Aproximación a la iconografía de las catedrales españolas

Abstract

The beginning of the construction of a Cathedral was the beginning of a work sometimes of centuries. The repairs, the reconstructions or the bring up to date were essential from an aesthetic or iconographic perspective, because throughout the times they changed not only to the tastes but also the messages that the Church wanted to transmit that even being basically the same the historical period and the essential preoccupations of every moment were clarified according to. The faithfuls, who prayed and received in these temples the lessons of the faith, had presents not only through the word but also by the examples visualized in the figures of the saints who in porches, fresh murals and altarpieces were like models of conduct in this life in the hope of the definitive transit and of the Second Coming. But these remarkable buildings, besides the high-priority attempts of transmission of religious truths, also, in many cases, finished becoming magnificent vehicles of transmission of more worldly values. Really, the cathedrals appear us like authentic palimpsestos in which the forms and the messages went superposing generation after generation and in which the reasons that took to the promoters to impel individual cycles and representations were diverse and money changers in the time