Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos

The monastery of Silos dates from the 7th century, although its most important part was built in the 11th century.

The building is located on the site known as the Tabladillo valley. It is thought to have been founded in around the 7th century. In the year 1088 a Romanesque temple was consecrated which was subsequently replaced by another Neoclassical temple designed by Ventura Rodríguez. The cloister, which has been conserved, is Romanesque, with a square floor plan and two floors of arcades. The capitals in the lower cloister are profusely decorated with symbols such as dragons, centaurs, lattices, mermaids, etc. The corners of the cloister are decorated with large reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The monastery also has an important archive containing fragments from the 10th century Beatus, a page from the Oña Bible, other fragments of Visigoth manuscripts, and musical fragments from some twenty codices in Aquitaine notation.