HERITAGE WITHIN EVERYONE'S REACH. FROM ROMANESQUE TO BAROQUE IN THE AREA OF TAFALLA

20 September 2005

The parish church of Santa María. The main altarpiece by Juan de Anchieta
Dr. María Josefa Tarifa Castilla

Organised by the Chair de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro and Tafalla Town Council.

The third lecture of the summer course "Heritage within everyone's reach. position From the Romanesque to the Baroque in the area of Tafalla", was given by Dr. María Josefa Tarifa Castilla, who addressed the study of the parish of Santa María de Tafalla and its main altarpiece in situ.

The first part of her intervention was dedicated to the study of the temple. Of its constructive history he highlighted two important construction phases, the one undertaken in the mid-sixteenth century under the direction of the Guipuzcoan stonemason Martín de Larrarte, in which the building acquired its current configuration in plan and elevations as a church with a Latin cross plan, and the reform of the seventeenth century, in which the extension of the nave with side chapels of agreement was carried out with the traces and conditioning of the masters Juan de Larrea and Fermín de Acha. He paid special attention to the architectural analysis of the building, focusing on the floor plan, elevations with plasterwork decoration, star-shaped vaulting and stone ashlar exterior.

He then focused his interest on the main altarpiece, a capital piece of Navarre's Romanesque style and the work of Juan de Anchieta, one of the most important sculptors of the north of the peninsula in the last third of the 16th century. After the death of this master from Guipuzcoa in 1588, the altarpiece was completed by his disciple Pedro González de San Pedro, and from 1596 the painter Juan de Landa was in charge of its polychromy. After analyzing the architectural structure of the altarpiece, an exceptional example of Mannerist project , María Josefa Tarifa explained the complex iconographic program developed from agreement with the dictates of the Counter-Reformation, consisting mainly of scenes from the infancy of Christ, the Passion and Resurrection, and the Paschal cycle, with the central street reserved for the figures of El Salvador, the previous owner of the temple, and the Assumption.

He ended his dissertation making accredited specialization to the Christ of the Miserere, another of the works of Juan de Anchieta with which the parish of Santa Maria de Tafalla has.