Francisco del Castillo "El Viejo" and Domingo de Tolosa were in charge of the works in this construction phase. In 1547 Andrés de Vandelvira and Juan de Maeda appraised the works executed by Castillo and Domingo de Tolosa, mainly centered on the raising of the main chapel and the first section of the temple. It is the first documented news about the intervention of Andrés de Vandelvira in this church, whose initial approach will be changed by this master around 1559. The changes introduced by Vandelvira affected the remaining sections: the naves are equalized in width and height, between the buttresses chapels are located, the initial ribs of the vaults are replaced by grooves, the pillars, with Corinthian semi-columns and retropilasters, are now cruciform and with a more classical modulation, similar to those used in the cathedrals of Baeza and Jaén.

The works on site were, among other teachers, under the direction of Castillo "El Viejo", but in 1564 the contract that this master stonemason had signed with the church was transferred to his son Francisco del Castillo "el Joven", related since 1555 with the construction. Castillo "El Joven" followed the guidelines set by Vandelvira, who visited Huelma in 1569 and 1570 to appraise the works. In 1575, the year of Andrés de Vandelvira's death, the factory was quite advanced, but some vaults and the exteriors with the façades, the sacristy and the bell tower remained to be completed. Now he is the main master of the Francisco del Castillo "El Joven" factory, who will be in charge of it until his death in 1586. Under his supervision the central vault was carved, with a sculptural program completed by Marcos Hernández in 1584, and another five decorated with geometric motifs typical of Mannerism, highlighting the third also decorated with the arms of the prelate of Granada Francisco Sarmiento de Mendoza (1580-1595).

The last three vaults are no longer made of stone, but of brick, and were finished off after Castillo's death along with the sacristy, whose “L” -shaped arrangement reminds us of the solution proposed by Vandelvira in the premises of the Jaén cathedral. The exteriors, the work of Castillo “el Joven”, present one of the most elegant elevations built in the 16th century within Andalusian religious architecture. Castillo "El Joven" introduces models of civil architecture taken from Sebastián Serlio's architectural treatises in these exteriors. The rhythm of this elevation is marked by the Corinthian pilasters placed on the two floors, by the lintel windows with triangular pediments and by the façades, highlighting the south, also lintelled and crowned by a large triangular pediment and flanked with niches. Heraldry, masks, garlands, molded cornices and other elements of the Mannerist repertoire complete the beauty of the ensemble, finally completed already within the 17th century with a large bell tower, in whose second body wears the coat of arms of Bishop Moscoso y Sandoval (1619-1646 ). The temple of Huelma -as Rafael López Guzmán points out- “perfectly shows the aesthetic evolution that took place in the Kingdom of Jaén during the 16th century; besides having, in its realization, the most outstanding teachers of the moment ”.

OTHER NON-ARCHITECTURAL ARTISTIC MANIFESTATIONS

Of the important set of movable property that this magnificent temple acquired over the centuries, hardly anything remains, as they were totally destroyed in the last Civil War (1936-1939). We know from documentation that in the main chapel there was a good altarpiece drawn at the end of the 16th century by Sebastián de Solís, who counted on the collaboration of the sculptor Cristóbal Téllez and the assembler Blas Briñón. Today this chapel has an altarpiece painted by Juan Almagro (Pegalajar, 1886-1965), a carving of a Risen One being of merit. Of some value, it is a canvas from the Granada school of the Immaculate Conception, an anonymous work from the last third of the seventeenth century.