The Church of St. Martín of Frómista stands like a miracle of perfection where the Way of St. James crosses Palencia through Tierra de Campos.
Romanesque art found a severe, grave landscape in which to build a temple that was the centre of a monastery: the golden shine of the wheat plantations, which become brown, earthy wastelands in winter, combined with the infinite blue or starry skies of Castile, are the visual and symbolic horizons that accompany St. Martín of Frómista.
The church that can today be visited in Frómista belonged to a monastery that was built in a little village located on the Way of St. James. It was founded because the monarchs of León and Castille wished to set up a monastery in this location.
Whenever St. Martín of Frómista has been mentioned, there has always been praise for the formal perfection of its architectonic lines, the harmonious compensation of volumes, the constructive accuracy of its domes and pillars, the resulting structural balance and the imaginative wealth and freshness of the sculptures placed on the capitals and corbels as the most celebrated features of this jewel of Palentine Romanesque art.
Its character as a paradigmatic monument of the full Romanesque and its location on the Way of St. James mean that it receives numerous visitors from all over the world, who take pleasure in contemplating this essential monument of Romanesque art that was erected at the end of the 11th century.
