This monumental fortified complex, seat of the Ulloa, Zúñiga, Viedma, Fonseca, Acevedo and Dukes of Alba lineages, was a strategic outlier at the Portuguese border during the Middle Ages. The largest "Acropolis" of Galicia is formed by three walled enclosures on a long knoll, and is located on the outskirts of Verín (Ourense).

During medieval times, the upper enclosure was used to lock up people. The Renaissance Palace, the XVth century Torre del Homenaje (Tower of the Homage), the Torre de las Damas (Tower of the Ladies), the remains of the Pilgrims’ Hospital and the Gothic Church of Santa Maria are all well conserved. These constructions were built to a large extent thanks to Sancho Sánchez de Ulloa, first Count of Monterey in the time of the Catholic Monarchs (King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella).

In modern times, under the leadership of Felipe IV’s military engineers, Juan de Villarroel and Carlos de Grunemberg, two bulwarked enclosures were built around the Franciscan and Jesuit convents. Apart from the military function of the fortified complex, it served as a place for the cultural activities of the small nobiliary court, printing the first Galician incunable, and teaching grammar, art and theology.

The parochial church of Santa María is a XIV-XV century shrine, having a single nave covered with wood and a rectangular apse with a cross vault. Artistically, there is a beautiful Gothic stone altarpiece and a side entrance (lateral frontispiece) formed by three very ornate archivolts and tympanum presided by Christ and the tetramorfos.

  

  

Dpto. de Composición.  Universidade da Coruña.