Toro - Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor

The town of Toro lies on a plateau above the Duero River about 40 km east of Zamora.

In medieval times Toro had some importance. Ferdinand III of Castile was crowned king in Toro in 1230, his wife Elisabeth of Swabia died here five years later.

The large collegiate church Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor, whose construction began in 1160 under Alfonso VII, but lasted possibly even until the end of the 13th century. During the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, it was elevated to a collegiate church.

The architectural highlight of the church building is the two-story crossing tower (“cimborrio”) with its sixteen-sided floor plan, with four sides being particularly highlighted by round corner towers, which serve both for architectural decoration and for static stabilization. While the corner towers in the lower part hardly have any architectural decoration, the two levels of the central tower with their windows - accompanied by small columns and ending in oriental-looking multi-aisle arches - are designed in exactly the same way.

While the main portal is Gothic (see previous uploads), the north portal is Romanesque. The orchestra of the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse are populating the outer archivolt. The two Elders in the center play a kind of psalterion (psaltery).