Contact details
14970 Iznájar (Córdoba)
Lat. 37.2578652401 Long. -4.3079074111

Parish Church of Santiago Apóstol.

The parish church of Iznajar dedicated to Santiago Apóstol is located in the highest part of the village, within the medieval town's enclosure. It was initiated with the purpose of building a church of grand proportions but was not completed. It was built during the Renaissance between 1547 and 1638 and is attributed to Hernan Ruiz el Jóven. A comprehensive restoration, both externally and internally, was carried out from 2005 to 2008, in which the internal intervention is noteworthy; the temple's walls were painted with lime, recovering their original state in stone. Under this lime, original frescoes from the 17th century were revealed and can be appreciated on the sides near the altar.

The church had foundation problems from the beginning. In the early 18th century, a large buttress with a flying buttress was erected above the street to support the corner of the transept opposite the tower. Under the transept wall on the Epistle side, there is a large cistern under a structure of arches. For some time, water was drawn from the church itself until, in 1595, it was adapted to be used only from the street.

The temple is conceived as a single nave, with a semicircular apse and a spacious transept whose transversal nave is very short but considerably wider than the main nave, which remained unfinished. The presbytery is quite high, unusual as it measures 1.40 meters in height. The extension of the church was made with rubble walls with rows of dormant bricks, triple-leaved, and with walls much lower than the rest, all in general having a very simple appearance. The apse is covered with a semi-dome with coffered ceilings following a type widely used in the Siloe school.

The Main Altar, in Baroque style, presents fine carving and was built between 1749 and 1760 by Cecilio Antonio Franco Roldán, gilded in 1789 by the artist Juan Ramírez de Zúñiga from Lucena.

Externally, the church presents a noble appearance with its well-carved ashlar architecture. The tower is simply a large stone prism, to which, over time, several openings have been made that weakened its structure. It also remained unfinished, and an undecorated brick bell chamber was added. The interior of this bell tower has a quite interesting height compartmentalization. Due to the slope of the land near the temple, the start of the tower occurs lower than the level of the church, where there is a kind of vaulted basement. Above it, the sacristy, and higher up another space with a fan vault. The ascent to this tower is via a spiral staircase forming a cylindrical body attached to the tower.

Parroquia de Santiago Apóstol
×
Leaflet | © OpenStreetMap contributors
You might also like
|
|
© Copyright - La Subbética Punto Destino