The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is the most outstanding work of Romanesque art in Spain. It is also the final destination of all the Caminos de Santiago, which for centuries have led pilgrims of Christendom to the tomb of an apostle. Moreover, it was the cornerstone for the construction of a monumental city, Santiago de Compostela, which was born in a sacred forest at the end of the world with the vocation of a Holy City and World Heritage Site. Today, with a thousand years of existence lived to the rhythm of the extraordinary history of Compostela, the Cathedral presents itself as a complex set of spaces capable of rewarding the faith of the walkers with its powerful spirituality and its beauty to the visitors of the world. The most remote antecedent of the Cathedral was a small Roman mausoleum from the 1st century where the remains of the Apostle Santiago were buried after his beheading in Palestine (year 44 AD) and after his transfer by sea to the coasts of finis terrae. For centuries, the underground chamber and the necropolis that surrounded it were frequently visited by a small local Christian community, of which little or nothing is known, but which must have been decimated around the 8th century. In the year 813 (according to versions, 820 and even 830) the miraculous discovery of the Apostle’s relics under the brushwood of Mount Libredón occurred. They were found by a hermit who saw heavenly signs there. Informed by the bishop of Iria Flavia, the Asturian king Alfonso II ordered the construction of a first chapel of stone and mud next to the old mausoleum. This temple received in 834 a Preceptum regio that made it an episcopal see and granted it power over the nearby territories. Around it, seeking its protection, the first settlers and monastic groups of Benedictines in charge of the custody of the relics began to establish themselves. These were the first steps of the future city of Santiago de Compostela. The first church soon became too small to accommodate the faithful, so between the year 872 and 899 Alfonso III The Great had a larger temple built. But this second church was destroyed by the attack of the Muslim leader Almanzor in 997. Bishop San Pedro de Mezonzo rebuilt it in 1003, in a pre-Romanesque style. This third temple was still standing when the rise of pilgrimages and the wealth of Santiago, which was already one of the largest feudal lordships in the Iberian Peninsula, allowed the construction of the Romanesque cathedral that is preserved today, the fourth sacred building over the ancient tomb.

The Romanesque Cathedral

The Leonese king Alfonso VI and especially the first archbishop of the city, Diego Gelmírez, promoted the Cathedral, urban life, and the pilgrimages so much that the 12th century can be considered the most splendid in Compostela’s history. This time they did not settle for a sanctuary that housed the relics, but designed a great pilgrimage cathedral following the style that spread along the Camino de Santiago. The best Romanesque builders paraded through it until reaching Master Mateo, author of the last sections of the naves, the defensive towers of the west, the crypt, and above all, the Portico of Glory, an unparalleled sculptural ensemble in Europe that still presides over the west entrance.

When it was consecrated in the year 1211, the Cathedral already enjoyed the privilege of plenary absolution, granted in 1181 by Pope Alexander III to all who visited the temple in a Holy Jubilee Year. It also granted the faithful a valuable document that certified having traveled the Camino de Santiago and ensured the right of asylum in the city. Turned into a salvation goal for Christendom, the cathedral evolved with such vitality that it was able to promote the construction of roads, hospitals, hostels, markets, and entire towns hundreds of kilometers away, on the routes that pilgrims traveled to reach it.

Over time, Gothic, Renaissance, and especially Baroque elements were added to the Romanesque structure, thanks to the incessant flow of money from the archbishopric and patrons, who found in the chapels a place of prayer and eternal rest. While the structure of the naves was preserved almost intact, the number and space of the chapels were adapted to the needs of worship. In the turbulent 14th century, the basilica acquired the appearance of a fortress, with defensive towers like the current Clock Tower. With the Renaissance, driven by Archbishop Alfonso III de Fonseca, the definitive cloister was built, replacing the Romanesque cloister and modifying the entire south and southeast side of the temple. It was a time of internal reforms and the addition of altarpieces, pulpits, and sculptures to glorify the worship of the Apostle.

The magic of the Baroque

The greatest aesthetic revolution came to the temple during the Baroque period, which began in 1660 by transforming the main altar and the dome; then shaping the organs, drawing the canvas of the Holy Door, beautifying the Clock Tower, and reaching its greatest splendor with the completion, in 1750, of the cathedral’s most iconic image: its magnificent Obradoiro façade. It was also the work of the Baroque masters of the Cathedral –Vega y Verdugo, Domingo de Andrade, Fernando Casas y Novoa– who designed the final layout of the monumental squares surrounding the temple and many of the adjoining buildings. It can well be said that the Baroque spread from the cathedral to the squares, monasteries, and noble houses, transforming Compostela into the imaginative, scenographic, and dramatic city that is today recognized as ‘the Baroque city par excellence of Spain’. After two thousand years of history as a spiritual center, and almost a thousand of its current building, the Cathedral today presents itself as a heterogeneous ensemble of spaces and aesthetic elements that allow one to ‘read’ in the stone the extraordinary history of Compostela. Throughout its long existence, the temple has been the scene of all kinds of sacred and worldly episodes, ranging from the coronation of the kings of Galicia in the Middle Ages to the quartering of French soldiers during the War of Independence, through centuries of concords and discords, exaltations and lynchings, political conspiracies and religious splendor, incendiary attacks and costly beautification campaigns, pomp and charity, donations and plundering, collection of prebends and sponsorships, solemn offerings and, above all, incessant pilgrimages to the Apostle’s tomb.