Acceso usuarios
Patrick Lenaghan
In The Hispanic Society of America are two of the three monuments that made up the funerary ensemble which Beltrán de la Cueva erected in the church of San Francisco in Cuéllar. After the monastery was disbanded, the art it once held was dispersed. Although impressive sculptures, the Hispanic Society monuments have not enjoyed the widespread recognition they deserve. Scholars have not been able to establish the ensemble’s attribution and history completely. The focus on style has obscured the tombs’ function, while this emphasis forms part of cultural history whereby such works are considered more as aesthetic objects than part of a religious worldview. By reconstructing the tombs digitally and examining them in terms of the concept of sacred and seriality, I hope to suggest other ways to interpret these works. A greater continuity emerges with Gothic predecessors. The type continues to play the same role, and the stylistic difference we see may not have constituted a major shift for contemporaries. At the same time, some subtle details emerge. As the classical features call attention to themselves more insistently, the question arises as to how a contemporary audience would have interpreted them specifically in a funerary context. Spaniards did not feel the same direct tie to ancient Rome that Italians did. Antique or Italianate forms could well suggest the ancient world, but as a golden age of piety and unity whether in early Christian Rome or in Iberia under the Visigoths.
