Santiago de Compostela .

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
Prior to the ninth century, the city of Santiago did not exist as such. However, archaeological excavations have shown that in the place now occupied by the historic city, settled in antiquity a Roman villa that could reach a certain importance and that persisted until the seventh century, to the reign of the Swabians. Along the walls of the Roman “civitas” was erected in the first century, the pagan mausoleum that later gave rise to the cathedral. There is no doubt that in the same century, in that mausoleum three Christian martyrs were buried or prolonged cult around the tomb, as shown by the nearby Christian cemetery that was used until the seventh century.
In the early ninth century (813 is the most likely) the bishop of Iria Flavia, Teodomiro, on the advice of a hermit named Pelagius, examined the mausoleum acknowledged as the Apostle Santiago, based on the oral tradition according to which James had preached in Spanish “finis terrae” and suffered martyrdom after his return to Palestine. The disciples Atanasio and Teodoro brought his decapitated body again, and it landed in Iria Flavia, twenty km, and moved to Mount Libredón, where he was buried in a stone chest, says the legend.
The Asturian King Alfonso II traveled from Oviedo with all his court and recognized the existence of the tomb of St. James, declaring at that moment patron saint of the kingdom and turning the place into a center of worship capable of uniting Western Christendom against the Muslim expansion. The foundation of the city dates from the year 830. Santiago’s first church, a simple temple that housed inside the mausoleum from Roman times were also built.
The dimension Santiago de Compostela continues as a cultural and university town, and as a meeting point for people from around the world, reached its realization in different urban interventions, for their quality and uniqueness, actively participate in the global dialogue of the vanguard architectural and urban planning of this new century, such as the Auditorio de Galicia, the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC), the faculty of Journalism, the reorganization of Xoan XXIII avenue, with a large canopy in flight, dockside buses and outstanding performances and publicly Library, the Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions, the park of San Domingos de Bonaval, the City of Culture … along with numerous, elegant green spaces, the opening of new public spaces, sculptures scattered throughout the cityscape, so make Compostela a city in which live, in a unique way, past and future. Tradition and modernity.