Renaissance cloister

One of the most significant spaces of the monastery from the artistic point of view is the cloister, built in stone, a masterpiece of the Navarrese Renaissance, attached to the southern nave of the church. This extensive business demanded the help of a good issue of stonemasons, stonemasons, carvers and sculptors during two stages of construction. The work was begun in 1540 by the Guipuzcoan stonemason Martín de Oyarzábal, who died in 1545, leaving the north side, two sections of the east side and three of the west side finished, according to the valuation made in 1546 by Martín de Larrarte, Juan Pérez de Solarte and Martín de Landerrain. The direction of the work was continued by a partner of his, Juan de Aguirre, who was his principal officer, and to whom we owe the Especiosa door dated 1547. After a long break, the second stage of construction began in the 1570s and ended in 1586, with the participation of numerous artists directed by the masters Iñigo and Otolora, such as the stonemasons Domingo de Irategui, Juan de Sarobe and Juan de Bulano, the carvers Hernando de Lubiano and Gutisolo, as well as Juan de Lucas, Gregorio de Lizarraga, Martín de Morgota, Rodrigo de Aldegui and Pedro de Troas, as mentioned by Pellejero Soteras in his study on the same.

The rectangular cloister's elevations are articulated by a succession of pointed arches on octagonal pillars with prismatic buttresses, with recessed fronts and pedestals, which are mounted on a continuous podium. The pillars are articulated by pilasters with niches on their fronts, with elaborate shelves and canopies decorated with coats of arms, coffered ceilings and geometric motifs, topped by capitals with grotesques. The perimeter walls are also lined with recessed pilasters and niches, delimiting the stretches of the pandas, on which there is a corbel that receives the framework of the mixtilinear ribs of the elaborate vaults of different design that cover the entire cloister.

The main interest lies in the sculptural decoration contained in the capitals of the pillars, corbels and keystones of the vaults, noticing in the different pandas a stylistic evolution, from the most ornamental phase of the first renaissance, to the most classicist forms. An iconographic program of great interest, for the quality of the carving and profusion, where mythological and religious scenes are represented mixed with grotesques.

In the first building phase, to which the north bay, half of the east bay and two sections of the west bay correspond, pagan themes predominate, contained in capitals and corbels, such as grotesques, bucranes and psychomachies like Hercules against the Hydra of Lerna, and animals taken from the bestiary. A sculpture is characterized by dramatic gestures and vibrant hair, with faces of great beauty, as is typical of the expressivism of the mid-sixteenth century. In the second construction phase, cycles of the life of Christ, Saint Benedict and other saints of the order are depicted, images that announce Romanism with their monumentality, especially in the decoration of the south gallery, which is the latest of all, with figures of greater Issue and nudes of classical forms.

The keystones of the vaults serve as a framework for a series of apostles, saints, martyrs, abbots, bishops, popes, prophets, patriarchs and the human race around the central core topic of reference letter, for example, Christ and the apostles, the Virgin and Child surrounded by saints or Saint Benedict with abbots. The decoration of the cloister is completed on the walls facing the courtyard with medallions attached to the spandrels of some arches, such as Venus and Mars or Hercules and Hebe.

After the lower cloister was completed, work began on the upper cloister in 1589 under the direction of Juan de Sarobe, as well as other craftsmen, such as the assembler Pedro de Gabiria in the woodwork. The galleries are articulated by a high pedestal with geometric frames on which Doric columns with fluted shafts rest, receiving semicircular arches with diamond-pointed threads and oculi in the spandrels, with a frieze of triglyphs running along the upper part.