In spring, when drought had not yet withered Spain, the Linares reservoir could flood the nearby landscape, sometimes spilling into the very heart of the town. One day, Vera Cruz’s hermitage may flood the beautiful walled town of Maderuelo in Segovia.
Beyond the city walls, overlooking the Riaza River, a simple single-nave church with a straight front and apse hides a surprising tale with a happy ending. It survived a long stretch of neglect, though not without its share of challenges.
Abandoned for decades, the hermitage found renewed use at the start of the 20th century as a store for hay, farm tools, and other barn equipment.
Yet inside lies a genuine Romanesque treasure. Some paintings from the interior are now prized holdings at the Prado Museum, though they were forgotten for many years.
“It was 1907 when we first learned of the value inside the hermitage,” explains María López Villarejo, a painting restorer at the Madrid gallery.
The inner walls and vaults of the small sanctuary were decorated with frescoes dating from the twelfth century. The works are a remarkable instance of Baja Spanish painting from the Middle Ages.
View of the Vera Cruz hermitage in Maderuelo. José Maria Sadia
At the turn of the century, paintings drew the interest of antique dealers who sought to export treasures abroad, especially to the United States, exploiting a time when laws protecting cultural heritage were not clearly defined.
Within the church’s frescoes, scenes from both the Old and New Testaments were portrayed. The vault featured Christ, His Majesty, surrounded by angels and saints. Cain and Abel with the Mystic Lamb, Adoration of the Magi, and the Creation of Adam and Eve were among the principal themes depicted.
According to Villarejo, the Creation of Adam and Eve is particularly valuable as one of the earliest nude representations in history. “It presents a very schematic depiction of the human form,” the restorer notes. Several of these paintings were transferred to the Prado Museum in 1947.
To understand the broader fate of the works, one must go back to 1896, when Maderuelo’s parish priest sought permission from the Archdiocese to sell the hermitage to raise funds for other churches in the town. Journalist and heritage specialist José María Sadia recounts the full saga in his book El románico español.
A scene from the chapel paintings.
In those years, the property changed hands locally. It was sold to a town neighbor for 150 pesetas, then later passed to a rancher and farmer named Santiago González, who used the building as a warehouse, even as a home for his donkey.
Local people did not value the interior drawings. They considered them old-fashioned, and children even tried to scrub away the paint with buckets, accelerating the damage. Despite this, the paintings remained remarkably well preserved, according to Sadia.
By the 1920s, an antiques dealer in Madrid offered the rancher 30,000 pesetas for the works. The matter came to the attention of a Segovia lawyer who learned of the brewing situation. The lawyer visited the priest, the mayor, and the owner, and when the operation went public, the State temporarily seized the keys and blocked the sale, a period Sadia calls a dark chapter of cultural plunder.
From 1924 onward the hermitage was protected as a Historic-Artistic Monument. Yet Prado museum authorities were initially hesitant to take on the ownership, uncertain about the logistics of moving the paintings. The state eventually intervened, but at a higher price than anticipated, paying 50,000 pesetas after delays caused by fear of swamp damage.
Ramon Gudiol led the effort to remove the murals and mount them for transfer to Prado. Villarejo notes that the process began as early as the sixth century, echoing Vitruvius’s discussions of fresco removal from ancient sites. The practice grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, bringing with it a host of risks for fragile artworks.
The so-called boot style strap applied during the Vera Cruz restoration involved sealing the surface with an organic adhesive and a breathable backing. The method used cartilage, primarily rabbit, heated into a collagen film, then laid over drawing and covered with strong gauze. Once dry, the painting would be separated and laid onto a new support.
Restorers describe a careful transfer: gauze and burlap with water-soluble glue allowed the first layer to be removed with hot water, preserving the artwork as a painting on canvas. López Villarejo, who led an eight-person team in 2010, placed the piece in its original dimensions, about five by four and a half meters, in room 51C of the museum.
The restoration cleaned the surface and revealed a stencil technique that erased later repaintings while preserving the stone-like texture. The panel remains in very good condition; only the single child figure that once delighted the kings is missing. There are questions about when the chapel was abandoned, whether a theft or an antique shop removed it, says the restorer.
The same period may explain why the hermitage was used as a stable, with a wall opening serving as a ventilation shaft and a way to access the two apostles drawn there.
Sadía highlights the artistic value of the work, whose author remains unknown. Some scholars draw connections to the Romanesque groups at Santa María de Taüll and Casillas de Berlanga. The specialist notes that the heavenly scene is among the most iconic in Spanish Romanesque painting. Today a well-executed copy and sinopia remnants still exist in the Maderuelo church. Visitors will see the remaining head of the original painting and a faithful reproduction on the right, echoing the Prado version. It stands as a testament to the resilience of cultural heritage and the lucky turn that kept it from disappearing into private hands. A sequence of coincidences helped keep these treasures in Spain rather than crossing the Atlantic, as some feared.[Sadia]