Village
Toro is a city and municipality in Zamora province, in Castile and León, situated in the heart of the Duero floodplain, about 33 kilometres from the provincial capital; with 8,336 inhabitants, it has been a conjunto histórico-artístico (a Spanish heritage protection listing) since 1963 and is the seat of the Toro designation of origin, which gives its name to the vineyards covering much of its municipal area, the largest in the province at 325 km². It was a city of special importance between the 12th and 16th centuries, a royal seat and a venue for the Cortes; its historic centre preserves the 10th-century alcázar and monumental jewels such as the Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor, raised on a rise near the Duero, which crosses the municipality from east to west. Toro serves as the district capital over the nineteen municipalities of the so-called Alfoz de Toro.
Monument
The Portal of the Majesty is the old main doorway, facing south, of the collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor in Toro (Zamora). It was built in the 13th century —historians debate whether around 1240 or already in the time of Sancho IV— and its sculpted programme narrates, on the trumeau, the lintel and the tympanum, the life of the Virgin, and on the outer archivolt the Last Judgement, with a Christ in Majesty that gives the ensemble its name, also called the Portal of the Last Judgement or of Paradise. Carved in sandstone from Aldeanuela by masters possibly from León, it retains much of its original medieval polychromy, discovered during the restoration of 1980 to 1990, whose recovery required some fourteen years of work.
Monument
The transept of Santa María la Mayor is crowned by a lantern tower of hexadecagonal plan, a piece of the celebrated group of Leonese lantern towers to which those of the cathedrals of Zamora, Plasencia and the old cathedral of Salamanca belong.
Curiosity
The Virgin of the Fly is an oil panel measuring 92 by 79 centimetres kept in the sacristy of the Collegiate Church of Toro, with no documentation to clarify its origin. It owes its name to the insect -musca depicta- painted with such realism on the red of the Virgin's mantle that it forms a trompe-l'œil, a display of virtuosity that made it famous. The scene, a sacred conversation with the enthroned Virgin and Child, includes an unidentified saint, the Magdalene and a seated figure identified as Santa Catalina, although her features recall Isabella the Catholic. Attributed to Michel Sittow, Fernando Gallego or the circle of Gerard David, a 1966 restoration dated it between 1518 and 1525, already in the 16th century; a later study attributes it to the Master of la Santa Sangre.
Monument
The monastery of Sancti Spiritus el Real, founded by Teresa Gil in 1307 and declared a monument on 27 September 1943, houses beneath a Mudejar coffered ceiling, in the choir of its church, the alabaster tomb of Beatrice of Portugal, queen consort of Castile through her marriage to John I, who withdrew to Toro after the truce of 1411 and died around 1420. The queen's recumbent statue crowns a chest decorated with reliefs: on the front, the Calvary between two angels; on one side, six Dominican saints between niches; at the foot, the Annunciation. The plinth shows ten lions alongside the coats of arms of the kingdom of Portugal. Also resting nearby are Teresa Gil, the founder, and Leonor Sánchez de Castilla, prioress of the monastery and granddaughter of Alfonso XI.
Monument
The church of San Lorenzo el Real, Gothic-Mudejar in brick raised in the late 12th century and declared Monumento Nacional (Spain's heritage designation in force until 1931) on 18 May 1929, holds an altarpiece by the Hispano-Flemish painter Fernando Gallego.
Historical milestone
The Battle of Toro was fought on 1 March 1476 near this town in Zamora, as part of the Castilian War of Succession, between the troops of the Catholic Monarchs, supporters of Isabella, and those of Alfonso V of Portugal and his son Prince John, who backed Juana la Beltraneja. The outcome was uncertain: Prince John defeated the right wing of the Castilian army, but the rest of Ferdinand's troops defeated Alfonso V. Despite this indecisive outcome, the battle was a great political victory for the Catholic Monarchs, who thus secured the throne for Isabella and laid the foundations for the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon.
Historical milestone
The Laws of Toro are the result of the legislative activity of the Catholic Monarchs, settled after the death of Isabella the Catholic on the occasion of the meeting of the Cortes in the city of Toro. Promulgated on 7 March 1505 in the name of Queen Joanna I of Castile, they form a body of eighty-three laws that governed Castilian civil law —entailed estates, marriage and inheritance— over the following centuries. The initiative stemmed from the will of Isabella herself, who entrusted the task to a commission of jurists including the Bishop of Cordoba and the doctors Díaz de Montalvo, Lorenzo Galíndez de Carvajal and Juan López de Palacios Rubios. They were established to compensate and attract the loyalty of the nobility, so that the patrimony of noble families would pass intact to the firstborn.
Nature
The city looks out from its cliff over the flood plain of the Duero, crossed since the fifteenth century by the main bridge; on the scarp the alcazar was raised as early as the tenth century, built with limestone and river cobbles from the river itself.
Food and drink
The Toro designation of origin rests on the tinta de Toro, a native red grape variety grown mainly in this district of Zamora; a DNA study by the Madrid Institute for Agricultural and Food Research confirmed in 2000 that it is genetically the tempranillo grape, although locally it is also known as tinta fino. It is a noble grape, of great finesse and highly aromatic, with a fruity flavour and the ruby colour characteristic of young wines, yielding wines of quality and long ageing thanks to its low oxidative level. Its wines and the grape-harvest festival mark, together with carnival and Holy Week, the festive calendar of the city of Toro.