If any saint underwent a physical and moral transformation beginning in the 16th century, it was St. Joseph. As is well known, during the Age average, his figure was hardly relevant. During the Romanesque and Gothic periods he was represented in some passages of the infancy of Christ, generally in capitals, keystones, doorways, cloisters and miniatures, as a sleepy old man. His image changed radically with the arrival of the centuries of Modernity, leaving behind a legendary iconographic model , in accordance with some texts that presented him at eighty or ninety years of age. From the 16th century onwards, we find him as a vigorous adult with great moral strength, in keeping with a new vision of his role as the adoptive father of Christ. His figure began to gain importance in the liturgy and in worship, highlighting in the texts his silence, simplicity and tenderness.

Four were responsible for that transformation, all of them of great authority. The first was none other than the Chancellor of the University of Paris, the French Augustinian Jean Gerson (1363-1429), known as the doctor christianissimus, who wrote a poem graduate "Josephina", vindicating her figure. The second was the Dominican Isidore Isolano, of greater projection, with his book, published in Pavia in 1522, with the degree scroll of "Sum of the gifts of St. Joseph". In his text he glossed the adoptive father of Christ as a man adorned with all subject of perfections, among them the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the eight beatitudes.

The third contribution, this time in core topic feminine, was the special love of St. Teresa of Jesus, who dedicated most of her foundations to him and wrote about him as follows: "I have not yet agreement begged him for anything that I have failed to do. It is something that frightens the great mercies that God has done to me through this blessed Saint, of the dangers that he has freed me, both in body and soul; that to other saints it seems that the Lord gave them grace to help in one need, to this glorious Saint I have experience that he helps in all and that the Lord wants to give us to understand that, as he was subject to him on earth (that as he had the name of father, being a godfather, he could command him), so in heaven he does whatever he asks of him".

In full harmony with the testimony of the saint of Avila, we have to point out in fourth place, the one who was her great friend and confidant, the discalced Carmelite priest Jerónimo Gracián, who wrote the Sumario de las Excelencias del Glorioso San Joseph, esposo de la Virgen María, published in Rome and dedicated to her carpenters, in 1597.

Through these texts and a growing cult, his images were lavished as a strong and vigorous man, capable of protecting and protecting his family. His solo representations multiplied, accompanied by the Child Jesus, with some utensil of his official document, without, ordinarily, lacking the flowered rod, which is his attribute par excellence, coming from the Apocrypha.

The iconography of Saint Joseph is rich in Navarre. His paintings and, even more, his sculptures, which are abundant throughout the region, had a before and after following the determination of 1621 of Pope Gregory XV, ordering that his feast be celebrated throughout the Church on March 19. The centuries of the Baroque meant, in all the arts, an unprecedented development of its iconography and its confraternities.

Regarding the cycles with passages in which his figure appears with greater or lesser prominence, the only one that is currently preserved is the one that decorates the nave of the church of the Discalced Carmelites of the capital of Navarre, made under the care of Friar Bernardo de la Madre de Dios (Bigüézal Díaz, 1696-1767), who took the habit in Pamplona in 1715, lector in arts and theology, prior of Logroño and Pamplona and provincial. In his death certificate (1767), we read, textually: "He was singularly devoted to N. P. S. Joseph and as a last expression of his affection he cooperated with a good alms that his brother the Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo sent him for the expenses of six very / large and exquisite paintings, with their frames and carving all gilded, that with the History of the Saint have been placed in the church of this high school".

The set was possible, therefore, thanks to the munificence of Don José Francisco Bigüézal (1692-1762), archdeacon of the cathedral of Astorga and bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo between 1756 and 1762, who elaborated, at the request of the king, a library porter on the post mortem caesarean section. The realization of the set of paintings of Pamplona must have been delayed until 1765, judging by a lawsuit that the friars maintained in relation to the patron of one of the chapels of their church.

The painter who carried out the set was Pedro Antonio de Rada († 1768), probably originally from Calahorra, where he did gilding works, as well as later in Navarra. He belonged to a family of painters, among whom we will highlight Eugenio, active in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, José and Manuel Lorenzo. His presence in Pamplona is documented since 1736, when he was commissioned to paint four large canvases for the chapel of San Fermín, which have not been preserved. His activity was closely linked to Bishop Gaspar de Miranda y Argáiz, who commissioned many works from his protégé, both paintings on canvas and polychrome and gilding work. His most important work was the decoration of painted canvases of the lunettes of the rococo sacristy of the cathedral of Pamplona (1762), in this case under the patronage of the archdeacon of the Chamber, Pedro Fermín de Jáuregui from Baztan. He combined episcopal and municipal commissions, with those that came from the institutions of the Kingdom, highlighting some royal portraits. He worked for different towns in Navarre, Tarazona and La Rioja.

