Ourense Cathedral
Late Romanesque cathedral in the Ourense old town, built around the polychrome Pórtico do Paraíso and a late Gothic lantern tower
Visit details
Overview
Ourense Cathedral is the granite cathedral of San Martiño, raised over the second half of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th on a Latin cross plan, with three naves divided by cruciform pillars and doubled pointed arches. It is late Romanesque caught in the act of turning Gothic, and it sits in the middle of the old town of Ourense with the streets wrapped around it.
The reason to pay the ticket is the Pórtico do Paraíso, a three-arched portal inside the west end covered in painted stone figures: prophets holding scrolls with their names, apostles with their books, and the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse tuning medieval instruments across the central arch. It follows the model set by the Pórtico da Gloria at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, roughly a century later and by other hands, which is exactly why it is worth seeing: less virtuoso, more colour, and a composition of its own.
The polychromy is the whole effect. Ourense never stripped its portal back to bare stone, so the prophets keep their red and gold and the elders keep their faces, and recent restoration work recovered much of what had gone dull. The paint you are looking at is not medieval: the current scheme is generally dated to the 18th century, applied over earlier Romanesque colouring. The portal was also reworked in the 16th century, when the star vault above it and the figure of San Martiño were put in place.
General admission is 10 euros and includes an audioguide in seven languages, the climb up the bell tower and the cathedral museum in the cloister, so it is a full morning rather than a quick look. Tourist entry is through the patín on Rúa Juan de Austria, not through the south door on Praza do Trigo. It is still a working cathedral with daily mass, and visits stop while services are on.
History
Before the stone you can see
The first bishops of Ourense are named from the 6th century onwards, and the dedication to St Martin of Tours goes back to a Suevic-period church whose location is still argued over. One school puts that early basilica on the same plot as the present cathedral; another puts it where the church of Santa María Madre now stands, pointing at the old marble columns and capitals reused in that church’s Baroque front.
Nothing above ground settles the question, and the gap in between is long. The Muslim invasion cost the city population and money, and the diocese did not recover until the repopulation carried out by Alfonso III around the year 900. Building on the scale you see today only became possible well after that. English-language accounts often repeat a foundation in 550 under the Suevic king Chararic, which belongs to the earlier church rather than to any wall now standing.
12th and 13th centuries: the building itself
Work on the present cathedral ran through the second half of the 12th century and into the first half of the 13th, and the high altar was consecrated in 1188. The prevailing style is Romanesque with the austerity of Cistercian work, already showing the construction habits that would become Gothic. The head of the church originally had three apses; only the central one survives.
The Pórtico do Paraíso went up inside the west end in the 13th century, under Compostelan influence but without Master Mateo. Its iconography runs the standard medieval catechism: Old Testament prophecy on one side, apostles on the other, Christ in the centre coming to judge, with trumpeting angels and the damned attached.
The finishing work is placed in the years of Bishop Lorenzo. Look at the mullion: a figure of St James the Apostle, in unusual iconography, is a reminder of the pilgrims who came through Ourense, and above him in a niche sits a rider with a drawn sword, San Martiño cutting his cloak in half for a beggar. Two Baroque altars were later added at the sides, one to the Virxe de Belén and one to San Francisco Branco, an Ourense martyr who died in Japan in 1597, with two anonymous 18th-century paintings of San Cristovo and San Ildefonso on the walls.
15th and 16th centuries: towers, lantern and retable
The north front tells you the city was not always peaceful. Its two flanking turrets give the cathedral the look of a fortress, and they are usually read against the destruction of 1471, when Rodrigo Alonso de Pimentel, count of Benavente, attacked a city then under the protection of the count of Lemos.
The lantern tower over the crossing was raised by master Rodrigo de Badajoz between 1499 and 1505 in dense late Gothic, an octagon ringed by twelve tall windows 28 metres up, put there because the thick Romanesque walls below let in almost no light. On the balcony inside stand the Twelve Apostles, one to each window. The 16th century also gave the Capela Maior its retable by Cornelis de Holanda, paid for by Bishop Orlando Carretto della Rovere, and the crossing screen by Juan Bautista Celma.
16th to 18th centuries: the Santo Cristo and the ambulatory
The Santo Cristo did not start where it is now. The figure originally hung in an arcosolium beside the north door, and the present chapel was built for it in the 16th century, the work of Juan Bautista Celma.
What fills it is later and Baroque. The baldachin over the image is by Domingo de Andrade, who did the same job in the Capela Maior at Santiago, and the retables are by Castro Canseco of León, holding an alabaster Virxe Branca and a San Mauro by Francisco de Moure. Against all that sits the Renaissance choir stalls by Diego Solís and Juan de Angés, moved here in part after the 1938 reform of the church. Lamps donated to the Christ hang from the ceiling, along with ship ex-votos left by sailors.
Building the ambulatory meant cutting into the original triple-apse head of the church, to make room for chapels through the 17th century and for upper windows to light the walkway, on a design by Simón de Monesterio whose death set the works back badly. The cathedral was declared a national monument on 3 June 1931. The unfinished Gothic cloister, the Claustra Nova, has held the cathedral’s treasury collection since 1954.
