Description
declared Monument 22 / 11 / 1919. In the first half of the 19th century, the existence of 11 parishes in the city of Jaén was documented, among which was that of San Miguel. The architectural trajectory of these old Bajomieval temples has been different, for if in some of them it has been preserved, although modified, its structure, others have undergone a total transformation or, where appropriate, its knowledge has come to us through documentary or bibliographic references, as they have disappeared throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
The parish of San Miguel, extinct as such in the year 1843, is part of the set of temples ruined in the 19th century, however its gothic-mudejar factory, plus the elements added in the 16th century such as the tower and the cover, have had better luck than those of San Pedro, Santa Cruz, Santiago, Salvador or San Lorenzo, of which only a thorough archaeological work would provide certain data about its formation.
The following remains still persist among the adjacent houses: the apse of the church with windows of brick of Mudejar tradition, the crypt, one of the side chapels, part of the tower, the side wall of the sacristy, some of the midterms of the central ship and its beautiful cover. The preservation of this cover was of concern to the historians of the 19th century; especially significant is the description of it and of the church Pi and Margall in 1885: "The cover of the church of San Miguel and one of the cathedral reveal even in its minor details, elegance, delicacy, and taste. What a pity he's doomed to disappear such a beautiful work! The church to which it opened, is already a courtyard where the waters of the sky make the yerba grow; and there is the cover alone, completely isolated. Who will doubt it to melt?"
Fortunately, the concern for the fate of this unique piece also took place in the local authorities. In 1918 the Council of Jaén agreed to promote the file for its declaration as an artistic monument. In 1920 the transfer to the church of San Pedro was planned, at that time in reconstruction, although at present nothing remains of it. But it would not be in this temple where it is finally located, but in the future Provincial Museum, approved in the year 1920 as Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts the Giennense Don José del Prado and Palacios. The project was largely carried out by the architect A. Flores Urdapilleta. The cover chairs the courtyard of the Museum on the axis with that of the Posite (16th century), located on the outside of the building.
The historiography has traditionally linked this San Miguel cover to Andrés de Vandelvira. Perhaps of the first researchers to do so was Dean Mazas in 1794: "The churches of parishes are in that poor state of their foundation, except some arranged portadite that was later added as that of San Miguel by hand, or direction of Vandelvira (...)." Although documentary references on the assignment are not known so far, the architectural formulation points directly to the authorship of Andrés de Vandelvira.
According to the cover itself, it was worked between 1560 and 1561, being prelate of the diocese Don Diego de los Cobos, promoter of the Hospital of Santiago in Úbeda, designed and directed by Andrés de Vandelvira. The cover of San Miguel is one of the clearest pieces of Vandelvira, whose design of siloesque inspiration was already developed on the lower body of the cover of the feet of the Salvador de Ubeda; its compositional scheme of a single body (repeated on the cover of San Nicolás de Ubeda and San Juan Evangelista de Mancha Real) is formed on the basis of a half-point arch flanked by pairs of Corinthian columns on pedestals with avenerated niches in the intercolumnios, which will remain until the mid-17th century within what has come in the beginning of the school of the 1561; this was completed in the following year in the inscription: and reverend Mr. D. Diego de los Cobos "; it is completed with a hornina to house the holy headline and various geometric elements, equally very vandelvirians.
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