The monastery of San Juan de Duero

They affirm the anonymous authors of this monumental stone encyclopedia, that in few places of our Peninsula the balance, the measure, the moderation and the proportion, among other many characteristics of their genuine prologue, were conjugated, it seems that in those nebulous aeons of principles or mid-twelfth century, to inscribe in the unique pages of history, an authentic work of art, which approximately a millennium later, continues to raise not only admiration for its own inertia but also blisters in terms of its true functionality. It is true, however, that much of its original covers, made of the best material from the Soria quarries, have been gnawed by the voracity of time, possibly more innocent, in what is possible, if we compare it with the always fatal and permissive Desire for destruction, which usually characterizes this human defect called disrespect.

And yet, what we are still allowed to read in its golden remains, is more than enough to make us think, downcast but also relieved, that in front of our eyes we have, after all, a wonderful though unpredictable and little understood incunabula. An incunabula that, judging by the hieroglyphic language that characterizes the set of its glorious pages, could well have counted, among its anonymous but wise authors, with some of those singular geniuses of the stone who also participated in the nearby sculptural conception of another the summit of the Romanesque capital of Soria - the church of Santo Domingo, which we had already seen in a previous entry - where perhaps the elegant glosa poitevina, was added the spellbinding charm of the sweet Oriental semantics.

A semantics, in addition, that would characterize not only the curious temples located at the head of the church, which almost completely conform the traditional chapels of the Epistle and the Gospel, which are so abundant in the lands of the former and mythological Queen Lupa, even, crowning the cold austerity of the towers of their churches-, but also, in what refers, mainly, to that eschatological exquisiteness that constitutes a surprising ambulatory, perhaps erroneously considered a cloister.

Because now, without wanting to detract from that charming romanticism that usually likes to go along with any artistic adventure to which time has given the nostalgic prebends of the stubble and musguillo-detail that used to praise the charismatic preferences of a genius of the modern architecture, as was the Master D. Antoni Gaudí i Cornet-, nor to that linear scientism that traces ox's paths with the plow of his skepticism, may the reader caress with his hands -easy though not lacking in determination - the ferruginous parchment of those diametrical arches that look with peremptory melancholy towards Jerusalem, coincides, after all, with the original idea of someone who, although it is ignored, is a laureate neck inside the jealous and privileged circle of the exclusive Romanesque Argonáutica -although it does seem to stand out in the university teaching- and whose name this romantic biographer of the snows of ntaño does not want to deprive himself of saying, Javier Martínez de Aguirre (1), and see, in the structure of such text, a familiarity with those other well-defined funerary and ambulatory chapels -Eunate, Torres del Río, etc-, that would make of this place, if such were the case, what doubt, a novel alternative to the orientally known, offering in passing, a new vision regarding a work that, although it could have been conceived as a cemetery, continues to arouse an admiration and a Unusual passion.

Notes:
(1) Javier Martínez de Aguirre, is a professor of Medieval History at the Complutense University of Madrid. From his extensive and interesting work, it is recommended, with regard to the present entry, the reading of his work entitled 'San Juan de Duero and Sepulcrum Domini de Jerusalén'.

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NOTICE: originally, it was published in my blog TRAS LAS HUELLAS DE LOS MEDIEVALES CANTEROS. Both the text, photographs, and video (except music, reproduced under a YouTube license) are my exclusive intellectual property. The original entry can be found at the following address: https://canterosmedievales.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/libros-de-piedra-san-juan-de-duero.html