Santo Domingo de Silos: The Miraculous Monastery of Music and Mystery

The monastery that became an international sensation for its chants is not a hidden gem, but the details of its unexpected stardom are not spoken of as widely. Santo Domingo de Silos, in the village of Santo Domingo de Silos in Burgos Province, Spain, dates back to the Visigothic period of the 7th century. In the 11th century, the abbey was known as San Sebastián de Silos, but it was renamed Santo Domingo de Silos by Fernando the Great, King of Castile and León.

The abbey was recreated under the management of the monk Dominic of Silos, who was entrusted to renovate it by Fernando the Great after it had been driven out by King García Sánchez III of Navarre. Dominic designed the church at the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos to have a central nave with two side aisles. When Dominic died in 1073, the rest of the construction was passed on to Abbot Fortunius, who completed the project. The church was later rebuilt by neoclassical architect Ventura Rodríguez.

The monastery, which is named after the 11th-century saint Dominic of Silos, was shut down in 1835 along with other monasteries in Spain. The foundation was revived by Benedictine monks from Solesmes in France in 1880. The two-storey cloister of the monastery, which consists of large capitals with carved scenes, and also relief panels, is considered a masterpiece of Romanesque art. The cloister is an angled rectangular shape with 16 semi-circular arches on the north and south sides and 14 semi-circular arches on the west and east sides. Its construction was completed during the last quarter of the 11th century and the second half of the 12th century. Today, the monastery’s cloisters are open to the public, and visitors are able to attend services such as vespers in the abbey church.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons