The fire is starting with Huesca. This Thursday, in the Peñas de Riglos, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) was faced with the challenge of having to save people, telecommunications infrastructure and assets almost simultaneously. For the latter, technicians from the Government of Aragon and members of the UME rescued the skeletal remains of the royal pantheon from the Old Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, as well as other medieval assets and remains of enormous artistic and historical value.
A critical moment was experienced in the early hours of Thursday afternoon, as recognized by the vice president and advisor of the Presidency, Justice, Culture and Sports, Mar Vaquero. The flames reached the foot of the monastery. The UME entrusted the mission to a team specialized in heritage protection.
After breaking down the door, the UME specialists recovered the clothing of the 10th Count of Aranda and some archaeological remains. From the monastery they extracted the remains of the three Aragonese kings who rest in the pantheon of San Juan de la Peña: Ramiro I, Sancho Ramírez and Pedro I. They also rescued the urns that preserve bone remains of the royal lineage, and fragments of mural painting and replicas of jewelry and other relics.
Linked to the birth of the Kingdom of Aragon
The Monastery of San Juan de la Peña is one of the great symbols of the heritage and history of Aragon. It is located near Botaya, in the municipality of Jaca. It was the most important monastery in Aragon in the early Middle Ages and is linked to the birth of the kingdom.
It is a unique construction because it is built under the rock, sheltered by the mountain. According to the technicians, precisely this has saved this Romanesque jewel from the flames. Inside, the pre-Romanesque church stands out, the paintings of San Cosme and San Damiano (12th century), the so-called Pantheon of Nobles, the upper church, consecrated in 1094, the Gothic chapel of San Victorián and, above all, the Romanesque cloister.
The construction of the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña began in the year 1026 at the initiative of Sancho el Mayor of Pamplona. In the year 1071, King Sancho Ramírez handed over the existing complex to the Cluniac monks and favored its reform. At this moment the complex that remains today was built, to a greater or lesser extent. The construction of the cloister ended well into the 12th century.
The kings of Aragon
On the upper floor is the royal pantheon, which occupies the rooms of the old sacristy of the upper church, which dates back to the 11th century. It was renovated by Carlos III in 1770, following the instructions, among others, of the Count of Aranda, who wanted to be buried in the atrium. That is its current appearance.
For five centuries, some of the monarchs of Aragon were buried in this pantheon, and therefore, from the beginning of the kingdom, this place was considered of capital importance. The royal pantheon houses the remains of some Navarrese monarchs who reigned in Aragon, of the first Aragonese counts and of the three initial kings of the Ramirense dynasty, Ramiro I, Sancho Ramírez, Pedro I, along with their wives.
A few centuries of Holy Grail
Legend has it that the Holy Grail remained in San Juan de la Peña from 1071 to 1399. It was moved from the cathedral of Jaca because the monastery was the first place in Spain where a mass with the Roman rite was celebrated for the first time in the Kingdom of Aragon. It occurred on March 22, 1071, replacing the Mozarabic rite. In 1437, the Holy Grail was deposited along with practically the entire reliquary of the House of Aragon in the cathedral of Valencia.
In 1889 the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña was awarded the title of National Monument and in 1920 that of National Site. In 2004, the Government of Aragon completed its declaration as an Asset of Cultural Interest with the protection of the monastic complex and its surroundings.
The New Monastery
After centuries of economic hardship from a fire in 1675, the monastery's congregation of Tarragona Benedictines approved the move to a new building located on the nearby San Indalecio plain. The New Monastery of San Juan de Peña was completed in 1714 and the community of monks settled there until 1835.
