The Romanesque cloister: composition and elaboration

The cloister of the cathedral of Tudela is one of the most interesting iconographic ensembles of Hispanic Romanesque art. As has been mentioned, the existence of a community of canons in charge of worship in Santa María since 1135 is documented, so it was convenient to articulate around a cloister the dependencies where they could develop their life in common. The status changed in 1238, when the chapter was secularized. As a consequence, the destiny of some of the rooms changed over the centuries.

The usual practice in the Romanesque period was to begin the construction of the cloisters in the eastern and northern galleries. On the one hand, it was in the interest of building the higher-ranking rooms, usually located in the eastern zone, as soon as possible. On the other hand, the elevation of the north gallery was facilitated by the church wall (the cloisters were generally located to the south of the temples). conference room In Santa María de Tudela, unlike the norm, there is a considerable distance between the cloister and the ecclesiastical wall, a fact attributable to the desire to combine the temporary use of the prayer room of the mosque with the progress of the work on the Romanesque building; hence the access to the cloister galleries from the church is through a longitudinal space that was populated with sepulchers. However, here too the first two arcades built were those located to the north and east.

The distribution of themes in the capitals obeys patterns common to other cloisters: the most important ones, with the life of Jesus Christ, occupy the highest-ranking galleries (northern and eastern). They are followed by those of the southern gallery, which is completed with the lives of saints, and finally those of the western gallery, where hagiographic baskets are combined with others centered on plant, animal and historical motifs, some of symbolic character and presumably moralizing content.

In the four corners of the cloister there are thick pillars with pairs of semi-columns attached to each of their four faces. The nine arches of the eastern and western galleries rest alternately on pairs and trios of columns, plus an intermediate pillar with a pair on each side. The eastern and western galleries have twelve arches, also alternately on pairs and trios of columns, plus two central pillars with their corresponding pairs. The shapes and dimensions of the capitals are adapted to the issue of the shafts that support them, which gives the Tudela cloister an interesting variety of compositions. The semicircular arches were decorated with attractive moldings.

The entire sculpture seems to have been carried out without significant interruptions, although there are differences in quality both in the composition and in the resolution of the figures. In general, the figures show a considerable size, so that their stature occupies from the collar to the abacus. They are rotund figures, with large heads, clothes with abundant folds and mostly restrained gesticulation that, nevertheless, enriches the narrative, making the actions perfectly recognizable, as happens in the resurrection of Lazarus or in the fall of St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Sometimes the main figure is placed in the corner, as seen in the adoration of the Magi, which is especially successful in the capitals that crown groups of three shafts. The location of the interior scenes is symbolized by the introduction of arches. The artisans resort to different solutions to characterize the characters: sometimes by means of specific physiognomic features (such as the baldness of St. Paul), others by means of peculiar attire (caps and hoods of the Jewish enemies of Jesus) or gestures that denote the actions they perform.