Monastery of Tulebras
The trinity
By the same Jerónimo Vallejo Cosida is this painting of the Trinity, also on panel in the form of a semicircular panel, which crowned the main altarpiece.
In the centre of the composition is a monumental figure dressed in a red cloak with a golden border, which has the peculiarity of having three faces, the eyes of the central face serving the lateral ones, according to a heretical interpretation of Dogma, the three-faced Trinity. From the Middle Ages onwards average, the three-faced Trinity had been denounced by the theologian Gerson as sacrilegious and monstrous. It was condemned at the Council of Trent, and in 1628 Pope Urban VIII formally banned the topic, which he described as heretical, and had the images of this subject burned, which explains their small number.
The figure is a triangle with circles at the corners, from the vertices of which are bands that converge in a central circle. On the three sides of the triangle we read the legend: NON EST, on the circles of the angles: PATER, FILIUS, SP(lRIT)US SA(N)TUS; on the three bisectors: EST and on the central circle: DEUS. This is the dogma of faith of the triune God as developed in the Athanasian Symbol.
On either side of this heretical representation of the Trinity are groups of worshipping angels and cherubim, with clear, linear profiles, wearing tunics of shimmering colours in carmine, salmon, green, etc. The framework of this half-point is from around the middle of the 17th century.
Photo: Naiara Ardanaz
GARCÍA M. COLOMBAS, M.B., Monasterio de Tulebras, Gobierno de Navarra, department de Educación y Cultura, Institución Principe de Viana, Pamplona, 1987.
ORBE Y SIVATTE, A., Monasterio de Tulebras. Un oasis para la contemplación, nº 60, Edilesa, 2001.
REAU, Louis, Iconographie de L'Art Crrétien. (5 vols.), vol. 1, Paris 1956, p. 22.
RECONDO, J.M., "Monasterio de Tulebras", TCP, nº 127, Pamplona, Diputación Foral de Navarra, 1972.
TARIFA CASTILLA, M.J., La arquitectura religiosa del siglo XVI en la merindad de Tudela, Gobierno de Navarra, department de Educación y Cultura, Institución Príncipe de Viana, Pamplona, 2005.
