La controvertida portada de San Gil de la iglesia de Santa María de Vitoria, del siglo XIV

Abstract

The hagiographical iconography sculpted on the left lateral door of the western portico of Santa María ́s Church in Vitoria, from the 14th century, has known sev- eral interpretations over the last fifty years. All of them are based and use as their main sources the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine and later hagiographic texts. This new study of the iconography group dedicated to the abbot Saint Giles takes into consideration, for the first time, a different original source, the Vita Sancti Aegidii, and its exclusively medieval versions, above all the extraordinary iconographic tradition which this saint had in European figurative art, particularly in France where we can find its closest models.