Fortis Seguntina, the Cathedral of Sigüenza

Impresses its aspect of solidity, of immeasurable strength from whose heart the mituado seguntinos dominated those vast extensions snatched to the Muslims after a bloody reconquest that was located a few kilometers from a land, the Soriana, considered until then-approximately, the XIIth century- as the frontier of the Duero: those steppe lands no one, which separated the domains of Christian Spain and Muslim Spain.

For centuries forgotten - as Francisco García Somolinos reminded us, when in May 1852 he wrote, in a magnificent article (1), that of: neither his magnificence, nor his artistic merit, deserved such a shameful oblivion ...-, the cathedral seguntina, dedicated to the figure of Santa María la Mayor, has recovered part of its antagonistic protagonism, since, fortunately, for years it has been awakening in Spain a widespread awareness - more popular than governmental, unfortunately - that is characterized by a more demanding type of tourism, that flees from the typical and topical packages of the Cañí Spain: the cultural one.

Undoubtedly, based on this influence, it is possible to attend those intense medieval episodes, whose archetypes and protagonists are interacting in the imagination of the spectator who, once the entrance is crossed, confronts the bare chest with the most remarkable of a universe, the medieval one, which he created based on the spirit. A spirit, everything is said, on which were also settled artistic visions and later spiritualities, in the same way that they were raised on previous cosmogonies.

It is not surprising, therefore, that from the primordial example of the cave - already considered by the Greek philosophers, like Plato - and of the sacred forests, to the churrigueresque excesses representative of the baroque, the great cathedrals, like this Fortis Seguntina, are living and self-sufficient classrooms, capable, by their own inertia, of interacting from the infinite solitudes of their melancholy shadows, with flashes of genius and passion where, as soon as the observer becomes aware, he will see a succession of myths and superimposed techniques, destined to to influence their perceptions, because not in vain they constituted the connecting pillar of two seemingly antagonistic worlds, such as the earthly and the spiritual.

Through a global vision, we have to assume, as well, that as complements of sacred architecture, specialties framed within the so-called Fine Arts, such as sculpture and painting, also contributed - and continue to do so - to awakening that side anachronistic or primordial mood aimed at awakening that sleeping child - comparatively speaking - that in the background does not cease to be consciousness, although an excessive surcharge -aluminosis artistic- spoiled another of the magnificent qualities that they possessed, like real machines of resonance that were at first, destined, likewise, to enhance the expansion of the conscience of the faithful.

Currently they continue to be a place of worship, yes, but also improvised museums of sacred art, where even heterodoxy has its place and its state. Let us take, as a warning for navigators, the example of that formidable figure of Saint Christopher transporting Christ the Child - whose presence in cathedrals and colleges must have been considerably remarkable in times - who receives the visitor barely crossed the threshold of his west door; the same that, in the words of Robert Graves (2), dispossessed Hercules, who had rendered the same service to the god Dionysus.

Or the figure, hieratically isíaca of the patron saint seguntina, Santa Maria la Mayor, judge and part, from the abysmal infinite of its impenetrable veil - as Madame Blabatzsky would say - of maternal-lunar conceptions on which the first human consciences were based. Even that song to eternal youth, represented by that indolent Doncel, who appears recumbent on his own grave, wearing on his chest the red cross of Santiago, immersed in the pristine, romantic golden cloud of dolce far niente, with a book - of Hours? - in his thin and mannered hands, not far from that figurative King Amfortas of the roads, San Roque, showing, in the manner of the initiates, his wounded thigh, accompanied by a dog - like that chthonic friend who also sometimes warns accompanying dark saints, such as Santa Quiteria-, and the angel, on which it is difficult not to wonder if perhaps it is the same one that offered the Bitter Chalice to Jesus in the Garden of Olives.

And it is that, in short, entering into the incommensurable chiaroscuro of the Fortis Seguntina, is another way of reminding us that, after all, there are still remnants of an Iberia, each day more distant, that undoubtedly was unmistakably magical in the past.

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NOTICE: originally posted on my blog GUADALAJARA WAY IS DONE WHEN WALKING. 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 verify the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://jcarlos347-juancar347.blogspot.com/2015/05/fortis-seguntina-la-catedral-de-siguenza.html

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