Visiting
Tourist entry is by the patín on Rúa Juan de Austria. Opening is Monday to Wednesday 10:00 to 15:00 and 16:00 to 19:00, Thursday to Saturday 10:00 to 19:00 straight through, and Sunday 13:30 to 19:00, with last admission 45 minutes before each closing time. The cathedral closes on 24, 25 and 31 December and on 1 January.
General admission is 10 euros for ages 18 to 64. Over 65s and holders of a youth card aged 13 to 18, plus university students up to 25, pay 9 euros; pilgrims 7 euros; groups over 20 people 6 euros each; school groups 3.50 euros and secondary-school groups 4 euros. Children under 12 go free, and residents of the Ourense diocese pay 2 euros. Tickets are sold at the desk and online.
The standard visit is self-guided with an audioguide included in the price, available in Galician, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, German and Italian. The route runs from the new cloister and the epistle nave to the Pórtico do Paraíso, then along the north side through the Virxe das Neves chapel, the Gothic tomb of the Infanta and the San Xoán chapel to the Capela do Santo Cristo, on through the chapels of the Conversion of St Paul, the Immaculate and the Cristo dos Desamparados to the high altar, and finishes at the south doorway, the lantern tower and the bell tower.
Two stops on that route deserve more than the audioguide gives them. In the Capela Maior, the Cornelis de Holanda retable is laid out like an open prayer book in a grid of pierced canopies, with the Assumption and San Martiño in pontifical dress at the centre and 18th-century side sections by Castro Canseco added to hold relics of Santos Facundo e Primitivo and Santa Eufemia. Nearby is the Gothic tomb attributed to Bishop Núñez de Novoa. In the Santo Cristo chapel, go in through Celma’s Renaissance grille and look up at the baldachin before the retables pull your eye sideways.
The bell tower is part of the ordinary ticket, which visitors regularly miss. It stands over 40 metres on the west front facing Praza de San Martiño, is crowned by the cathedral’s eight bells, and the top gives you the whole city. The tower breaks the symmetry of that front, because the matching Torre de San Martiño on the right corner was never built.
The museum collection in the Claustra Nova is covered by the same audioguide ticket, so there is no second desk to queue at. Special visits run on top of the standard route: the roof tour on Fridays and Saturdays at 11:00 for one hour, at 14 euros general, 8 euros for 13 to 17 year olds and 4 euros for children up to 12; the tombs tour Thursday to Saturday at 11:00, 12:00 and 13:00 for 45 minutes at 12 euros; and Ourense Sagrado, a 90-minute guided walk taking in Santa Eufemia, Santa María Nai, Santo Domingo and the cathedral, Fridays and Saturdays at 12:00 for 20 euros. All of them need a minimum of five people and a booking by phone or email.
Mass is at 8:00 and 20:00 on weekdays in the Capela do Santo Cristo, with the Saturday 20:00 mass in Galician, and on Sundays and feast days at 10:30, 12:00 and 20:00 at the high altar. Tourist visits and photography are not allowed during services, and worshippers go in by the north door.
Tips
-
Do not arrive at 14:45 on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Those three days split into 10:00 to 15:00 and 16:00 to 19:00, and last admission is 45 minutes before each closing, so the door effectively shuts at 14:15 and again at 18:15. Thursday to Saturday runs straight through and is the easier bet.
-
Sunday mornings are a write-off for visitors. The cathedral does not open to tourists until 13:30, and the three Sunday masses are at 10:30, 12:00 and 20:00.
-
Go in by the patín on Rúa Juan de Austria. The south front on Praza do Trigo is the one with the battlements, and it looks like the way in, but the ticket desk is on the north side.
-
Take the audioguide seriously rather than treating it as a formality. It is included in the 10 euro ticket, runs in seven languages including English, and there is a children’s version written as a game for younger visitors.
-
Climb the bell tower before you leave. It is in the standard ticket and most visitors walk out of the west door without realising.
-
Do not treat the museum as an add-on. The Claustra Nova holds the Misal Auriense of 1494, the oldest surviving book printed in Galicia, and the San Rosendo treasure from Celanova, which includes eight Fatimid chess pieces in rock crystal where the knights have been replaced by elephants.
The Romanesque doorway into the museum is worth a pause on its own: a double round arch with foliage decoration, figured capitals and a tympanum showing the Agnus Dei dated to 1200, by the same hand as the cathedral’s other portals. Inside, the 13th-century Limoges altar frontal keeps 53 enamelled copper plaques, among them a San Martiño with the donor bishop at his feet. Ourense has no coast, which makes the ship ex-votos in the collection odd company for the chalices.
-
Book the special visits ahead by phone or email rather than turning up. The roof, tombs and Ourense Sagrado tours all need at least five people to run, so a solo traveller depends on an existing group.
-
Check the opening times again a day or two before you go. The cathedral posts one-off schedules around feast days and the Novena do Santo Cristo, when opening shifts to a 12:30 start on some days.
-
Bring a jumper. The interior is granite and deliberately unlit beyond what the lantern windows let in from 28 metres up, and it stays cold when the city outside does not.
Know this destination? Help us improve
Your local experience is valuable to other travelers.