Palace of the Mind. the Cloister of Silos and Spanish Sculpture of the Twelfth Century

The extraordinary cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos is central to our understanding of medieval sculpture, and of Spain’s place in its development. Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo offers an innovative reading of the monastery’s medieval sculpture and the first complete study in English. Her carefully documented work revises many traditional theories about the site built during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. Rather than expressing resistance to religious reform, as commonly held for the renowned Emmaus and Thomas reliefs of the first campaign, they embrace the newly imposed Roman rite. The sirens, dragons, lions, and birds of the capitals are shown to have significance beyond mere decoration. The inventive images of the second campaign, an Annunciation-Coronation and a Trinity set into the Tree of Jesse, derive specifically from monastic devotion, colored by local concerns such as the Reconquest.