Ribera Sacra: the monastery of San Facundo de Ribas de Miño

A short distance from one of the leading cities of the Camino de Santiago as it passes through the province of Lugo, such as Portomarín, plunging its thousand-year-old foundations a few meters from the bank of a river, the Miño, which buzzes not without grace and beauty by impressive canyons carved by himself with the invaluable help of time and erosion, stands one of the most curious and solitary monasteries of this vital Rovoyra Sacrata: the monastery of San Facundo de Ribas de Miño.

Using as basic elements, the stone and the slate, possibly the most attention-grabbing details, are its complete austerity and the practical lack of ornamental elements, whose presence and theme served to distract the monks from a contemplative life, delivered in full to the patient execution of the Cistercian maxim -which would come later- based on the ora et labora.

To access it, there are several roads: a detour, located a few kilometers from Portomarín, in the direction of Paradela and Sarria, which ends in a road cut after about two kilometers and that forces the intrepid to travel approximately five hundred meters, that separate it from the monastery, so it is necessary to walk along the riverbank and another detour a few kilometers further on, which crosses a real crossroads of rural roads, little or scarcely signposted, characterized by the presence of small communities agricultural-winners and where it is not impossible, at all, to meet the cattle cutting the road, a detail that, on the other hand, offers a small dose of romantic daydreaming to the adventure.

However, notwithstanding its Benedictine origins and its declaration of historical-artistic monument in 1982, its more or less known protohistory goes back at least to the year 1120, the approximate date when Peter the Pilgrim built a bridge in a backwater of the river as it passes through the nearby village of Portomarín - guarded by the order of the Hospital of San Juan de Jerusalén -, in the first instance, destined to avoid the abusive tolls to the pilgrims, constituting one of the first monasteries of the Peninsula to show the characters of a novel artistic tendency, that with time would end up replacing the obsolete obscurations of the Romanesque: the Gothic.

Within the aforementioned ornamental shortage -it still has some remains of Gothic paintings in the style of Spanish Flemish, according to experts- highlights a head, solitary and mocking, located in the north, next to the apse, probably represent, as in many other similar constructions, both Romanesque and Gothic - I think, as an example, the figure in the church of Santiago de Agüero, Huesca - the figure of the Devil, associated with the mysterious and icy North, where it was once thought that they came from all the evils.

How could it be otherwise, taking into account the special area where it is located, the main exploitation was based and continues to be based on the cultivation of the vine.

Related movie:

NOTICE: originally published in my blog ROMÁNICA, ENIGMAS DEL ROMÁNICO ESPAÑOL, although the article, the photographs and the video are unpublished in Steemit. Both the text, as the photographs, and the video (except music, reproduced under a YouTube license), are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry can be found at the following address: https://juancar347-romanica.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/san-facundo-de-ribas-de-mino.html

designed by: @txatxy