La “Translatio” de Santiago en la Iconografía Jacobea del Siglo XII

Abstract

The translatio of Santiago played an important part in twelfth-century art. Although the text of the Gelmírez scriptorium was at first not mentioned, during the latter stages the translatio was repeatedly quoted in the Codex Calixtinus and, as we suggest, could have been part of the decorative cycles from the cathedral. The important hagiographical sources, the use of the scene in one of the earliest coins from Compostela, dating from the reign of Fernando II, and the dissemination of the iconography in the Mediterranean, appearing in the Basilica of San Crisogono in 1128, lend support to this hypothesis. The continuing archaeological digs, which were consistently performed in the city of Santiago de Compostela and other places associated with the pilgrimage, made way for the emergence of the Gelmírez coins, the iconography of which could help to establish the suggested interpretation.