THE BUILDING

---

---

SANTO TORIBIO. Plano del monasterio

The first structure of the monastery was surely a simple one, within the Pre-Romanic style, perhaps an Asturian or Mozarabic type.
During the X and XI centuries lots of monasteries had spread along the valleys of Liébana. The present church was built in 1256, with the parishioners' economic support, favoured by indulgences offered to such an end by the bishop Fernando.
The temple follows the monastic Gothic style of the Cisterciense-type, clear lines and spaces and the ornamental sobriety that characterizes the architecture followed by the San Bernardo Order. It has a tree-polygonal abses head and a three-nave body of a similar height. All the vaults are of a cross-ribbed type and some of them have reinforcing ribs.
The limited decoration is centred on the capitals. The ones in the main apse have figurative decoration with human heads and animals such as the bull and the bear, which according to the legend helped Saint Toribio to build the church. In this same apse it is worshipped the image of Our Lady of the Angels, dating form the 16th century.
The lying statue of Santo Toribio is kept in the Gospell apse. It is carved in elm wood from Burgos and it is said to have been in the monastery since at least 1316. It preserves its original polychromy.
The southern façade with the two doorways outstands from the exterior. The biggest is the main one, which ends in a pointed arch surrounded by archivolts that lie on capitals with symbolic displays referring to the Sacraments. The second porch, called the Forgiveness door, stands towards the right, embedded, next to a buttress. It opens solemnly on the Jubilee. At the foot of the building there is a tower with bells and in the interior we find the choir.
The decadence of the monastery stars during the modern age when numerous churches of the area which so far had dependen on the monastery were changed into parish churches. Hence its monastic life definitely ended with La Desamortización de Mendizábal (sale of church lands) in 1837.
In 1961, after the restoration of the ruinous building, a community of Franciscans took charge of the monastery - they still do, reminding us of the tradition that alludes to San Francisco as a visitor of Santo Toribio (the monastery) in his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
The pointed arches in the porch, next to the abses in the temple, give way to the monastic cloister, built in the 17th century following the Herrerian guidelines, where an admirable Jesús Otero's relief represents Beato at his scriptorium (desk).