It is a building made of masonry ashlar and bricks, consisting of a single nave distributed in five sections and a quadrangular main chapel. A square chapel is attached to the right side of it. Furthermore, located on the Epistle wall we will find the Sacramental Chapel.
The tower, built of ashlar, is located in the gospel wall, and presents two bodies topped with a pyramidal spire. The temple has two doors, one of them opens on the Gospel wall and is located at the same level as the Plaza Mayor. The other doorway is located on the Epistle wall and is accessed through a staircase that leads to a small atrium.
The two façades have a lintel scheme, are flanked by pilasters and have pediments at the top.
Opening hours to the public are from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and access is free.
Now we are going to go into detail about each part of this architectural work from the "voice" of the sculptor from Jaén. Juan Martínez Montañés.
Greetings friends. Juan Martínez Montañés himself serves you. You probably know my name because I was a famous sculptor from the mid-16th century. I was born in Jaén, I trained in Granada and established my life and work in Seville, from which posterity has seen fit to name me as the greatest exponent of its school of imagery.
I have the noble honor of accompanying you on this visit because a unique bond unites me to this town of El Pedroso. But I do not wish to get ahead of myself in the story now. Let's start as our lord commands, at the beginning.
We meet at the Church of Our Lady of Consolation. Located in the Plaza de la Constitución, it is a Catholic temple that dates back to the 15th century. It was specifically registered in the General Catalog of Andalusian Historical Heritage in 2002.
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This building made of masonry ashlar and bricks is made up of a single nave distributed in five sections and a quadrangular main chapel. A square chapel is attached to the right side of it. Furthermore, located on the Epistle wall we will find the Sacramental Chapel.
The tower, built of ashlar, is located on the Gospel wall, and has two bodies topped with a pyramidal spire. The temple has two doors, one of them opens on the Gospel wall and is located at the same level as the Plaza Mayor. The other doorway is located on the Epistle wall and is accessed through a staircase that leads to a small atrium. The two façades have a lintel scheme, are flanked by pilasters and have pediments at the top.
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It was originally a gothic church with three naves, of which only the so-called Chapel of San José is preserved, which can be dated around 1400. In the 16th century (1556-1561) there would be an extension of the temple directed by the Master Mason Diego Sanchez, who built the first two sections of the current nave. As a result of the Lisbon earthquake of November 1755, the Church was practically destroyed. The repair was directed by Pedro de Silva, Senior Master of Works of the Archbishopric of Seville. At the end of the 18th century, Antonio de Figueroa built the remaining sections of the current church. After these works there were new actions that did not have decisive importance, except for the restoration that the Church has recently undergone.
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Pedro Díaz de Palacios, Chief Master of Works of the Archbishopric of Seville, undertook to build it in 1575. This Sacramental Chapel has a square floor plan, and has a roof with a hollow vault in which, through the crossing of five concentric circles with 24 batons or ribs with a square section, a series of trapezoidal coffers are formed, characteristic of the time in which they were built. This vault is topped by a lantern built in the same style. Pedro de Silva in 1758 considered it essential to dismantle its roof and re-tile it in a specific way, also reinforcing its cover; Another of his recommendations was to build an access that would connect it with the collateral chapel of the front wall.
This chapel is decorated with mural paintings that cover the entire vault and approximately half of the walls. They depict various evangelical scenes and some figures of saints with their respective attributes, the work of Rafael Rodríguez Hernández and Rafael Blas Rodríguez and dated in the second half of the 20th century; The rest of the walls have a tile decoration.
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It is located in the part corresponding to the header. It was made with ashlars and in the structure you can see several bodies serving as the top of the same pyramidal spire, which appears covered in blue and white tiles.
A large section of the report written by Pedro de Silva on the Church of Our Lady of Consolation in the 18th century is dedicated to the structure and configuration of the new tower: he planned for it to be a sufficiently strong tower from the foundations to the wall and inside the tower a staircase with brick steps had to be housed, it was also necessary to ensure that it had the greatest possible number of loopholes to provide it with greater lighting. The report also indicates that the tower would have three bodies: an "impost" base, as indicated by the architect, which would be at the level of the ridge of the Church's roof: then a stacked bench. and finally, the body of bells, also stacked. A spire built of brick and covered with square tiles would be located on this; the tower would be completed with a weather vane and a cross. It would remain to refer to the clock case and the bells, the cost of which would not be within the final budget of the works, but would be paid for by the population, in accordance with what was established by the architect.
