Santa María de la Sierra: an interesting ornamental option within the Cistercian art of Castile-Leon

Abstract

Despite the well known Cistercian reluctance to figurative representation in their monasteries, the vegetal ornamental patterns precept was not as preferred as thought nor it was as honoured as expected in some of them. One of the exceptions that prove the rule to Cistercian aniconism is found in the very humble church of Santa María de la Sierra-Sotosalbos (Collado Hermoso, Segovia); this discrete abbatial temple holds in its ruins –and among its vegetal capitals- a small zoological collection of birds, lions and hares capable of significantly enriching the repertoire used by this religious order, demonstrating that the importance of ornamental models itinerancy and the influence of the geographically nearby and historically precedent Romanic options –even the contemporary Romanic- was stronger than thought, taking to pieces the unfounded theory –backed by many authors- of the existence of the so called “Cistercian Style”.