Although the traveller leaves behind a splendid land, such as Navarre, in his mind, however, remain the incredible memories and experiences lived in relevant places, such as Leire, the medieval cemeteries of Javier and Sangüesa and the mysterious charisma of what is supposed to have been the first monastery that the Cistercian Order built in Spain: that of Saint Mary of the Olive.
His steps, in accordance with the desire for new experiences, including those of trying to immerse himself, to the extent of his possibilities, in those unfathomable pools of History, leave behind the Navarrese fields and enter, with unusual optimism, into that other region of charisma, culture and circumstance, which, of course, are the Five Villages of Aragon.
There, at the top of one of the most beautiful and significant villages, Sos del Rey Católico, the traveller stops in front of one of the monumental footprints left by a mysterious master stonemason, whose work was particularly intense in the area, after also working in Jaca and Huesca; a character who, overcoming the dizzying abyss about his true identity, is known as the Master of Agüero or of San Juan de la Peña: the imposing doorway of the church of Saint Stephan.
Like all the doors attributed to him or in which he collaborated, the doorway of this temple dedicated to the figure of the most famous stoned man in history, takes the form, in the thoughts of the traveller, of a fantasy exhibition, where the author's motivation seems to revolve, especially, around a series of scenes and archetypal characters, based on enigmatic descriptions of the New Testament.
Hence, for example, one of the constants of this author, perhaps best known for his fascinating representations of musicians and dancers, is none other than his continuous reference to one of the most mysterious episodes, which is, without a doubt, that of the Epiphany or the Adoration of the Magi.
The Epiphany, where the disconcerting figures of the Magi take on special relevance, whose mortal remains, according to tradition, rest in the cathedral of Cologne and where the figure of Saint Joseph seems to be a world away from the importance of such a decisive event for the history of Christianity, as was the birth of the Child-God, is amply fulfilled, under the fabulous presence of a Pantocrator that completely occupies the tympanum and that also happens to be a constant in many of the temples in the area. It is precisely below this, on both sides of the portico, where the New Testament scenes and references to relevant characters from the Saints’ Calendar, such as that allusion to the Holy Grail, which, after all, always carries with it the presence of the one who kept it safe when the barbarians took Rome until depositing it in the monastery of San Juan de la Peña, Saint Lorenz or the tireless Archangel Saint Michael, always ready to let himself be carried away by a good fight against the Beast, which in the medieval imagination took the form of a dragon or a terrible snake, are mixed, in an abundance of details, in this case, more crushed by the hand of man than by the passage of time, with more human but dramatic themes, such as the Escape to Egypt, courtly scenes and the powerful fascination that is always hidden behind an incipient Bestiary, where the same fantastic beings to which even great writers like Borges also dedicated their attention and that put to the test the initiatory journeys of the great heroes of the The Greco-Latin world -Perseus, Jason, Aeneas, Ulysses and a long list of names that have accompanied us in our literary adventures of youth- become terrible allusions to vices and sins, which now, the traveler says, may provoke laughter, but which, in those times, did not go unnoticed and determined, without a doubt, the sword of Damocles that hung over the conduct of medieval man.
NOTICE: Both the text and the photographs that accompany it, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and therefore, are subject to my Copyright.
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