Description

 

The first parish built outside the walls. Of the five parishes that were in Andújar in the Middle Ages, it is the one of St. Bartholomew that of the later foundation, since it must go back to the end of the XIV century or the first years of the XV century.

 

The original project was conceived in Gothic style; its plant, organized in three naves, articulated in five sections. The section of the transept is distinguished from the others by its greater width, fact that we have also seen in the parish of St. Michael. The central nave and the transept, covered with starry vaults and the lateral ones, with a simple ogive.

 

This initial project has undergone several renovations over time, remaining, in part, disrupted. The largest remodeling was carried out in the 16th century and was the work of the Castillo family.

 

Francisco del Castillo, the Elder, owes the door of the Sacristy, in the first section of the nave of the epistle, in which the transit of the late Gothic is observed -employment of the carpanel arch, spill in the jambs- to the Renaissance in its Plateresque elements.

 

His son, of the same name and nicknamed "the Younger" and with a fully Roman formation, owes the substitution of the primitive ribbed vaults of the transept, as well as that of the second section of the central nave for others of Mannerist sensibility. It is also due to the layout of the current main chapel, which has a square floor plan and a flat roof, covered with a vaulted vault decorated with irregular Mannerist style casetones. The conclusion of this, is dated in 1589 and is due to Benito del Castillo according to the map given, in his day, by his brother Francisco already dead. In 1604 he obtained the patronage of the chapel Don Francisco Terrones del Caño, Bishop of León.

 

In this century his unfinished tower was built, reminiscent of the parish of St. Michael and whose authorship must be attributed to Francisco del Castillo the Younger. Other works would suffer the temple in the eighteenth century, but smaller, as a result of it is the beautiful Sacramental Chapel or the Sacred Heart of Jesus that is the second section of the nave of the epistle. It is covered with a slightly oval vault on pendentives and decorated with beautiful stuccos. In the pendentives, drum and intrados of the vault are oval medallions with religious scenes in polychrome. Exuberant set full of plasticity and visual richness, baroque atmosphere.

 

In the nave of the gospel, three chapels are opened that coincide with the second, third and fifth sections. Of rectangular plant and covered the first two with ribbed vaults, and with vault of cannon the one of the section of the feet. Notable in them is the altarpiece of the sculptor Parma Burgos, and the plateresque gate that closes the chapel that acts as baptismal.

 

Of its three doors, the one that faces the St. Bartolome slide is the most interesting. Its vain, with pointed bent arch, bordered by another conopial decorated with cardinas and flanked by pinnacles. On both sides of the key, niches with canopy that at the present time, lack their sculptural decoration.

 

The door of the feet, in the street of the Wind, is of more simplicity. With a semicircular arch framed by an ogee arch. Its only ornamental elements are the cross of the Order of Calatrava and the shield of the bishop Don Íñigo Manrique, on the key. Above it a rose window. This facade repeats that of the Parish of St. Michael before its remodeling in the sixteenth century.

 

The northern gate follows the scheme of the south gate of St. Michael and its formal characteristics are similar to those of the southern gate of Santiago: ogee arch between pinnacles.

 

Its great similarity with the tower of St. Michael, leads us to think the same authorship and chronology: Francisco del Castillo, El Mozo (16th century)

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Association of Friends of the Patrimony of Andujar