There is no doubt that it was the Carmelites who chose the themes, based on their knowledge of the scriptures, opting for those in which St. Joseph had played a special role, although they added one of great tradition in the Teresian Carmelites and of apocryphal origin.

Five passages from the New Testament were included in the set: the Adoration of the Shepherds (Lk 2:8-20), the Circumcision of the Child Jesus (Lk 2:21), the presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:22-40), the Flight into Egypt (Mt 2:13-15, 19-23) and the Child Jesus lost and found in the Temple (Lk 2:41-52). To these scenes a sixth one was added, with the topic of the death of Saint Joseph, narrated in the Apocrypha and other texts quite diffused from the XVI century, especially by the mentioned father Gracián and the same María Jesús de Ágreda in her Mystical City of God, work very read in the conventual refectories.

The painter, like many others, based his compositions on engraved prints. However, despite what we might think, he did not use a specific series of prints, but rather, in each of the passages, he copied from different intaglio prints.

For the Adoration of the Shepherds, a Flemish engraving from topic was used, very widespread, according to a composition by Rubens, dated shortly after 1620. Different engravers copied the basics of the Flemish painter's painting and any of them could have been used by Pedro de Rada to execute the work.

The canvas of the presentation of the Infant Jesus in the temple literally copies the intaglio print of the same topic, made by François Louvemont, after a painting by Carlo Maratta, published by Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, 1660-1690. In the case of the Flight into Egypt, we find a very widespread outline for the representation of the above-mentioned passage in all painting since the sixteenth century. For the painting of Jesus among the doctors, he used the engraving of Pedro Perret, according to the invention of Heyndrick Withouck, which illustrated the Historia infantiae Christi, Antwerp, 1591, in its second edition of Paris, 1591.

The last painting of the cycle, dedicated as it could not be otherwise to the death of the saint, is a total copy of the engraving of topic made by Nicolas Dorigny, according to model of Carlo Maratta, 1688, in a compositional outline with a great foreshortening, which enjoyed great popularity, because devotionally it was very required because St. Joseph was invoked as patron of the good death. The passage of the death of St. Joseph was of inexcusable presence in that Carmelite and Josephine environment, where the saint was invoked as the advocate of the good death, given that at the moment of leaving this world he was accompanied by none other than Mary and Christ.

Like other series, this one of the Discalced Carmelites of the capital of Navarre, not only served to decorate the temple in its central nave, but also to fix the view in different mysteries linked to the life of the adoptive father of Christ and, consequently, to imitate that becoming full of silence and acceptance of God's will, as his numerous panegyrists wrote and preached throughout the past centuries, to imitate that life full of silence and acceptance of God's will, as his numerous panegyrists wrote and preached throughout the past centuries, in a process that did not stop growing until, in 1870, St. Joseph was declared patron of the universal church.

For the canvas of the Circumcision, next to the Name of Jesus in the upper part, he used the fundamental part of the engraving of Cornelis Schut, which copies the painting of the same author for the Jesuits of Antwerp. It is the only representation of the mentioned passage that we have in Navarre and that takes place outside the temple, without the High Priest and the usual rhetorical elements in clothes and adornments of the temple. As for the place, the presence of the Virgin, St. Joseph and the kneeling mohel, ready to perform the circumcision, we follow what the Mercedarian Fray Juan Interián de Ayala prescribes in his work El pintor cristiano y erudito ( 1730). This author defends that it took place in Bethlehem and without the presence of the High Priest, with numerous arguments, following St. Epiphanius and other authors. He refutes the possibility that it took place in the temple, adding then all that refers to the name of Jesus among glowing lights, as we find in the canvas. Unlike Schut's engraving, the one who performs the operation is not Saint Joseph, but a special minister -the mohel- as Interián defends. All these circumstances make this painting extremely exceptional in its iconographic treatment in Navarre. The collection of the Escuelas Pías of Madrid conserves a copper with the same content and slight variants and that we judge as novohispano of the XVIII century, although it is classified in the previous century.

The topic of the Circumcision of Christ was considered one of the seven sorrows of the Virgin and the Carmelite order contributed to the spread of the devotion because they considered Mount Carmel as the Mons Circuncisionis Vitiorum . The Jesuits turned the feast into something main, so many of their temples have as topic highlighted in the main altarpieces that of the Circumcision.