Pope Francis extended last 2021 the Jacobean Holy Year until 2022, so the Museum of the Ways, in the initiative of the Piece of the Month, continues the santiaguista tradition of presenting each month of the year a work related to the Camino de Santiago in the Diocese of Astorga. It inaugurates this month of January with a chalice from Destriana.
This splendid work of goldsmithing, an example of the remarkable Asturian silverwork that developed from the late Gothic period and extended into the following centuries, is proposed as the piece of the month for January 2022.
From the small town of Destriana in Leon, rich in history and which preserves a magnificent liturgical trousseau, this chalice is one of its most notable pieces.
Its foot, with a high rim, is divided into six petals delimited by a cord, interspersed between them by an equal number of spikes, which sit on a finely fretworked base. It is decorated with a phytomorphic background and twelve scallops that are staggered decorating its entire perimeter.
The node has a hexagonal architectural structure with buttresses and pinnacles on the edges and a vaulted roof divided into six sections where again six shells decorate each one of them, as in the faces of the mast. This is ornamented with a fine fretwork that embellishes it even more.
The sub-cup is decorated with scallops and leaves and the cup shows an inscription: “AGNUS DEI QUI TOLLIS PECCATA MV”. It is usual in eucharistic pieces of this chronology.
The use of the shell as an ornamental motif, recurrent in this work, allows it to be integrated into the group of works related to the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.
Since 2008 this magnificent 16th century chalice has been part of the collection of the Museo de los Caminos, which exhibits the chapter related to the iconography of Santiago de Compostela in the Sala Provisorato on the first floor of the Gaudí Palace. It can be visited, as well as the Gaudí Palace, every day from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the mornings and from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the afternoons.