San Diego de Canedo - PONTEAREAS

Over the Sarmiento Palace (15th century), The Franciscans began extension and adaptation work on it in the 18th century. First, the church was finished, and later the Palace was remodelled to convert it into the Monastery. The cloister is very simple, and small. It was finished, as we can see by the inscriptions, between 1784 and 1785. The stones of the original building were reused on some walls and the main doorway (from the 16th century). Artistically, we could highlight the monastery church. Built in 1777, it stands on a a Latin-cross ground plan and has three aisles. The roof over the central nave and side aisles are ribbed and barrel vaults, respectively. It has a transept on a square ground plan, with a spherical dome and lanterns over pendentives. Additionally, the walls are in rubblework on the walls,except the irregular masonry on the facade. The shields shown on the convent walls and doorway of the Church of San Diego de Canedo Belong to the old palace that the Counts of Salvatierra used to have here. All of them show the arms of the Sarmiento Sotomayor family, the sumbols of the Counts.