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The founding of the monastery of Melón

Melón, Ribeiro, Ourense

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Historical milestones

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The founding of the monastery of Melón

Historical milestone · Melón, Ribeiro, Ourense

Image of Melón, not of the place itself.

The monastery of Santa María de Melón, in transitional Romanesque style, was founded in 1158 by monks who came from Clairvaux, who for centuries organised the settlement and the vineyards of this westernmost corner of the Ribeiro: in the 13th century it came to hold possessions in Vigo, O Porriño and Redondela, from where it traded the wine of the banks of the Avia. It remained inhabited until 1835, when Mendizábal's disentailment caused its abandonment and ruin; much of its stone was sold to build the church of A Cañiza. Declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (a former Spanish heritage-protection category) in 1931, it preserves the semicircular portal flanked by turrets with arrow slits and the ruins of two cloisters, one of them from the 16th century with star vaulting, as well as the chancel with its Gothic ambulatory.

1158

Photo: Freecat (José Antonio Gil Martínez) from Vigo, Galicia (CC BY 2.0)

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