Bien: Monasterio de San Esteban Mosteiro de San Estevo de Ribas de Sil
Comunidad Autónoma: C.A. Galicia
Provincia: Orense / Ourense
Municipio: Nogueira de Ramuin
Entidad local menor: Ribas de Sil
Categoría: Monumento
Código: ( R.I. ) - 51 - 0000243 - 00000
Registro: ( R.I. )
Fecha de Declaración: 12-04-1923
Fecha Boletín Declaración: 24-04-1923
The monastery of Santo Estevo de Ribas de Sil is one of the most outstanding and spectacular complexes of the rich monumental heritage of Galicia. It was built between the 12th and 18th centuries.
The oldest tradition speaks that Santo Estevo was founded in the 6th century by San Martín Dumiense. It is probable that this was the case, because the Christianization of Galicia came by the southern route, through the Roman roads from Betica to Braga and from the latter to Astorga and Lugo. Through them also comes the primitive monasticism.
With the privilege of Ordoño II, issued on October 12, 921, the documented history of this monastery begins. The king granted Abbot Franquila the ruinous and abandoned territory of San Esteban, with its groves, fishing grounds and riverbanks so that he could build a basilica or monastery there. Franquila, it seems that a community of hermits ruled and decided to restore the cenobitic life in San Esteban.
This monastery was important, because nine bishops retired from it, renouncing their episcopal sees and chose the monastery to end their days throughout the 10th century and perhaps part of the 11th. The monastery kept his remains and as a souvenir he took the nine mitres to his shield.
The church has a basilica plan, spacious and proportionate. It conserves the Romanesque chevet with three apses, the central one being lower than the lateral ones, an unusual case in Galician Romanesque. The facade of the church is from the end of the 16th century or the beginning of the 17th. In the upper part there is a simple oculus that gives light to the interior and ends in a niche inside which is the image of Saint Stephen.
Inside the temple, the altarpiece of the chapel stands out, a Renaissance work made by Juan de Angés in the 16th century. Of all the scenes represented, we highlight in the lower body the double scene of martyrdom of a man and a woman, which is identified with the double scene of flagellation of San Vicente and Santa Cristina, as a tribute to the two added abbeys, San Vicente de Pombeiro and Santa Cristina de Ribas de Sil.
On one side of the church transept you can see a stone altarpiece, a unique example of its kind, difficult to date, since some authors place it in the 12th century and others in the 13th. It is a piece made of granite, with a prolonged rectangular shape whose upper part ends in a pediment, something unusual for the time. It represents Christ in Majesty with the twelve Apostles.
The façade of the monastery is in the Baroque style, built in 1736. In it we can see between columns two images of saints of the order: San Benito and San Vicente. On top of these, two shields. On the left, that of the monastery with the nine mitres that recall the nine bishops. On the right, that of the Congregation of Castilla. The set is finished off, the imperial one of Carlos V.
We enter the monastery and we find the cloister of portería, also called of the horsemen. It is of great breadth and dimensions. It is a work by Diego de Isla, a Renaissance man from the 16th century. It has three bodies, unlike the others that only have two, since the monastery is built on a stepped ground towards the Sil river. The window that occupies one of the sides, the result of the restoration of the monastery, is striking.
From the porter's cloister, we access the bishops' cloister, which with the church is the oldest preserved in the monastery. It is called like this, because the nine bishops who retired to this monastery were buried in it until their bodies were transferred to the church. The set made up of various architectural styles, form a homogeneous and harmonious set. It has two sections: the lower one in the Romanesque style and the upper one a transition from Gothic to Renaissance.
The monastery has another smaller cloister that is known as the kitchen one. Like the portería, it is Renaissance and its author is Diego de Isla. Here was the kitchen of the monastery and the refectory.
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