The Portico de la Gloria (Portico da Gloria in Galician) is a Roman portico that realize the Maestro Mateo in 1188.
The original work was painted: painted white, black, red, blue and gold. Currently this polychromy disappeared almost completely by the work done by the Italian Domenico Brucciani commissioned by the British Museum trying to make a plaster copy of the work.
The architectural structure of the frame consists of three overlapping floors: the crypt, which symbolizes the underworld, the portal itself, which was the western entrance to the cathedral and it was open to the outside during the Middle Ages, and in which represents the heavenly Jerusalem, and the top floor was the gallery, which through an enabling rosetóns were lit all day, represents the elevation of human to the divine.
The sculpture is intended as a representation of the heavenly city, using different symbols in the iconography taken from the Book of Revelation and other Old Testament texts. Other theories (like that of Professor Serafin Moralejo) explain the figures and their arrangement on a representation in stone of the Ordo Prophetarumun, a religious-type play XII century in which St. Augustine calls the prophet to praise God and condemn Jews.
srgio constituted by fat arcs that correspond to each of the three wings of the Church, supported by thick pillars with engaged columns. The central arch is the largest (twice each side) is the only one who has eardrum and is divided by a central column, the mullion, with the figure of Santiago.
Vertically, the lower band is formed by the bases of the columns, decorated with fantastic animals, and the half band consists of columns supporting the statues attached to the apostles, and the upper arches that crown the three doors.
