Review: Palace of the Mind: The Cloister of Silos and Spanish Sculpture of the Twelfth Century, by Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo

Abstract

Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo. Palace of the Mind: The Cloister of Silos and Spanish Sculpture of the Twelfth Century Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2012, xx + 532 pp., 16 color and 300 b/w illus. €150, ISBN 9782503517117 This large, attractive, and comprehensive book on the cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos, among the most familiar and most compelling of the major Romanesque sites in northern Spain, represents a significant contribution to the study of medieval art and architecture. The magnificent illustrations and rich bibliography alone would make the book an essential resource for the study of European visual culture from the decades around 1100, an astonishing period that witnessed a veritable explosion in architectural sculpture. The probable early date and remarkable creativity of the sculpture at Silos had already established the cloister as a focal point for the study of Romanesque art in the days of Arthur Kingsley Porter and Meyer Schapiro, and Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo’s thorough volume provides a useful, up-to-date compendium of primary and secondary sources that reflects the richness of the artwork and the scholarly tradition associated with it. Palace of the Mind also gives readers insightful discussions of the style, sources, and iconographic interpretation of the sculptures, presenting many ideas that will surely remain fundamental points of departure for future scholarship on this celebrated site. The book is well organized, opening with brief chapters on the historiography and history of Silos, and moving smoothly into a chronological presentation of the sculptures in their architectural context. Valdez del Alamo divides these discussions into two main parts, the first (“Cult Through Construction”) presenting the early history of the monastery at Silos, the rise of the cult of Santo Domingo, and a detailed discussion of the earliest surviving Romanesque cloister sculptures in three chapters. The second part (“The Era of Expansion”) turns to the somewhat later twelfth-century additions to the monastery and cloister, including discussions of the south transept, the newer portions of the cloister, and the portals (chapters 4–6). The closing chapter situates Silos …