Asturian architecture
Whatever the case, Pelayo joined the local tribes and the refuged Visigoths under his command, with the intention of progressively restoring Gothic Order, based on the kingdom of Toledo's political model.
Asturian Pre-Romanesque is a singular feature in all Spain, which, while combining elements from other styles (Visigothic, Mozarabic and local traditions), created and developed its own personality and characteristics, reaching a considerable level of refinement, not only as regards construction, but also in terms of decoration and gold ornamentation.
Several sculptural decorative elements showing floral and geometric designs (something habitual in what were to be the characteristics of subsequent Pre-Romanesque), are on public display in the sacristy, where there is a museum.
From a military point of view, he definitively established the kingdom against the Muslims (in the famous battle of Lutos he gained a significant victory), in administration he moved the court to its final site in Oviedo, and in politics he set up cordial, stable relationships with the emperor Charlemagne, as demonstrated by the following quote by Eginardo (Vita caroli): ... the emperor (Charlemagne) was so closely united with Alfonso, king of Asturias and Galicia, that each time he sent a letter or ambassador, he ordered that he be given no treatment other than that of his client.As regards patronage of art, Alfonso II promoted the largest number of Pre-Romanesque buildings defining what were to be this style's characteristics.
Outside Asturias, with the legend of the discovery of the apostle St. James' tomb in Galicia, in a place known as campus stellae (Compostela), Alfonso II had the first church built in the saints honour (year 892).
The section remaining shows the original construction in stone blocks, and in the centre, there is the characteristic three-point window of Asturian Pre-Romanesque, with semicircular arches made of brick.
The Holy Chamber was built as a palace chapel for Alfonso II and the church of San Salvador (both demolished in the 14th century to build the present Gothic cathedral).
The upper floor, dedicated to St. Michael, was extended in the 12th century, elongating the central section to six metres, a reconstruction that also provided it with its current decoration, a masterpiece of Spanish Romanesque.
From an architectural point of view, the Holy Chamber's construction solved one of the greatest problems of Asturian Pre-Romanesque: the vaulting of two overlapping spaces, later used in the buildings of Ramiro I.
As mentioned above, acting as a royal chapel, the Holy Chamber was built to house the jewels and relics of the cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo, a function it continues to have 1,200 years later.
The first of them is the Cross of the Angels, created in 808 in Gauzón (the left bank of the estuary of Avilés) on the instructions of Alfonso II of Asturias, who donated the precious stones necessary to make it from his personal treasury.
The inverse is covered with a filigreed mesh of gold thread and bands of geometric decoration with a total of 48 precious stones (agates, sapphires, amethysts, rubies and opals) of great beauty.
The reverse shows an inscription in soldered gold letters, mentioning the donors to the Church of San Salvador, King Alfonso III and Queen Jimena, and the place (Gauzón Castle again) and the year it was made.
The first is located just fíve kilometres from the capital, in a south-east direction, towards the Nalón valley, and was a donation from King Alfonso III and his wife Jimena to San Salvador cathedral, on January 20, 905.
Very similar to Santullano, although the ground plan is not the typical basilica of the Pre-Romanesque churches, but has three enclosures at the western end, the central one as an entrance vestibule and two side areas possibly to house parishioners or ecciesiastics.
This church has the construction style established in Santullano: facing eastwards, vestibule separate from the main structure, basilica-type ground plan, central nave higher than the side aisles, with intersecting wooden roof and lit by Windows with stone lattice.
The bell tower, separate from the church like in Santa Maria de Bendones, does not belong to the original construction, and stems from an initiative in the seventies by the architect and great restorer of Asturian Pre-Romanesque, Luis Menéndez Pidal y Alvarez.
He was described by chroniclers as Virga justitiae (baton of justice) because he had to face two internal rebellions by noblemen and due to his enthusiasm in hunting down magic and the black arts, very widespread in Asturias at the time.
Built as a recreational palace, it is situated on the southern side of Monte Naranco facing the city, and was originally part of a series of royal buildings located in the outskirts.
What marvelled the chroniclers for so many centuries were its proportions and slender shapes, its rich, varied decoration and the introduction ofelongated barrel vaults thanks to the transverse arches, allowing support and eliminating wooden ceilings.
Santa Maria del Naranco represented a step forward from a decorative point of view by enriching the habitual standards and models with elements from painting, gold work and the textile arts.
The 32 medallions distributed around the building are similar in size and shape, varying the decorative designs and the interior figures (quadrupeds, birds, bunches of grapes, fantastic animáis), a style inherited from the Visigoth period, in turn descended from Byzantine tradition.
These figures seem to have some kind of symbolic social meaning; the warriors who defend and support the men of prayer (here offerers),or alternatively, the royal and ecclesiastic orders complementing each other.
Nowadays, it conserves its western half from that period, together with several elements in the rest of the church such as the fantastic jambs in the vestibule or the extraordinary lattice on the window of the southern wall, sculpted from one single piece of stone.
One of the most particular elements of Santa Cristina de Lena is the existence of the presbytery elevated above floor level in the last section of the central nave, separated from the area intended for the congregation by three arches on marble columns.
Expansion against Islam led him to conquer Oporto and Coimbra in present-day Portugal, and he pushed the borders of the kingdom as far as the Mondego, repopulating Zamora, Simancas, Toro and the whole area known as Campos Góticos.
The Church of San Salvador de Valdediós stands in the Boides valley (Villaviciosa), the place where Alfonso III was detained when he was dispossessed by his sons, and where there used to be an old convent governed by the Benedictine Order, substituted in the 13th century by the Cistercians.
Finally, the Foncalada fountain, the only upper medieval civil construction conserved in Spain, was built on the outside of Oviedo city walls, with stone blocks and an intersecting roof, barrel vault and rectangular ground plan.
The intersection of the roof is topped with a triangular pediment, sculpted with the Victory Cross, characteristic of Alfonso III, under which runs the typical inscription of the kingdom of Asturias: Hoc signo tvetvr pivs, hoc signo vincitvr inimicvsWith Alfonso III dead and the kingdom of Asturias divided among his sons, Asturian Pre-Romanesque entered its last stage with two constructions.
The first of them is the Church of San Salvador de Priesca (a few kilometres from Valdediós), consecrated on September 24, 921, which has the architectural and decorative reference of the model laid down by Santullano, and not subsequent works.
