San Juan de la Peña

San Juan de la Peña (San Chuan d'a Peña ) is a former Benedictine monastery in Aragon (Spain).

It is located in the outer Pyrenees, southwest of the town of Jaca, in the so-called Sierra San Juan de la Peña. This mountain area in 1920 was appointed to the conservation area. During the Arab invasion of Spain several hermits retreated in the 8th century, come back here and lived in a loose community. 920 the area was conquered by Galindo Aznárez II, who built a small monastery at this place, which was dedicated to John the Baptist. From this time only a small Mozarabic church has been preserved.

In the 11th century had Sancho of Navarre build on this point, the monastery of San Juan de la Peña. Over time, various monasteries and churches were added. 1675 burned down the monastery, so that new monastery buildings were erected at a convenient nearby location.

In San Juan de la Peña Monastery of the Holy Grail is not only according to the legend was kept, but can be found in the interior also has a magnificent Romanesque cloister and a tomb of the kings of Aragon. The baroque new monastery was richly endowed and invested with many outbuildings. Through the Spanish War of Independence and the secularization is not much left of the buildings today. Therefore, the old monastery historic monument ( Bien de Interès Cultural ) was declared in 1889. The new monastery, which was built under the Aragonese architect Ricardo Magdalena in 1889, received the same rank as a protected monument in 1923.