1 December 2012

Conference

History, art and religiosity. The convent of Mínimos de Cascante

Ms. Mª Josefa Tarifa Castilla.
University of Zaragoza

One of the jewels of Cascante's architectural heritage is the church of the convent of Minim de Nuestra Señora de la Victoria, where on 1 December 2012, a lectureto positionby Mª Josefa Tarifa Castilla took place in situ, organised by the Chairde Patrimonio y Arte Navarro and the associationCultural Vicus. 

The strong demographic growth experienced by the population of Cascantina throughout the 16th century awakened in the council authorities the desire to establish a community of regular clerics in the town to better attend to the needs of the numerous parishioners. With this intention in mind, in 1584 they approached the convent of Nuestra Señora de la Victoria in Zaragoza, belonging to the order of the Minim, established in the Aragonese capital in 1576, who accepted the offer, signing the deed of what would be the only minimal foundation in Navarre on 4 December 1586. They received from the town council the building of the hospital of Santa Catalina, as well as some houses and courtyard located near it, with the purposethat they could build a convent there together with its church.

Work began on 9 December 1586 under the supervision of the local workman Pedro Verges Jr., who first worked on Buildingof the convent complex. A year later, the construction process of the church began, which was long, costly and with numerous interruptions, lasting more than four years, with a succession of master builders such as Martín de Arriba (1589-1592), Pedro de Corta (1592-1593), Martín de Olazábal and Pedro de Berroeta (1593-1598), Miguel de Muxica (1599-1603) and Pacual de Horaa (1600-1607). They were mainly responsible for the construction of the nave of the church, with three upturned bays with starred rib vaults, and a choir loft at the foot of the nave. The main chapel of the church was financed by the regiment that held the board of trusteesof the same, hence the placing of the local coat of arms on its walls, a prerogative of a merely honorary nature, as the right of board of trusteesis not a consequence of the right of ownership. It was built by Miguel de Miranda (1593-1605), who turned it upside down with a beautiful and complex star-shaped ribbed vault from agreementto the layout presented.
For their part, the most prominent families of the Cascantine nobility acquired some of the chapels opened between the buttresses of the nave for funerary purposes, such as the López de Ribaforada family, whose pictorial coat of arms by Juan de Lumbier hangs over the arch of entranceto the chapel, or the chapel founded under the patronage of San Francisco de Paula by Miguel Cruzat, prior of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, as indicated by the pictorial banner of the Maltese cross.

The chapel of Luis Enríquez Cervantes de Navarra, prior of Berlanga de Duero, founded in 1593 under the patronage of San Luis, stands out among all of them, both for the pictorial decoration of subjectheraldry that hangs on the wall of entranceand for the altarpiece that presides over it, whose central panel dedicated to the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin is the work of a painter who followed the Flemish Rolan Mois, possibly Francisco Metelín. 

For its part, the chapel of San Juan Bautista houses an altarpiece under the same invocation dated 1615 that has been attributed to Juan de Lumbier, a Navarrese artist active in Tudela between 1578-†1626, with different scenes dedicated to the life of the precursor, which has similarities with the main altarpiece by the same author in Cortes, and whose panels stand out for their well-structured compositions and vibrant chromatic palette.

On the outside, the masonry and brick masonry walls are interrupted only by the windows that open in the upper part of the nave, chancel and chapels on the Gospel side, and by the stepped buttresses attached to the chancel and body of the church, these being hidden in the lower part of the nave by the niche chapels, covered at a lower height. The Baroque sacristy, with two rectangular bays, is attached to the central part of the polygonal chancel.

The chalices are usually found in Hispanic temples, most of them shaft pieces. Thus, a large collection of chalices has been preserved, dating from the first half of the 16th century to 1900, in which we can see the structural and decorative evolution of this subjectof pieces through the different artistic styles, from the Gothic of the first half of the 16th century to the historicist styles of the end of the 19th century. Continuing with this subjectof pieces, there are also ciboria and reliquaries, as well as monstrances, including a magnificent example from the mid-18th century with a Zaragoza punch, carved in gilded silver, with a profusion of decoration based on alternating plant elements with cherub heads, and with a double virile framed by bursts of straight and flamed rays in the monstrance. In addition to these works, we find various examples of other types, such as navetas, cruets, crucifix holders, crucifix holders, hostiaries, lamps and sceptres, the latter, a set of four, with the only marks from Pamplona present in the works from Cascantina The chapter on crosses, both altar and processional, is also important. Among the former is a magnificent example of a reliquary from the first half of the 16th century, with fine engraved work of plant elements running along the arms, and a base added in the middle of the 18th century. Among the latter are two Baroque examples from the 17th century, the first an unornamented work that follows purist models, and the second with the arms of the cross in rock crystal with silver settings in the square and Crucified, and cannon of the same metal, both added in the first half of the 19th century. Finally, there are two sets of crowns of the Virgen del Romero and the Child, the first a highly restored Baroque work, and the second made in Pamplona by the Astrain Jewellers for the coronation of Nuestra Señora del Romero in 1928, and paid for by popular subscription. It is a set of crowns for the Virgin and Child, halo and rostrum, following historicist models, carved in gold with gemstone settings, and enamelled medallions inscribed with the coats of arms of Pope Pius XI and Isidro Gomá, bishop of Tarazona, the diocese on which Cascante depended, as well as those of Navarre and Cascante, together with eight medallions with allegories of the litany of Lauretana.
 

Cascante. Church of the convent of Nuestra Señora de la Victoria. 1586-1607