Basílica de San Isidoro

11th-century basilica with Spain's finest Romanesque royal crypt

This Romanesque basilica predates the cathedral and, in the opinion of many visitors, surpasses it. The church was built in the 11th and 12th centuries over an earlier structure to house the relics of Saint Isidore of Seville, brought here from Muslim-controlled Seville in 1063.

The exterior is severe and solid — this is a fortress-church. Inside, the proportions are more intimate than Gothic, and the Romanesque arches create a sense of weight and permanence. The adjacent museum holds the treasury and a remarkable collection of Romanesque art, Flemish tapestries, and manuscripts, but the highlight is the Panteón de los Reyes: twelve royal tombs beneath a ceiling covered in 12th-century frescoes that have barely faded in nine centuries.

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The Panteón de los Reyes, the royal crypt beneath the basilica, was built in the 11th century as a burial place for the kings of León. Its ceiling is covered in some of the finest Romanesque frescoes in Europe — so well preserved that art historians call it the Sistine Chapel of Romanesque art. The kings of one of medieval Europe's most powerful kingdoms lie in plain stone sarcophagi directly beneath these extraordinary paintings.

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