Cathedrals and Legends of Spain: The Virgin of Dice

Also the cathedrals, apart from their grandiosity and of being receivers of ancient knowledge and mysteries are, in equal or in greater measure still, if they hurry me, custodians of singular pieces of Art, many of which have associated, by intermediation of a popular wisdom, whose poetics, not by vulgarity was generously striking, multitude of curious and interesting legends.

One of the Spanish cathedrals that causes more admiration worldwide and by its own merits, is the immeasurable cathedral of León: the one that still - centuries after disappearing from the roads the thundering echo of the boots of the Roman legionaries of the Seventh Legion Gemina - preserves with pride, its honorary title of Pulchra Leonina.

Far from pretending to read' his media plant, as he says he did visually that thunder dressed as Nazarene', that metaphorically speaking, we could consider that it was don Miguel de Unamuno-aquel being a child and according to him he counts, exorcized with a supposed piece of the jaw of Saint John the Baptist, a relic that was conserved in the neighbouring Collegiate Church of Saint Isidore - we will focus on its spectacular northern portal, from the 13th century, which for many years remained practically hidden when the cloister was erected.

With biforous features, like many other portals inherent to this model known as Romanesque Compostela', related to many temples located on the main roads or pilgrimage routes to the tomb of the Apostle Santiago in Compostela, the cover, which still retains much of its beautiful original polychromy, is named after the Virgin of Dice.

Far from hypothesizing here, with the originality of such a denomination -which according to some sources would correspond to a carving, also Romanesque and from the same period, with a fame of very miraculous, that after the fateful Disentailment of Mendizábal, ended up in a private estate- the Virgin with the Child, which is in the central part of the front cover, like an Atlantean column that separates both doors, receives such a denomination for having been a victim of the frustration of a player who lost everything betting on the dice.

Indeed, legend has it that a captain of the Flemish Thirds, having lost everything he had in a game of dice, threw these furious against the image of the Virgin, reaching in the forehead the Child that she holds in her arms. Fruit of such boldness, legend has it that from the forehead of the infant, sprouted a few drops of blood, which were collected in a cloth, which thereafter, was kept as one of the most sacred relics of Christianity.

Relic, that apparently, was censored by Ambrosio de Morales, executor andquisitor of King Philip II who, as is known, was a great compiler of relics and books of Occultism, whose destiny was that simile of the Temple of Solomon built in the Escorial, the monastery dedicated to the figure of San Lorenzo -let us remember that this one, put to safety the Holy Grail that was kept for centuries in the Huesca monastery of San Juan de la Peña and today is in the cathedral of Valencia, when the vandals of Alaric invaded Rome - that some authors insist in affirming that it was raised on one of the denominated doors of the Hell'.

WARNING: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property.