Foundation, endowment, will, bond and patronage to erect the Chapel of the Transfiguration or Alba Chapel of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela created by Canon Gomez Vallo the Elder.

Original manuscript on parchment in textual gothic script between 47 and 36 lines per page, in the form of a factitious volume with a signature in the upper part of the binding with the title “Fundación. Mazo 1º. Número 1º” comprising the following pieces:

I- Public instrument of perpetual endowment for the Chapel of the Transfiguration of Santiago de Compostela created by Canon Gomez Vallo el Viejo. It contains economic endowment and description of the same with its equipment (bell, bell, altar, tombs, ornaments, etc.) together with the order of masses to celebrate and the obedience to the ordinances, constitutions and statutes promulgated for its use by the chaplains and servants of the same. Four pages with capitular of calligraphic boasts. Given in the city of Santiago de Compostela. Year 1524. Notary and witness signatures at the end.

II- Public instrument of consent, approval and ratification of the power of attorney for the foundation of the chapel of the Transfiguration of Canon Gomez Vallo el Viejo before the Archbishop of Santiago Don Alfonso de Fonseca, the Provisor, Vicar, Notary and other witnesses. The previous endowment is confirmed with all its ecclesiastical furnishings, constitutions, obligations and ordinances of the same, as well as the enunciation of the Galician churches (San Martín de Bao and San Martín de Cobas in La Coruña, Santa Marina de Bemill, Santa Marina de Caldas, San Martín de Linaio, the latter in Pontevedra, etc) assigned to the maintenance with their incomes of the chapel of Santiago de Compostela. It continues with eight notarial diligences of confirmation of power of attorney, certifications, possession, and obligation of the previous terms. 12 pages with capitulars of calligraphic boasts. Santiago de Compostela year 1524.

III-Act of appearance on May 27, 1529 before the notary of the city of Santiago de Compostela and other witnesses of the canon of the cathedral Gil Perez Vallo who declares on the death of Gomez Vallo the Elder and delivers his will as executor of his deceased brother. It continues with the declarations of diverse witnesses who ratify the death of the same one in his house located in the Rua del Franco of the city of Compostela. Other testimonies of how Gomez Vallo testified in use of his conscience and freedom of his acts are incorporated. The reading and transfer of the will continues, beginning with the declaration of the deceased that he was in his “right mind to make a will” and that, sensing his approaching death, he repents before God as an “unworthy canon… of his enormous sins”, among them having stolen from the cathedral and of the many “anger” with his co-religionists, to whom he also asks forgiveness and makes financial reparations.

Then he ordered to be buried in the chapel of the Transfiguration that he ordered to be built and he endowed it with an extensive wardrobe (four silver chalices, gilded frames, four vestments for the officiants, a monstrance with a stone box, grilles and glass for its conservation, an altarpiece with iron grilles, a cross, candlesticks and cruets all made of silver, etc.), at this point he listed the sacred books that he donated: a parchment missal and a paper missal, a large breviary and a small parchment breviary “. …de molde”-printed-. The testament continues with the orders of the deceased canon for the care and preservation of his legacy and patronage, number of masses for his soul, economic endowments to the cathedral, rents to his heirs to whom he prohibits to alienate his multiple properties with pretexts like attending “to widows, marrying orphans, redeeming captives, endowing monasteries and hospitals, etc” ordering to destine it all only to the perpetuity of the Chapel and promulgates some ordinances to regulate all the above mentioned. He also forbids successors to violate these clauses and disinherits them from these benefits if they disobey the king or commit nefarious sins (sodomy, incest, etc.) or if they become heretics. He then appoints and regulates the administrator and successors with fees. He then designates his brother Canon Gil Perez Vallo as his principal heir, granting him the enjoyment of all the forums he has in the aforementioned churches and monasteries, along with the fulfillment and supervision of his last will and testament. The testament concludes with the architectural indications to raise the Chapel and an extensive enumeration of the rents and patrimonial mass distributed throughout Galicia. 50 pages with ornate capituaries.Signatures of the notary and witnesses.Santiago de Compostela year 1529.

We are before an extraordinary codex of the end of the Middle Ages in Galicia and specifically referring to the cathedral of Santiago and its famous Chapel of the Transfiguration or of Alba that offers us innumerable historical news on its construction, endowment, financing and internal life of the Compostelan headquarters. Its benefactor, Canon Gomez Vallo the Elder, is presented to us as a high clergyman troubled and repentant of his sins and larcenies, the result of which he amassed a great patrimony and economic wealth for his times, far from what was expected of a religious man. For this reason, and perhaps to make reparation for his bad conscience, he created this patronage subject to strict clauses that ensure his burial in holy ground, his memory is remembered and his soul is comforted with divine offices in perpetuity.The researcher will find a rich source of references in the ways of life of this period, legal practices, religious customs, inventories of furnishings, books and works of art and goldsmithery, history of mentalities, characters of Compostelan life, etc. No less important is the aspect of Galician economic history, since the codice contains a vast enumeration of churches, monasteries, localities, industries of the time-mills, etc-, practices of loans and civil and ecclesiastical rents-foros-, contractual stipulations, etc, etc, etc. Currently in the Chapel of the Transfiguration lie the remains of the Rivero de Aguilar family, one of the most notable of Compostela, along with the burials of various clergymen.