Mosteiro Oseira - Oseira, Ourense, Galicia, España - Romanesque Architecture on Waymarking.com

The Cistercian Monastery of Santa María de Oseira is among the great monuments of Galicia. Some, because of its magnificence, call it "the Galician Escorial".

This monastery, originally from the 12th century, is located in the province of Ourense , in the town of Cea .

Church of the Monastery of Santa María de oseira

The history of this monastery is truly interesting. And it was the first foundation of the Císter in Galicia.

Before there was a monastery founded by a few hermits. In 1141 they decided to follow the Cistercian Rule and new monks arrived from Claraval himself.

Thus, the Oseira Monastery becomes an emblem of the Císter in Galician lands, seed, which, as we know, would spread in many places in Galicia.

The church would not begin much later being consecrated in 1239.

Monastery of Santa María de oseira. View of the Romanesque church from the foot towards the head

These centuries, the XII and XIII, were the most splendid in Oseira, which began to decline in the XIV.

In the 16th century, the Oseira Monastery entered the Cistercian Congregation of Castile, beginning a new period of flourishing that brought artistic renewal, the driving force behind the works carried out during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

With the exclaustration caused by the Mendizábal Confiscation in the 19th century, the monastic complex is abandoned and with it begins a progressive ruin of its architecture and the plundering of its movable works of art.

In the 20th century, monks returned to Oseira and a titanic and successful work of restoration and recovery of this monastic complex was undertaken, recovering the brilliance of what it was and it is one of the most lavish examples of Spanish religious architecture.

This monastery has, among many other facilities, an extraordinary transitional Romanesque church, three cloisters of different times and styles, and a highly attractive chapter room.

The Romanesque church has a Latin cross plan with three naves and a transept. The naves are separated by pillars with embedded columns. Both the vault of the central nave and those of the collaterals are pointed cannon with strips. The semicircular windows open at the start of the vault. The head imitated that of Santiago with ambulatory and chapels although today the original ones are very altered. The beauty of the presbytery stands out with a collection of columns supporting the closing wall, as in Moreruela.

Oseira Monastery. Church interior

In the 13th century, a dome with a dome on pendentives was built on the transept.

As was mandatory in Cistercian churches, the sculptural decoration is practically nil. This ornamental scarcity seems to magnify its architectural monumentality.

In the 16th century, the main façade was transformed and redesigned in the Renaissance style, with padded seating and frontispiece, in addition to other ornaments and classicist sculptures.

Exterior of the headboard. Oseira

On the southern side of this facade of the church and perpendicular to it, we find another grandiose facade, in this case Baroque with a Compostela influence, that of the monastery's residential complex.

It has the Oseira Monastery, as we said, no less than three cloisters . The one with the goal , the processional and the pinnacles .

The processional cloister stands out for the effigies located in the arches and representing the faces of historical figures.

The old chapter house is the work of the 15th century and is the most picturesque element of the monastery. Built on late Gothic approaches, it is a space domed by complicated starry vaults, whose ribs start from imaginative fluted columns. These palm-shaped supports that open in infinity of nerves, as if they were palm branches, brings to mind the supports of the distant fish market in Valencia, also of a similar date.

Web site proof of Romanesque or Pre-Romanesque features: [Web Link] Date of origin: 12th century Type of building (structure): Abbey/Monastery Architect(s) if known: Not listed Address: Not listed Romanesque or Pre-Romanesque: Not listed

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Date Logged Log   07/01/2020 Ariberna visited it