Page 55 - Traveling 71 eng

HISTORY, ART AND CULTURE
In the heart of Oviedo, the Cathedral of
San Salvador rises as a living monu-
ment to the history of Asturias and the
Iberian Peninsula. Its silhouette, mar-
ked by a single spire pointing skyward, may
seem incomplete at first glance. Yet this
asymmetry holds a story as complex as it is
fascinating, woven between kings, bishops,
architects, and centuries of faith.
More than just a church, the cathedral is a
compendium of styles—a stone chronicle
of Asturian power, medieval persistence,
artistic revival, and the enduring spirituali-
ty of a place that has never ceased to be
significant in Spanish history, as the cradle
of the Reconquista and the original starting
point of the Camino de Santiago.
The origins: a church at the
edge of the kingdom
The story begins in the 8th century, when
King Fruela I ordered the construction of
the first basilica on this very site. But it was
Alfonso II the Chaste who, in 802, turned
Oviedo into the capital of the Kingdom of
Asturias and commissioned a church wor-
thy of serving as an episcopal seat and
sanctuary for many relics—some his own,
others safeguarded there after the Muslim
invasion of most of the Peninsula—which
would grant the city a sacred aura.
From that early medieval period, two key
treasures remain: the Cámara Santa (Holy
Chamber), a space of devotion that has
guarded relics for over a thousand years,
including the Victory Cross, the Cross of
the Angels, the Holy Ark, and the Holy
Shroud or Pañolón of Oviedo; and the Old
Tower, of pre-Romanesque origin, which
served both as a bell tower and a defensi-
ve structure. This first tower was extended
in the 11th century and still stands today,
attached to the cathedral in a lesser-known
corner that is nonetheless essential for un-
derstanding the whole.
- 55