A visit to the Cathedral of Calahorra

'Towards the confines of La Rioja on the part of Navarra, find the ancient city of Calahorra, whose foundation, like that of many others in Spain, is lost in the darkness of time ...' (1)

From that darkness of time, as the anonymous chronicler of the Picturesque Weekly stated, the pilgrim thinks that other legendary tributaries come from, far from the naturalness of those two great rivers that kiss its boundaries -the Ebro and the Cidacos- blur with anachronistic dramatism the flowery puddles in whose slime lie eternal sleep the most varied of stories and legends.

On the way to the cathedral, which rises, as it is said, is rumored or affirmed, on the site where their patron saints were sacrificed -Emeterio and Celedonio, twin saints whose reliquaries or baphometic heads occupy a prominent place on the altar- imagine the pilgrim the scenes of desperate courage of the ancient Calagurritan inhabitants, whose libertarian exploits are summarized, however, in that fascinating feminine figure, the emula of the great matriarchs of Iberian antiquity, known as the Matrona de Calahorra and whose statue is distinguished, proud and firm on its pedestal near the National Parador, for keeping firmly held a short sword in one hand and the arm cut off from his enemy in the other.

The cathedral, obviating by costumbrismo the different styles, in which, if there were, they shine by their absence the Romanesque ones - that even succumbing to the times, the fashions and the men left some that another memory in the temples of the city- offers , at least in the opinion of the pilgrim, a cultural thematic set, not exempt, in any way, of details and interest.

Perhaps, the first of them lies in the trumpeter or apocalyptic angels, who there, on its north facing portal, maintain those old Compostela patterns, well located on the cover of Platerías of the Cathedral of Santiago.

Or in that baptismal font that draws attention as soon as one enters the sacred precinct; a Gothic pile, eight lobes and two meters in diameter that marks, according to tradition, the exact place where they were martyred in the year 300, during the famous persecutions of Diocletian, the aforementioned Emeterio and Celedonio.

This metaphorical journey in time to which the formidable artistic collections of different periods and styles invite, in which a genuine diversity of authors, consecrated in different schools, offer, nevertheless, a hint of unorthodox thought in those details, which generally they go unnoticed, interpolating with symbols, names, gesticulations and elements alien but apparently innocent in their exoteric beautitude, akin to their New Testament commissions, part of what could be considered as their particular contribution in favor of a submerged Gnostic current, hidden and from then dangerous in the very beards of the fearsome Inquisition.

As worthy of attention, for more details, it seems to the pilgrim the magnificent Romanesque-Gothic carving of a Christ, called as the Ball, which was part of an ancient Descent and which was transferred in 1638 to a chapel of its own, is associated -as the Patron Saint of La Rioja, the Virgin of Valvanera - to a curious legend that says that her arm was miraculously broken to point out the culprit of a murder.

But ignoring these details, the pilgrim can not hide his unexpected and at the same time pleasant surprise when he discovers the ambulatory, an octagonal shape that, as in the case of the hermitage of Santo Cristo de Briones, or Santa María de Eunate, or Torres of the River, or of the Vera Cruz de Segovia, or even as some sources point out to the misnamed cloister of San Juan de Duedro, are a clear hierosolimitana reference to the Sepulcrum Domini ...

In short, mysteries of a legendary land: mysteries of La Rioja.

Notes and bibliography:

(1) Spanish Picturesque Weekly, J, A., August 6, 1854.

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NOTICE: although original in Steemit, was published for the first time in my blog MEMORIES OF A PILGRIM. Both the text, as the photographs, and the video (except music, reproduced under a YouTube license), are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://jc347.blogspot.com/2015/06/una-visita-la-catedral-de-calahorra.html

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