Arquitectura y arte de las órdenes religiosas en Zamora, 1939-1975. Rafael Ángel García-Lozano

Abstract

The importance that religious orders have had in shaping Western culture is beyond doubt. The European territory was shaped to a large extent by the transformative action of the monks, who colonized lands, drained swamps, planted forests, cultivated wastelands and built buildings —monasteries— where the ancestral knowledge of antiquity was preserved for centuries to later be spread through the new urban settlements that would emerge throughout the continent. The variety of religious orders never ceases to amaze. They present very different charismas: the solitary and the communal; those who live from their work and those who depend on charity; those who dedicate themselves to study and those who project their activity towards social assistance. In any case, they all intend to make visible some aspect of the Kingdom of God on this earth. Precisely, in May 2022, the first edition of the “Carisma e Creatività” congress was held in Rome, in which different initiatives that have been launched around the world were discussed to preserve and publicize the enormous heritage —artistic in general and liturgical in particular—which is often hidden in these buildings.