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| San Juan de Duero |
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| The San Juan de Duero monastery is located outside the ancient walls of the city of Soria, on the left bank of river Duero. It was built by the military order Hospitaler Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Nowadays only the church and the cloister from the whole monastery complex are still stand. The monastery stood intact from its foundation in the 12th century until the 18th century and was declared National Monument on 1882.
The location of this monastery helped to fulfil the Knights of St. John order’s aim. Their hospitality, assistance, protection and hosting for pilgrims, walkers and people without resources, could be better served in the city’s surrounding areas. The monastery was therefore situated near the city’s access bridge, built over a previous church. During the 12th century up to 35 temples were built in Soria in the different city quarters. |
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Cloister:
The cloister, adjacent to the church’s southern facade, is compound of four different arcades and forms an irregular quadrilateral. The north-western side is typically Romanesque, with semicircular arches over a solid basement. The north-eastern side has no basement and presents shafted fourfold cross-shaped columns and tumid arches. The southeast vertex is compound of channelled columns with squared section and crossing tumid arches. Finally, the southwest vertex presents columns with double circular shaft and ornamented capitals and over them crossing pointed arches.
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| The cloister was built in two phases: fist the Romanesque part and then the rest at the beginning of the 13th century. Its layout helped to distribute the other monastery’s dependencies: the church to the North, the lodges to the East and orchard to the South. |
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Church:
The Romanesque church is built in a rural style, a simple design with a single-hall nave and apse. Built using masonry walls and featuring reinforced arches and ashlar domes.
The church was built over a previous temple constructed in the 12th century using the Romanesque style. It’s orientated (as used in the Middle Age) East-West, in order to officiate facing the raising sun (identifying light with divinity). The sanctuary has an oven vault in ashlar, lower than the presbytery with a pointed barrel vault.
The nave is built with formwork masonry, infrequent in the religious Romanesque in Soria. It was however a commonly used system in defensive architecture, thanks to its effectivity and rapidity. To hide the poverty of the materials, but also as a way of healthiness, the inside and outside walls were plastered. The inside walls were also decorated. |
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Shrines:
The Hospitalers placed two small shrines on the two lateral sides of the arch of triumph that connects the nave with the sanctuary. The shrines have nerved vaults and capitals and cantilevers are decorated with figures, fantastic beings and Biblical passages.
The shrines were attached around the year 1200 and were built over four shafted free-standing columns, based on attic bases. The vaults lay on big capitals and they are semi spherical on the Gospel side and conical on the Epistle side. The vaults are covered with mortar and that gives them a rough appearance. Inside the shrines there are groined vaults, with extremely thick ribs with a decorative function. |
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