Located in the Rio Arlanza valley, on the road
from the village of Hortiguela to the town of Covarrubias
(to the south), this monastery was one of the most important in Castile.
It was founded in 912 by Gonzalo Fernandez, father of Fernan Gonzales, first
count of Castile.
The primitive Romanesque construction, which began in 1080, was enlarged in the
following centuries. This grand complex was abandoned in the nineteenth
century, due to the policy of alienating ecclesiastical goods. In 1966, given
that some important sequences of the film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” -
those of the Langstone bridge - which were shot in the valley of the Rio
Arlanza, the monastery, which is located one kilometer south of the place where
the bridge was built and chosen as a set to represent the interior of the
mission of San Antonio in New Mexico (while as regards the exterior of the
mission the Cortijo del Fraile was used in the countryside of Nijar in Almeria
- Verdi Cortijo del Fraile).
The filming by Sergio Leone in the monastery of
San Pedro de Arlanza, which at that time showed signs of the long state of ruin
(currently and under restoration) are carried out in a large rectangular room
(where the wounded soldiers of which the Franciscan friars are taking care of),
in a narrow corridor and in a room representing the cell of a friar in which
Blonde (Clint Eastwood) is recovering, from serious burns after crossing the
desert (this part of the film is shot in the sand dunes of Cabo De Gata, on the
Almeria coast.
From the window of this room of the monastery of
San Pedro de Arlanza you can see some crosses on the surrounding landscape,
with trees and the shape of a stone building on a hill: it is the ancient
church of San Pelayo, located a few hundred meters from the monastery on the
road leading to Covarrubias, built on a rocky outcrop in a strategic and
panoramic position on the narrow and wooded valley of the Rio Arlanza. Also the
sequence of the meeting of Tuco (Eli Wallach) with his brother, father Pablo
Ramirez (Luigi Pistilli), and shot in an adjoining room in the monastery of San
Pedro di Arlanza.
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966)
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