10 October

lecture series
PAMPLONA IN CONTEXT

A reading of the cathedral altarpiece,
today in the Parish Church of San Miguel in Pamplona

Ricardo Fernández Gracia
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art

Among the altarpieces of Navarre, due to its intrinsic importance and great projection, the cathedral altarpiece stands out, currently in the parish church of San Miguel in Pamplona, since the first diocesan church suffered the consequences of a disastrous intervention on its interior just after the end of the civil war.

The piece has been studied by Professor García Gainza and we refer to her programs of study for the different aspects it brings together, especially with regard to its patron, the bishop of Pamplona, Don Antonio Zapata, who governed the destiny of the diocese between 1596 and 1600.

The promoter

Don Antonio was the first-born son of the first Count of Barajas and was related to Cardinal Cisneros. He was educated at the high school of San Bartolomé de Salamanca and obtained the licentiate degree in canons. His Withdrawal to the rights of primogeniture made a favourable impression on King Philip II, who promoted him to high ecclesiastical posts. Among other dignities, he held the posts of inquisitor and canon of Toledo, bishop of Cadiz and Pamplona, archbishop of Burgos, cardinal, viceroy of Naples and archbishop of Toledo. Prior to his arrival in Pamplona, in the diocese of Cádiz he promoted the construction of 3,500 metres of wall, facing the bay, as a result of the great damage it had suffered from Drake's attack in 1587.

From a historical point of view, Goñi Gaztambide has studied his stay in the capital of Navarre, highlighting his decidedly Tridentine inspiration in all his pastoral activities, from the creation of educational and training centres to his exemplary behaviour, like another Saint Charles Borromeo. On the occasion of the plague that devastated the city of Pamplona in 1599, he demonstrated this with his pastoral actions. As a patron and promoter of the arts in Pamplona Cathedral, mention should be made of the construction of the chapterhouse sacristy, the Corpus Christi processions and the creation of the main altarpiece.

Altarpiece in the cathedral. 1597-1598.

To this must be added the application of a new liturgy in the first diocesan church in Pamplona, based on the Tridentine dispositions that led to the abandonment of the old breviaries in favour of the Roman Ritual of St. Pius V, something that happened around 1585, and the old choir rules, codified in the first half of the 15th century on the basis of practices that had been common in the cathedral since at least the 14th century, were replaced by new ones, drawn up in 1598, following those of the cathedral of Toledo. The manager of this last change was Don Antonio Zapata, who had been a canon of Toledo. With regard to the music chapel and more specifically to the infantes, Zapata increased the issue from four in the 16th century to twelve, at the same time as reorganising the chapel and providing it with new income, also increasing the organ.

The authors

The design of the main altarpiece (1597) was inspired by that of El Escorial through the engravings of Perret. The design must have been executed by a faithful interpreter of the Herrerian aesthetic, the silversmith José Velásquez de Medrano, who in some documents is referred to as the "architect of silver" and was the author of the silver platforms for the Corpus Christi procession. For the sculpture and reliefs of the altarpiece he chose Pedro González de San Pedro, a renowned master at that time at his specialization program for having successfully completed the main altarpiece of Santa María de Tafalla, begun by his master Juan de Anchieta, and for having worked on the altarpiece that no longer exists in Cascante. Under a contract signed on 11 July 1597 in Cascante by the aforementioned Pedro González de San Pedro, he transferred all the architectural work on the piece to the Estella-based assembler Domingo de Bidarde, with the exception of the Corinthian and composite capitals. All the architecture would be carried out "according to the art and well-finished and carved work and precepts of Viñola", a much cited authority in the 1990s (Pamplona, Barbastro) because the Spanish translation was published in 1593 by Patricio Caxés.

Altarpiece. 1597-1598.

The work of gilding and stephenation of the altarpiece was carried out by a prestigious master of the aforementioned specialization program, the painter and gilder Juan Claver. In the mid-18th century, an Italian who was in Pamplona at the time, Francisco Capelaris, cleaned it, as he did the altarpieces in other churches in the city.

The altarpiece and its typically Tridentine iconographic plan

The altarpiece, organised with a bench, two sections and an attic with three lanes and two interspaces, has an exquisite structural arrangement of tall boxes, in which reliefs and sculptures with themes of the Passion of the Lord, the Evangelists, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, scenes from the life of the Virgin, the particular devotions of the bishop, and the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, so much under attack by the Protestants, are housed.

The Christological topic has its references in images in the scenes of the Passion on the bench and the Calvary in the attic. All this is complemented by the importance given to the tabernacle-exhibitor, the original of which has not been preserved, in which the Christ made Eucharist was given great importance in both place and space. The altarpiece was dedicated to the Virgin, as the cathedral belonged to her degree program . The Romanesque image of Saint Mary, known from the 17th century onwards as the Virgin of the Tabernacle because she was next to the tabernacle and because she was veiled and even enclosed in a rich silver cabinet made in 1737, occupied a pre-eminent place in the lower part of the altarpiece. Her image in the passage of the Assumption, the main feast in the cathedral's liturgical calendar, occupied the centre of the second section, and on either side of it there were two reliefs relating to her life and role in sacred history: the Annunciation and the Birth of Christ.

The saints could not be missing. Among them are the princes of the apostles, Peter and Paul, the patron saints Saint Fermin and Saint Augustine, by whose rule the canons were governed; Saint Peter in catedra and in his martyrdom, evoking papal authority at the time of the Catholic Reformation; the evangelists, doctors and fathers of the church; and Saint Anton and Saint Francis, evoking the names of the bishop and his father. Finally, two reliefs of saints from Toledo: the imposition of the chasuble on Saint Ildefonso and the finding of the body of Saint Leocadia, tell us of the prelate's devotions that were rooted in his time as a canon of the cathedral. Saints of the universal church, martyrs, those responsible for doctrine on three levels - evangelists, fathers and doctors - and those of the Hispanic and Navarrese church make up a very elaborate and studied programme of holiness for the catechisation of the faithful, who were so dependent at that time on images, as society was largely illiterate and the means of disseminating culture and evangelisation were in the hands of oratory and images.

Imposition of the chasuble on Saint Ildefonso. Altarpiece. 1597-1598.

In addition to the Eucharist, present in the tabernacle and on solemn occasions in the expositor, the other sacrament attacked by the Protestants, penance, is also present in the altarpiece, specifically in the reliefs of two penitent saints: St Mary Magdalene and St Mary Egipciaca.

At final, a typically post-Tridentine programme that put images to what the Protestants had discussed: holiness, the cult of the Virgin and the saints, the sacraments of the Eucharist and penance, and the papacy, embodied in the seated figure of Saint Peter -today in the Museum of Navarre-. With the clarity of the forceful images in their volumes, ordered reliefs and emphatic lines, all that message was clear to the faithful of an era that needed a reaffirmation in the tradition of Catholic dogmas and of the old and new models of sanctity.