Las monedas de la ceca compostelana, ¿una clave para la reconstrucción de los ciclos pictóricos medievales de la catedral de Santiago?

The artistic and iconographic study of three coins from the Compostela mint preserved in the Museo das Peregrinacións e de Santiago provides essential clues to reconstruct the 12th-century iconographic cycles of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. The coins of the mint of Compostela are postulated as the primary source to understand the more official iconography connected with the chapter, and perhaps the only source that can still help us to reconstruct the decorative programs of the Basilica of Santiago. Two of the coins, one dinero and a half dinero or óbolo, display a bust of the Apostle Saint James on the obverse that allows us to establish connections with the famous miniature of the apostle in the Codex Calixtinus as well as with the missing paintings of the ciborium donated by Diego Gelmírez, whose portrait of the Saint seems to have been the official apostolic iconography before the construction of the Pórtico da la Gloria. Moreover, a third coin depicting the scene of the translatio is central to understanding the cult of saints Theodore and Athanasius, as well as an essential clue to writings and hypotheses about the possible presence of pictorial cycles relating to the Jacobean traditions and legends.