Description
Declared a Monument on June 5, 1981, this 16th century temple in the province of Jaén is one of the most notable examples of the religious architecture of the time. Under the direction of Diego de Siloe, the master master of the cathedral of Granada, an initial floor was built with a rectangular major chapel, three ships with Gothic vaults and square pillars on basements crowned with entrenches. Featured artists such as Francisco del Castillo el Viejo, Andrés de Vandelvira and Francisco del Castillo, the Mozo, also participated in his execution. In the middle of the century, classical elements of the Renaissance were incorporated, and the southern and northern facades follow a similar scheme, with a four-body tower attached to the western facade. This temple has been declared Good of Cultural Interest.
In front of the works in this constructive phase were Francisco del Castillo "El Viejo" and Domingo de Tolosa. In 1547 Andrés de Vandelvira and Juan de Maeda assessed the works carried out by Castillo and Domingo de Tolosa, focusing primarily on the lifting of the major 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 teacher by 1559. The changes introduced by Vandelvira affected the remaining sections: the ships are equal in width and height, among the counterstrong are chapels, the initial nervations of the vaults are changed by bays, the pillars, with semi-columns and Corinthian backpilars, are now cruciforms and with a more classical modulation, similar to those employed in the cathedrals of Baeza and Jaén.
The work on foot was, among other teachers, under the direction of Castillo "El Viejo," but in 1564 the contract that this master had signed with the church was transferred to his son Francisco del Castillo "el Joven," related since 1555 to the construction. "El Joven" Castle followed the guidelines marked by Vandelvira, which visited Huelma in 1569 and 1570 to assess the works. In 1575, the year of the death of Andrés de Vandelvira, the factory was quite advanced, but some vaults and exteriors were to be finished with the covers, the sacristy and the bell tower. He now appears as a master of the Francisco del Castillo "El Joven" factory, which will be in charge of it until his death in 1586. The central vault, with a sculptural program completed by Marcos Hernández in 1584, and five other decorated with geometric motifs of the mannerism, were worked under its supervision, highlighting the third decorated with the weapons of the Giennese prelate Francisco Sarmiento de Mendoza (1580-1595).
The last three vaults are no longer of stone, but of brick, and were removed after the death of Castillo along with the sacristy, whose disposition in "L" reminds us of the solution proposed by Vandelvira in the dependencies of the Jaén Cathedral. The exteriors, a work of Castillo "el Joven," present one of the most elegant heights built in the 16th century within the Andalusian religious architecture. Castillo "El Joven" introduces in these exterior models of civil architecture taken from the architectural treaties of Sebastián Serlio. The rhythm of this plateau is marked by the Corinthian pilasters placed on the two floors, by the windows adintered with triangular frontons and by the cover, highlighting that of the south, equally adintered and crowned by large triangular fronton and flanked with hornadoes. Heraldic, mascara, garlands, masked cornels and other elements of the mannerist repertoire complete the beauty of the whole, finally finished already within the 17th century with a large tower of bells, in whose second body the shield of Bishop Moscoso and Sandoval (1619- 1646) appears. The temple of Huelma - as Rafael López Guzmana points out - "perfectly shows the aesthetic evolution that occurs in the Kingdom of Jaén during the 16th century; in addition to having, in its realization, the most outstanding teachers of the moment."
OTHER ARTISTICAL MANIFESTIONS
Of the important set of movable goods that this magnificent temple was acquiring over the centuries, there is nothing left, as they were completely destroyed in the last Civil War (1936-1939). We know that in the major chapel there was a good altarpiece drawn at the end of the 16th century by Sebastián de Solís, which was supported by the sculptor Cristóbal Téllez and the assembler Blas Briñón. Today, the chapel is painted by Juan Almagro (Pegalajar, 1886-1965), and a size of a Risen one is worth it. Of some value is a canvas of granadine school of the Immaculate Conception, anonymous work of the last third of the 17th century.
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