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The temple has two doors, one of them opens on the Gospel wall and is at the same level as the Consolation Square. The other doorway is located on the Epistle wall and is accessed through a staircase that leads to a small atrium. The two façades have a lintel scheme, are flanked by pilasters and have pediments at the top. They were carved in the year 1780, by Francisco del Valle, Master of Carpentry of the Archbishopric of Seville.
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The Main Altar of the Church was carved by the sculptor Luis de Baias in 1723. The altar consists of a bench, a body divided into three streets and an attic. The bank, articulated into three streets by means of pedestals, shows the sacramental tabernacle in the center: in the side streets of this bank the doors open that, as prescribed in the contract, lead to the niche of the dressing room and the manifestor.
The first body appears articulated in three streets, with an alternation of the Solomonic column and the stipe. The attic offers the well-known tripartite distribution, on an axis with the dividing lines of the main body, with which it is visually linked through some vases located plumb of the entablature dice. and cornice that separate one from the other. Thus, it leaves in the center the open niche with a coffered semicircular arch, which houses the image of a Crucified Christ provided for in the contract.
As for the imagery that occupies the different registers, today all those provided for in the contract appear. The central niche is occupied by a sculpture of the Virgin and Child, which is attributed to Jerome Hernandez, this sculpture represents a transition between the style of the works of the artist's first stage and that of recent years, where the frontality and verticality of the images become increasingly softer. In the side streets of the altarpiece there are sculptures of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and in the attic there are representations of Saint Isidro, Saint Leandro, Saint Michael and the Crucified, the work of Bartolomé García Santiago.
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This Inmaculada is the first carving that I, Juan Martínez Montañés, made on this subject. Here the Virgin is represented with a girl's face, which makes her especially attractive.
She is a beautiful childlike Virgin, with a poetic and beautiful disposition, whose concept will change years later towards the sublime interpretation of the Theotocos. I represented her in prayer, her gaze lowered and her hands placed prayerfully in an oval shape.
I made this image between 1606 and 1608. At the feet of the Virgin there is only an angel's head with outstretched wings, which later multiplied by at least three. There is no doubt that in this work it seems that the mystery of the Immaculate Conception that she carried within is divined and manifested in her face, through her girl-like features. He gathers the cloak under his arms, with a splendid carving of the folds, in which a rich stew also appears.
In the upper part of the altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception there was a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe that, when it was removed for cleaning, was found to hide behind it a splendid panel of Saint Catherine, painted by the Dutch artist Hernando Esturmio (c. 1515- 1556). Perhaps the fact that it had been covered by the other painting made its state of conservation excellent. Having added this panel to the small altarpiece, gave even greater importance to the image of the Immaculate Girl, which has one of my best treasures in this image of the Virgin of Montañés.
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At the head of the chapel there is an altarpiece that dates back to the beginning of the 18th century, and belongs to the neoclassical style; It is a golden altarpiece whose structure is made up of three superimposed bodies and as an architectural element it presents fluted columns of the Corinthian order.
The main body contains one of my most important sculptures, an Immaculate Conception. The altarpiece culminates with an attic where a sculpture representing Saint Teresa sits, dated to the same period as the altarpiece, that is, in the 18th century.
Not all towns can say that they have an image of the maestro Martínez Montañés (he laughs proudly).
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On May 9, 1606, I accepted the execution of this altarpiece in its entirety, both the sculpture and the painting, although there are data that seem to indicate that the pictorial work must have finally been left in the hands of Francisco Pacheco, a great friend of mine. I will not tell you the truth about this fact, however. There are secrets that not even History should reveal.
In this altarpiece you can see the great influence that altarpiece artists such as Miguel Adán and his curved and split pediments had on me, as well as the traces of Italian writers, as well as established sculptors such as Jerónimo Hernández.
The altarpiece itself is very simple and severe, and is structured in two sections with three sections, a bench and the attic. The lower body is decorated with sculptures and the upper body with paintings. It was presided over by the image of the Immaculate Conception, although currently, for security reasons, it is located in the Tabernacle and its place is occupied by the image of Saint Joseph, whose characteristics are in line with the style of the 18th century.
The main niche of the first body, placed on the bench, was destined for the image of the Immaculate Conception, with a round shape. On the sides there are two half-reliefs representing Saints Bartholomew and Saint James. The figure of Santiago is practically a high relief and is placed from the front; it has a clothing arrangement similar to that of the Immaculate Conception, moving, angular and wide. The other relief, which reflects Saint Bartholomew, is not as accomplished as the previous one, although we can see a new way of composing by the master by putting his left leg forward.
