My Journey to Santiago de Compostela Part XXI
Day 21: Free day in Leon
Leon was the first major city since I had left Burgos and I decided to stay an extra day to visit. I am so happy I did because as it turned out, Leon has a lot to offer.
“The cathedral, a chef d’oeuvre of architecture initiated in the 13th century, is one of the greatest works of the Gothic style, with French influences. It is also known as the Pulchra Leonina, which means ‘Beautiful Leonese’. The León Cathedral is mostly known for taking the “dematerialization” of gothic art to the extreme, that is, the reduction of the walls to their minimum expression to be replaced by stained glass, constituting one of the largest collections of medieval stained glass in the world.
During the Reconquista (Christian reconquest) the ancient Roman baths were converted into a royal palace. King Ordoño II, who had occupied the throne of Leon in 916, defeated the Arabs in the Battle of San Esteban de Gormaz in 917.[2] As a sign of gratitude to God for victory, he gave up his palace to build the first cathedral. Under the episcopate of Fruminio II, the building was transformed into a sacred place. The tomb of Ordoño II of Leon, who died in 924, is found in the cathedral.
Serious problems started in the seventeenth century. Parts of the largest vault in the crossing fell down in 1631. It was replaced by a baroque semicircular dome designed by Juan de Naveda. This addition damaged the delicate balance of the whole building, causing cracks in the southern façade that needed restoration in the end of the century, including a new gable.
In the eighteenth century, Joaquin de Churriguera tried to improve stability by adding four pinnacles around the dome, but this caused further damage. The cathedral was affected by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Extensive rebuilding of the southern façade was done.
In 1857, stones started to fell down from the central nave and the crossing, causing fears of a complete collapse. Matías Laviña started a full restoration of the building in 1859. He dismantled the central dome and the pinnacles, parts of the transept and the southern façade.
After Laviña died in 1868, Juan de Madrazo was commissioned to direct the restoration. He was a friend of Viollet-le-Duc and had a good knowledge of the French Gothic style. The goal of his extensive work was making the Cathedral stable and restoring its original pure Gothic style. He placed a complex wooden support structure to keep the vaults in place and proceeded to rebuild the vaults and the southern façade. When the supports were removed in 1878 and the building resisted, it meant that the original Gothic balance system had been restored.”
Source: Wikipedia
I published several pictures of the cathedral below. I have a video and many more photos that I can provide to anyone wishing to see them.
Besides the cathedral, I visited several other monuments in Leon and of course enjoyed the culinary treasures of the city. I was in contact with Art, Kim and Peter who had arrived on that day in Leon and we decided to meet at a Tapas Place for dinner. As I was sipping some wine at a café waiting for the time to go to dinner, Lindsay walked by and we went for some ice cream before I dropped her off at her AirBnb apartment.
