Santiago de Compostela Cathedral
The goal of Europe’s greatest pilgrimage route is a Romanesque cathedral built to receive large crowds. Inside is the Pórtico de la Gloria, Master Mateo’s sculpted portal of 1188. The exterior was given a magnificent Baroque façade in the 18th century.
According to tradition, the tomb of St James the Apostle was discovered here in the early 9th century, and the site became one of the three great pilgrimage destinations of Christendom, after Jerusalem and Rome. The Romanesque cathedral was begun in 1075 and consecrated in 1211. It was built as a typical pilgrimage church, with a long nave, galleries and an ambulatory with chapels around the choir, so that the stream of pilgrims could move around the relic without disturbing the services.
The Pórtico de la Gloria, completed by Master Mateo in 1188, is counted among the high points of Romanesque sculpture: prophets and apostles conversing with one another, and twenty-four elders tuning their instruments. In the 18th century the cathedral received its Baroque façade, the Obradoiro, but inside the Romanesque interior survives. The pilgrimage route to Santiago, the Camino, is still walked by hundreds of thousands of people every year.