The Xelmirian period, which includes the forty years of Diego Xelmírez’s episcopate, had a key importance in the consolidation of the Compostela see, which ended up becoming, in 1120, a metropolitan see. It was also a fundamental stage in the progress of the construction of the Romanesque cathedral, with a new construction and iconographic program and a new team of masters, of possible foreign origin and undoubtedly French influence.
One of the most important aspects of this new period was the construction of large doors with sculptural decoration on the façades of the transept. Of these, we find the façade of Praterías and, in the pieces coming from it that were placed here, as well as in other reliefs and sculptures preserved in the Cathedral Museum, the façade of Paradise, also called Porta Francixena because it was the entrance for pilgrims to the cathedral. This façade was substituted, in the middle years of the XVIII century, by the current one of the Acibechería.
From the study of the remains that were conserved, as well as, among others, from the detailed description that appears in the Liber Sancti Iacobi, written in the time of the archbishop Xelmírez, it was possible to carry out, under the direction of M. Castiñeiras and V. Nodar, this hypothetical virtual reconstruction of the façade, as well as of the Paradisus that, emulating the Roman example, opened before it, presided by a great fountain, in which different ceremonies were celebrated and in which there were different places of worship.