2005 © Oficina Virtual de Turismo
The Cathedral of Santiago, conceived as a small city of stone centred on holy
relics and endowed with its own life, has evolved with vitality through the
years, resulting in today’s heterogeneous building of different historical
styles and artistic tendencies that have been successively superimposed.
The Romanesque Cathedral, designed according to the French model of pilgrimage
churches, was erected (1075-1211) on the site of the first churches that were
built in the place where the Apostle’s ashes appeared, the last of which was
destroyed by Almanzor in the summer of 997. The boom of the pilgrimages and the
riches of one of the Iberian Peninsula’s biggest feudal estates enabled the
beginning of the cathedral’s construction during the episcopacy of Diego
Peláez. The building has a traditional Latin-cross ground plan with three
naves. The ambulatory surrounds the High Altar in order to provide access to
the relics by means of a small transversal corridor where the apostolic ashes
are kept. The naves have cruciform pillars with annexed columns. Elegant
semicircular arches are used to delimit the volumes. The gallery was built on
top of the side naves, all along the cathedral’s length, the arms of the
transept and the ambulatory. The exterior part, or triforium, consists of
arcades with sections formed by two smaller arches. The gallery is a
characteristic construction of pilgrimage churches due to the need for
increasing the capacity in order to accommodate a large number of visitors. The
central nave is 97 m long and 20 m high; it is covered by barrel vaults and the
side naves by groined vaults. The present-day Gothic dome replaced the old
Romanesque tower that was erected above the High Altar. Below the dome there is
the structure that was designed in the 16th century in order to operate the
“botafumeiro”, a large censer made of silver-plated brass that flies from one
end of the transept to the other and which was used to purify the atmosphere
when the pilgrims slept inside the cathedral. The building has three doors:
Azabachería, Platerías and the one leading to the Porch of Glory from Praza do
Obradoiro.
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