The design of the Renaissance cloister of the Cathedral of Zamora

Abstract

The Rule of the five orders of Architecture of Iacome de Vignola had a great influence on architecture. The objective of this work is to analyse in depth the influence of his drawings, which has often been commented on but rarely analysed in concrete cases. Here, I analyse the project created by the architect Ribero Rada in 1592 for the new cloister of the cathedral of Zamora following the fire that destroyed the previous Romanesque cathedral. The project managed to fit a classicist language of a grandiose nature, in accordance with the aesthetic aspirations of the time, into the reduced space available; a language in which the influence of the Italian artist is very clear. In this paper, the proportions proposed by Vignola for the Doric portico, with and without pedestal, have been studied. Afterwards, a floor plan and an elevation of the side of the cloister has been drawn, taking extra care with the representation of the architectural order, and the proportions proposed in the Italian treatise have been superimposed. It has thus been possible to see the close relation between both sets of proportions, as well as the skilful work of Ribero Rada to find a solution to a real problem, as the construction of the cloister in such a small and limited space actually was.