page_title: Monastery of Our Lady of the Risco
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Monastery of Our Lady of the Risco / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Antigua calzada empedrada que lleva al monasterio de Nuestra Señora del Risco desde la población de Amavida.
context_page_description: The Monastery of Our Lady of the Risco is a ruined Augustinian convent located above Amavida in the Sierra de Ávila, Castile and León, Spain. It was founded in 1504 by Francisco de la Parra under the invocation of Our Lady of Sorrows, under the title Our Lady of the Risco.
  It constituted an important center of evangelization and practically the only cultural center during the Late Middle Ages in the alfoz of what is now the province of Ávila.
  The monastery had a church, a cloister, a residence for monks, an oriel, terraces for cultivation, a hostel for pilgrims, stables, warehouses and a good water supply network and access roads.
  Currently only the bell tower remains, along with the entrance arch of the old church, part of the apse and remains of the walls of different dependencies.
context_section_description: The oldest identifiable remains on the area where this monastery was found correspond to a series of petroglyphs that can be seen near the ruins of the convent. In a hollow between large rocks, which gives access to a platform, two circles are engraved on the rock, one with a double radius than the other, separated by a triangle.
  The triangle could be a representation of a mountain and the circles representing the sun and the moon, interpretation that would be endorsed by being oriented towards the so-called Risco del Sol, peak located on the other side of the Valley of Amblés, in the Sierra de la Paramera. But until now it has not been possible to identify the origin and the meaning.
  According to the tradition, the cult in this place begins times of the Muslim conquest, when the Christians hid in this same area and sheltered from a rock, an image of the Virgin of Sorrows so that it was not destroyed by the infidels.
  The story tells that in the 14th century, year 1320, a shepherd who was looking for a goat that had been lost to him, found the image of the Virgin of the Risco in a cave. A figure of the Virgin leaning on a cross and holding her dead Son in her arms.
  Among the stones where it was found, Fray Francisco de la Parra erected in 1504 a small chapel under the abomination of the Virgin of Sorrows, denominating it Nuestra Señora del Risco. Father Francisco, an Augustinian who had directed the most important monastic houses in Castile, decided to retire to the Cistercian hermitage to spend his last days in it, but given his entrepreneurial spirit he did not hesitate in a few years to request the Lord of Villatoro and the Bishop Ruiz who granted him authorization to create a convent on the spot.
  In this way, in 1530 the chapel was transformed into a convent of the order of San Agustín, with a construction of late Gothic style, with nuances that resemble the Herrerian style.
  In the year 1564, through the mediation of his fourth prior, Antonio de Priego, it was achieved, with the consent of the mitrado J. Bernardo de Fresneda, that his provisor, Antonio Hernández, give new license so that "they can ask for alms in the entire bishopric "(December 15, 1564). From that moment the Augustinian convent of the Risco, becomes not only a place of meditation and pilgrimage, but also a place of wealth that, soon, due to its rapid economic development, had a decisive influence in the region. During the seventeenth century, the only documents to be highlighted are: the transfer to the convent by the archbishop and captain general of Mexico, Fray Payo Enríquez de Ribera, of two censuses in Madrid on wine and oil silk (1683); and another in which an assessment is made of the assets they owned in Mombeltrán, which are estimated at 69,966 reals.
  At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cattle ranch owned by the Risco convent was relatively important (it is estimated that it came to own up to 5,000 heads of sheep), but its financial activities were not limited exclusively to this exploitation, but included others such as the agricultural and industrial.
  The church was renovated in the late seventeenth century, in 1775 its magnificent tower was erected and in 1791 neoclassical altarpieces were added to the naves of the temple. Its decline would begin in the 19th century.
  During the War of Independence it was a place of refuge for guerrillas. He suffered the effects of the French occupation and the ravages of the looting of the locals, who resented the unfavorable conditions they had suffered for years took advantage of the situation to get what they could from the monastery.
  From then on, only a few monks remained and in 1835 it was affected by the decree of exclaustration of convents that did not have a minimum of twelve religious.
  Later it would suffer the effects of the Spanish confiscation and the deterioration caused by the abandonment.
caption: Old cobblestone road leading to the monastery of Nuestra Señora del Risco from the town of Amavida
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