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The Architecture in Cantigas de Santa María

Keywords: Architecture, Cantigas de Santa María, King Alfonso X, Middle Ages.

The king Alfonso X believes in the power of the Virgin Mary to overcome the evil. He orders scholars and craftsmen to produce the Cantigas de Santa María, compendium with more than four hundred reports of miracles and praises to the Virgin, versed in galician-portuguese. Book illuminators have enriched your offering with hundreds of illuminations and thousands of capitular letters. In addition, the verses were accompanied by musical notations, labor that handed to troubadours. In the work, there are three artistic expressions: Literature, Painting and Music. The medieval world is represented in the Cantigas, an artistic prototype of a fully lived reality. Submissive to the temporality of the source, the research began with the reading of the Cantigas and the selection of the most cited artistic supports. Sixteen cantigas and their illuminations make mention of Architecture are present in this work. To analyze the historical illuminations, the method of iconographic analysis of Erwin Panofsky was used. Jean-Claude Schmitt's proposal of articulation between image and text was essential for this book. The objective of this work is to show that Architecture was the artistic expression chosen by the craftsmen of the alfonso´s codex to represent the mental dimension of the marian cult, faith in which the gothic architecture dignified those who worked for this purpose, from the peasantry to the king, but above, the work of the Master builders, doctors in stone, the architects.