Page 182 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Northern Spain

180  NOR THERN SP AIN REGION B Y REGION

6 Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña

The history of this imposing monastery dates from
the Moorish invasion, when hermit-monks, fleeing
the Moors, settled here. According to legend it was an
early guardian of the Holy Grail. In the 11th century
it joined the Benedictine order, and became the first
monastery to use the Latin Mass in Spain. The central
part of the monastery is on two floors. The lower one
is a primitive crypt built in the early 10th century,
while the upper floor contains an 11th-century
church. After a fire in the 17th century, the building View of the Monastery
This magnificent Romanesque monastery
was abandoned in favour of a newer one further is half-concealed under a bulging rock
up the hillside. This was later sacked by Napoleon’s overhang (peña).
troops, but it has since been restored and now
houses an inter pretation centre and a hotel.

. Old Monastery
The oldest part of the complex is the
lower Mozarabic church, built in 920 on
the site of an earlier rock-hewn shrine
dedicated to St John the Baptist.

Holy Grail
According to legend, the
chalice used at the Last Supper
was hidden in the monastery
to prevent its cap ture by
the Moors. A replica is in
the central apse of the
upper church.

KEY
1 Romanesque church Royal Pantheon
2 Museum The 18th-century
Neoclassical Pantheon,
3 The Lower Church features whose walls are
12th-century Romanesque murals. decorated with historical
Some of the abbots are also stucco reliefs, contains
buried here. the stacked tombs of the
4 7th-century Capilla de San early Aragonese kings:
Voto y San Félix Ramiro I, Sancho Ramírez
and Pedro I.
For hotels and restaurants see p207 and pp222–3

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