an active member and, furthermore, President, the well-known cartoonist José María Pérez, whose name perhaps sounds much more familiar to you, 'Peridis', born precisely in that privileged corner of the Picos de Europa, La Liébana, which in medieval times saw the departure of brotherhoods and itinerant stonemasons, who were sowing by trade and good work, numerous areas of the Castilian Plateau, including, obviously, Palencia.

This introduction has been necessary, because from the mid-nineties of the last twentieth century, history, fickle, as we all know, turned generously positive, when the pertinent recovery and conservation works began to be carried out and this great monastery once again occupied the place of Cultural Lighthouse, which it had already occupied in those distant medieval times, when it was, on its own merit and for royal considerations, one of the most important monasteries in the Iberian Peninsula and above all, an essential and unalterable witness of our own history.

Not in vain, today, it is not only constituted as the Headquarters of the non-profit Foundation, chaired by Peridis -architect, as well as architect, the viewing of whose documentaries on Romanesque and Gothic art, I recommend- but, in addition, , houses within it a Secondary Education Center, as well as another, complementary and dedicated to the dissemination of Spanish Romanesque Art, which in addition to having the best professionals in the field, also has the most varied in new technologies in order to make its diffusion more attractive.

It is for this reason, due to this technological deployment, where the spotlights and different projection systems play an important role when it comes to transcending an immersive experience for the viewer, that visiting this church can lead to disconcerting optical illusions, and in reality, very far from the original environment and perception of footlights common to the temples of his style, but not for that, less interesting, because, after all, it could well be said that the nature of human perception is also based on experimentation .

Except for this detail, we observe, inside, a definitively beautiful temple, austere, basically, in the ornamentation of the sculptures of its capitals, which tend to reproduce that simile of a garden or paradise, which is inevitably associated with the presence of foliaceous motifs. and especially to the acanthus leaf, a tree from whose wood and by divine instruction, the material of one of the most extraordinary mythical objects is made, such as the famous Ark of the Covenant.

Due to the height of the nave, as well as that of the main apse - it has two lateral apses, which at the time exercised the well-known functions of Chapels of the Epistle and of the Gospel - we can suggest that it already belongs to a period of transition in art Romanesque to Gothic art, beginning in the first third of the 12th century, as can be seen in other temples with similar characteristics - a good example of this would be the hermitage of San Bartolomé, located in the depths of the Lobos River Canyon, imposing natural depression that forms the border between Soria and Burgos- and which also marks a period in which Romanesque art began to show signs of dangerous obsolescence and medieval builders experimented with new procedures and new techniques, in what could be called a necessary and natural architectural evolution.

The visit is completed by the visualization, placed in a row on the left side, as we face the apse, of a select collection of elaborate sarcophagi, which at the time were the definitive abode of great medieval personalities and which, in turn, At the same time, they demonstrate the degree of quality and specialization to which the medieval stonemasons also reached, since, in some cases and given the careful skill put into the details, they constitute, by themselves, an entire auxiliary on the uses and customs of the time, being exceptionally relevant, the fabulous workshops, which, as is known, were installed in large towns and cities, such as Carrión de los Condes, a city from which they originated, precisely, those same counts who participated in one of the most flowery episodes of the Castilian ballads: the outrage to the daughters of the Cid.

NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and are therefore subject to my Copyright.

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