San Isidoro in León: Evidence for a New History

Abstract

In the summer of 1969 I directed a campaign which produced plans, sections and drawings of the older parts of the Collegiate Church of San Isidoro in Leon for a history of that monument.1 The work centered on the Pantheon of the Kings, the mausoleum of the rulers of Leon-Castile in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which is attached as a kind of narthex to the west facade of the church. It is traditionally attributed to 1063, and the assured handling of architectural space and mass one encounters there has been seen as an auspicious introduction of the Romanesque style in northwest Spain. At the same time the walls and vaults of the Pantheon display the major surviving cycle of Spanish Romanesque mural painting outside Catalonia. During the six weeks of the campaign it was possible to become intimately acquainted with the complex (Fig. 1), and to complete a plan of the Pantheon and its adjacent tower and gallery, together with a plan of the tribune and tower on the next level (Figs. 2a and b). Of the lo...