Romanesque Zamora: Castle to Puente de Piedra: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
Romanesque churches, walls and the Duero bridge
Romanesque stone, from a church beside the Portillo de la Lealtad, the cathedral and a house built into the wall to churches that are older and younger than the cathedral, with the legends of the 1072 siege told at two of the wall's gates.
The stops
The chronicles say Alfonso II of Asturias ordered this fortress built, though historians think it was more probably Ferdinand I of León, which would date it to the middle of the 11th century; very little survives from then. What stands now is a rhombus-shaped fortress ringed by a deep moat that is almost intact, with walls averaging more than two metres thick, reworked under Philip V to face artillery. Its western gate, the Puerta de Santa Columba, dates from the 12th century, and the stonemasons left some 600 marks of 142 types in the middle enclosure.
Photo: Conde negro — CC BY-SA 3.0 es This tall, narrow gate in the first ring of walls was known until 2010 as the Portillo de la Traición, the Gate of Betrayal. The chronicles and literary tradition tell that Vellido Dolfos slipped through it after killing King Sancho II of Castile, who was besieging Zamora, with the Cid in pursuit. Historians debate how much of the tale is history; the council renamed it Portillo de la Lealtad, Gate of Loyalty, in 2010, and a plaque there says that by tradition he entered here and freed the city from the siege.
Photo: Borjaanimal — CC BY-SA 4.0 The founding of this Romanesque church inside the first ring of walls is usually credited to Sancha, sister of Alfonso VII, who promoted moving the relics of Saint Isidore from Seville to León. It stands on one of the highest parts of the city, close to the cathedral and the Portillo de la Lealtad. Its two portals have concentric arches and plain jambs, which is unusual, and the interior has been kept almost as it was; the bell gable was added in the 19th century.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 Built under Bishop Esteban with the backing of Alfonso VII and his sister Sancha Raimúndez, the cathedral is counted among the finest examples of Spanish Romanesque. Tradition dates it 1151 to 1174 from an inscription on the north side of the transept, though recent discoveries show work had begun by 1139. Its scale-covered dome over the crossing is one of the symbols of the city, and the 45 m bell tower is from the 13th century.
Photo: Outisnn — CC BY-SA 3.0 This Romanesque house is built into the city wall beside the gate called the Puerta Óptima, Puerta de Olivares or Puerta del Obispo, with views over the Duero. Tradition calls it the Cid's house, while the Zamoran historian Cesáreo Fernández Duro preferred to call it the house of Arias Gonzalo, who owned it. Whatever its owner, it is one of the very few surviving examples of Romanesque civil architecture in Spain.
Photo: Borjaanimal — CC BY-SA 4.0 Zamora's largest church after the cathedral was begun in the 11th century under Ferdinand I, on the site of an older church of Santa Leocadia. It holds the remains of Saint Ildefonso of Toledo, lost for a time when the old church came down and found again in 1260 during building work, which is why the dedication to Saint Peter grew to include both saints. It also keeps the body of Saint Atilano, Zamora's first bishop and patron.
Photo: JnCrlsMG — CC BY-SA 4.0 The carved south portal of this Romanesque church faces the Rúa de los Francos, named for the Franks, mostly merchants and craftsmen, recorded in Zamora in 1092 after Raymond of Burgundy invited them to repopulate the city. In the Middle Ages the church was a hospital of the Order of St John, which kept it until the late 19th century. Inside is a late Romanesque tomb that is popularly said to hold a Templar knight, though the carved figure is a lady.
Photo: JnCrlsMG — CC BY-SA 4.0 Viriato, the shepherd chieftain who stood up to the Roman consuls, stands in bronze on a granite plinth that reads Terror romanorum, a phrase attributed to Orosius. The Zamoran sculptor Eduardo Barrón signed the base Roma 1883 and showed the statue at the 1884 National Exhibition of Fine Arts, where it won a silver medal. It was set up here at the end of 1903 and, by most accounts, never officially opened, and a battering ram ending in a ram's head lies at its foot.
Photo: Tamorlan — CC BY-SA 3.0 Built in the early 12th century as San Román, this church was set on fire in 1158 by townspeople in the Trout Riot, while nobles were meeting inside. According to 15th-century documents it began when a shoemaker's son, Benito Pellitero, resisted a nobleman's steward who wanted to take a trout he had bought at the market. The church was rebuilt by royal order under its present name, and its apse and south front are unchanged from the first church and may have escaped the fire.
Photo: José Antonio Gil Martínez from Vigo, Spain — CC BY 2.0 Two big towers flank this opening in the city wall, which the people call after Urraca of Zamora, eldest daughter of Ferdinand I. In the ballads of the 1072 siege she meets Rodrigo, the Cid, and answers his call to yield the city with the words "Afuera, afuera Rodrigo, orgulloso castellano", away, away, proud Castilian. A badly worn relief of her at the window of her palace, with that motto, survives here.
Photo: CarlosVdeHabsburgo — CC BY-SA 4.0 This Romanesque church on the west side of the Plaza Mayor was built in the 12th century beside the Porta Nova, opened in 1171 as the easternmost gate of the first walls, hence its name. Its tower was long topped by a weathervane of an armoured warrior called the Peromato, as well known in Zamora as the Giraldillo is in Seville; a replica was put up in 1987 and the original is in the provincial museum. At one corner stands a 1996 statue of the Merlú by the Zamoran sculptor Antonio Pedrero Yéboles.
Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta — CC BY-SA 4.0 One of the oldest churches in Zamora, San Cipriano belongs to an early group of Romanesque churches built before the cathedral, with Santo Tomé, Santiago el Viejo, San Claudio de Olivares and Santa María la Nueva. In the 11th century it had three naves, each ending in a small window with period ironwork grilles, among the first forged works preserved in Spain. The tower, from the middle of the 12th century, may have been a lookout on the old wall; the church is no longer used for worship and hosts concerts of the Pórtico de Zamora festival.
Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta — CC BY-SA 4.0 For centuries this was the only way across the Duero in Zamora, joining the riverside district to the walled town. It is first mentioned in writing in 1167 as the new bridge, a name that may come from an older Roman bridge, and it was finished in the early 13th century. It once had 22 pointed arches and now has fifteen or sixteen, depending on the count; a rebuilding in 1905 to 1907 removed the towers that guarded both ends, and since the Puente de los Poetas opened in 2013 it has been for pedestrians.
Photo: Outisnn — CC BY-SA 3.0
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