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Portico de la Majestad of the Collegiate at Toro (Zamora, Spain)


The Pórtico de la Majestad is the western entrance of the Collegiate Church Santa María La Mayor (s.XII), an eloquent evidence of the importance the city of Toro (Zamora, Spain),had in the Middle Ages, and was built under the patronage of King Sancho IV and his wife Doña María de Molina.  The Pórtico de la Majestad (s. XIII), of Gothic style, stands out because of the richness of its original polychrome painting, the work of the master painter Domingo Pérez, that was discovered during the restorations carried out along the 80's. .The sixth archivolt is decorated with 18 musicians placed just in the limit between the space devoted to the Glorification of the Virgin and that reserved to the second iconographic subject, the Last Judgment. The musicians can be associated to either subject or to both. In the representations of the Last Judgment, or Déesis, it was usual to include the 24 elderly men of St. John's Revelations with their musical instruments. So, in this case, we may be in the presence of a reduced particular version of it, where the musicians are not all bearded old men but also adults and even young shaved men, all of them wearing tunics and crowns.

                                             
                                                  Estudio musicologico por Luis Delgado

 Musical instruments have been widely represented during the gothic period and there are endless quotes on their different names. But no representation had footnotes on it. Therefore, the names of the instruments given in our list, like in many others, are to be taken with a certain reserve, because musicologists and researchers haven't still managed to agree on a certain homologation. In the same sense, almost every conclusion presented in the following notes are mere reflections subject and opened to other views and opinions which will not only be welcome but necessary.
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     Arrangement

 Several objective details deserve to be underlined, though, for the enormous significance involved. One of them was entered by the luthier Jesús Reolid, who noticed the organological symmetry of the instruments included in the sixth archivolt of the portico. In fact, instruments are symmetrically matched, in such a way that they make what we would call today a "balanced stereo". From left to right and starting from the bottom we find the following patern

          Viola        Nº9
   Nº10   Viola  
     Bagpipe        Nº8
   Nº11    Rustic flute
        Drum         Nº7
   Nº12    Tambourine
Aerophone        Nº6
   Nº13    Bagpipe 
    Psaltery         Nº5
   Nº14     Citole   
    Psaltery         Nº4
   Nº15    Psaltery
         Harp         Nº3
   Nº16    Harp       
Hurdy-Gurdy    Nº2
   Nº17    Viola     
        Citole         Nº1
   Nº18    Citole   
ver mas

 In the first level there are plucked strings, bowed strings in the second, harps in the third, psalteries in the fourth, plucked strings in the fifth, aerophones in the sixth, percussion in the seventh, aerophones again in the eighth, and, finally, bowed strings in the last level. This tells us a lot about the musical concern of the representation, as instruments are not arbitrarily arranged, but carefully placed so that the hypothetical sound of the "orchestra" is acoustically balanced.

     Musicological reliance

 The Portico shows rather atypical instruments compared to other contemporary representations. the musicological reliance of these representations is usually questioned but, according to Mary Remnant in her "History of Musical Instruments" (1989), "The argument of the artistic licence or of the mistake is relevant indeed, and a final test would be required in order to verify whether the instrument depicted could be played. If it couldn't, the reason could either be the limited knowledge of the artist or just that he never tried to be meticulous or precise, as we can imagine from so many fantastic drawings and representation available. Sometimes a correct instrument is held in an impracticable position due to symmetrical requirements in the composition or to some other reason. For instance, an angel in the ceiling of a church may be pointing his instrument downwards so that it can be seen from below, while a wooden or stone carved instrument can be sustained in an adapted position to prevent it from breaking. Anyhow, on many occasions, obvious artistic licences or mistakes do not necessarily mean that the whole instrument is false". We could add to the illustrative text by M. Remnant that, on many other occasions too, extremely sophisticated and precise luthier details can be observed in spite of the obvious difficulties involved for the artist.
 The truth is that the work of those carvers representing scenes, attires, architectures and also musical instruments, gives us the opportunity to reproduce them and, in consequence, to listen to the sound that accompanied the festivals and celebrations of that period.
 The Pórtico de la Majestad is a time trip and allows our eyes to rest on the same stones our ancestors used to gaze while crossing the Collegiate square during their daily activities or when, on the great events, they became entranced, looking up at these sculptures, astonished at the skills of their makers. It is a joyful event for us to be able to enjoy them in our days.

Luis Delgado