El Pòrtic de la Glòria en el Context Hispànic, Europeu i Mediterrani. I Jornada d'Estudis Magistri Cataloniae

This symposium, sponsored by the RCC, showcases the investigations of a select group of researchers awarded with Andrew W. Mellon fellowships for the Santiago Cathedral Program, a project of research and conservation focusing on the Portal of Glory of the Cathedral of Santiago, whose academic headquarters are at the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard.

“El retorno de los Testigos: Escatologia, cosmografia, y los caminos de la Historia en el Portico de la Gloria"

“The Return of the Witnesses: Eschatology, Cosmography, and the westward progression of History in the Portal of Glory"

This lecture begins with a "dream in sepia" (the emergence of the Two Witnesses of the Apocalypse) and concludes with a comparative analysis between the Portal of Glory of the Cathedral of Santiago and Rodin´s Gates of Hell as it pertains to the question of authorial self-representation and the problematics of translating the "enargeia" of eschatological textual imagery into monumental sculpture. It offers the first complete reconstruction of the iconographic program of the dismantled western façade of the Cathedral of Santiago (the exterior façade of the famous "Portal of Glory"), which was once decorated with a group of sculptural masterpieces that have remained until now anonymous and forgotten in small museums and private collections. In addition to the study of this figural ensemble in its original meaning and effects, underscoring its key historical significance, this paper will explore a variety of theoretical issues such as the limits of portraiture and authorial self-representation, the sublime, pilgrimage and the "westward progression of history", and others, bringing into the discussion a wide selection of works ranging from Italian Romanesque sculpture and English mappaemundi, to Hugo van der Goes´ Nativity and Dürer´s so-called Self-Portrait of 1500.