In the central street of the second body appears the painting of Saint Catherine, discovered years ago on the occasion of a restoration of the altarpiece, attributed to Hernando de Sturmio, with clear stylistic reminiscences of the Flemish school, and which must have been painted in his workshop in Seville In the first years of the 16th century, this was hidden by another of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which must have been superimposed in the 18th century. On both sides are represented San Pedro and San Diego de Alcalá, attributed to Francisco Pacheco, who appear perfectly interpreted iconographically, represented in full body, disproportionate in relation to the landscape behind them and somewhat lacking in expression.
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We must highlight that there is a lack of any documentary reference; although the attribution to Luís de Baias is suggested by the type of plant ornamentation, which has strong analogies with the Altarpiece of Saint Anne. On a bench decorated with cartilaginous leaves of vigorous carving that surrounds a central medallion with a cruciform biblical inscription framed laterally by pilasters. This altarpiece serves as a frame for the figure of a crucified man, the work of the sculptor Pedro Millán, it is usually dated to approximately the year 1500.
It is made of polychrome wood, it represents the life-size image of the dead Christ. The sculpture is attached to the cross by three nails and carries the right foot on top of the left. The figure adopts a "T" shape, contributing to this by the fact that the arms extend horizontally, without hanging from the cross. It is a fairly stylized sculpture; It has a bulging belly and the ribs appear perfectly marked under the skin. Wearing pure cloth, it adopts a very unique design, based on folds that remind us of the clothing of the characters we find in Eyckian paintings or sculptures from the Flemish-Burgundian area. The head is tilted to the right, its eyes are half-closed, the mouth appears half-open and its nose is prominent. This work is located in the final moments of the Gothic period, when Pedro Millán participates as Lorenzo Mercadante's successor in the sculptural decoration of the portals of the Cathedral of Seville.
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This altarpiece from 1716 is also the work of Luis de Baias. With a broken plan, arranged in a straight line, from which the pedestals of the supports protrude, it consists of a bench and a body divided into three streets by means of Solomonic columns and an attic.
The street panels also show vegetal ornamentation, but with greater finesse of carving, following a clear Plateresque inspiration present in other examples of the period. The door of the Tabernacle opts for figurative decoration, capturing the Eucharistic allegory of the Pelican. On this bench rests the first body, articulated in three streets by means of Solomonic columns of a compound order, this division of the shaft into a cylindrical first third and the rest "Solomonic". » is very typical of the altarpieces of the late 17th century, which insists on the archaizing character of the production of this altarpiece from Constantine.
The original iconographic program has disappeared, and today images of diverse chronology and style occupy its records. Thus, in the central niche we find an interesting sculptural group of Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child, a Mannerist work from the late 16th century that follows the iconographic model. developed in the Middle Ages. In the side streets, Saint Vincent de Paul, a standard figure, and Saint Louis Gonzaga, reminiscent of 18th-century works, appear to the left and right of the viewer, respectively. And in the attic, a series image of the Virgin and Child.
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It is located in the chapel next to the head of the temple on the Gospel wall; The altarpiece belongs to the first third of the 17th century, as indicated by an inscription that appears on its bench, which indicates that the altarpiece was established in the year 1630 specifically. The structure of the altarpiece is made up of a bench, a body with three streets and an attic, the three streets of the main body of the altarpiece are framed by fluted columns of the Corinthian order.
The central street is occupied by a semicircular niche, which contains the candlestick image of the chapel's owner, the Virgin of the Rosary, dated to the 18th century. This street is topped by a split pediment, semicircular and subdivided into three parts by two volutes.
The other two streets of the main body of the altarpiece are straight and contain reliefs, in the left street there is a relief of Saint John the Baptist and the right street is occupied by the relief of Saint Paul.
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The Cartuja altarpiece consists of a main body and an attic, it is from the 18th century and presents great originality in carving and daring in its forms, with an exposed wood finish. The identity of the author is unknown but the gouge cut of the carving shows the hand of a great master.
In the main body there is a neoclassical display case made of rosewood wood that has inside a carving of the Virgin of the Rosary with the child, dating back to the 17th century and made of polychrome wood, it seems to come from the Cartuja de Sta. María de las Cuevas de Sevilla. In the attic there is a bust of La Dolorosa belonging to the 17th century Granada school.
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