August 28

Art and heritage in the Yerri Valley

Alejandro Aranda Ruiz
Cultural Heritage
Archbishopric of Pamplona

Yerri, made up of nineteen localities and with a surface area of more than 250 square kilometers, is one of the largest valleys in Navarre. Consequently, the magnitude of its cultural heritage -material and immaterial, civil and religious- makes it impossible to cover it in little more than an hour. For this reason, we will focus on the material heritage of religious character, making a tour of the arts from the average Ages to the Baroque. 

The average age: the Romanesque and Gothic periods

The history of the great majority of the temples in the valley starts between the second half of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century. Although practically no church has been left unaltered, the preserved remains and the best examples that have come down to us (Santa Catalina de Azcona and Montalbán de Zurucuáin) allow us to offer a general vision of what these churches were like in this historical period. 

In the first place, they are Romanesque style temples in which all the characteristics of this artistic form can be found, such as the predominance of the wall over the span. However, some characteristics of the Gothic style, such as the pointed arch, already appear. 

Secondly, they are small temples, with a single nave of few bays, mostly three (Azcona -parish and Santa Catalina-, Eraul, and Iruñela). To the east is the semicircular apse (Lácar, Lorca, Úgar, Santa Catalina de Azcona or Montalbán de Zurucuáin) that forms a continuum with the nave of the church, except in Santa Catalina de Azcona and Montalbán de Zurucuáin, where a transition section is introduced between the nave and the apse.

Thirdly, the Romanesque churches of the valley covered their naves preferably with pointed barrel vaults over transverse arches, as can be seen in Azcona (parish church and Santa Catalina), Eguiarte, Eraul, Iruñela, Úgar, Villanueva and Montalbán. The semicircular apses, on the other hand, were covered with the usual oven vault or quarter sphere vault.

On the exterior, the apse articulated its walls with attached columns that divided it into three (Santa Catalina de Azcona, Lácar and Lorca) or five (Úgar) sections. Some apses also incorporated an impost below the windows (Úgar and Lácar) and were topped at the top by a succession of corbels. The capitals of these columns, as well as those of the windows, their frames and the corbels usually had sculptural decoration, mostly of great sobriety.

Regarding the doorway, they always have pointed arches, except in Eguiarte, which has a semicircular arch. The archivolts are supported by columns or beveled arches, although in Santa Catalina de Azcona and Montalbán de Zurucuáin they rest on straight feet. An important part of the doorways are the capitals of the columns and their cimacios, as well as the archivolts and the chambrana, since they can receive sculptural decoration. However, they are very sober doorways, with very little decoration, generally of a vegetal nature. Exceptions to this decorative sobriety of the doorway, the apse and the interior are Santa Catalina de Azcona and Santa María de Eguiarte, with capitals carved by the workshop of Irache and San Miguel de Estella, from which the iconographic and stylistic models derive. There is also a tendency to place the Trinitarian chrism on one of the archivolts (Azcona, Eraul, Úgar and Zurucuáin).

The Gothic style will leave its mark, among other places, in the parish church of Riezu, from the 14th century. With a single nave, this church incorporates the novelty of a polygonal chevet covered by a groin vault. On the exterior it has a rich doorway topped by a Calvary, very similar to the doorway of Villanueva. The doorways of Ibiricu and Iruñela are also Gothic.

The average es will also be felt in religious imagery highlighting, among others, in the Romanesque the Virgin of Zurucuáin -sedessapientiae humanized thirteenth century- and in the Gothic the Virgin of Arizaleta, the last third of the thirteenth century and that follows the model of the incumbent of the cathedral of Burgos. 

The parish crosses of Arandigoyen (14th century) and Bearin (first half of the 15th century), the latter from Izánoz, stand out in gold and silver work. They have arms with oval widenings, floral finials and a central square. Especially interesting is the Bearin cross with the typical representations of the tetramorph and Adam coming out of the tomb. 

Virgin of Zurucuáin, 13th century. Photo: Diocesan Museum.

The Modern Age: the Renaissance

Between the 16th and early 17th centuries, some churches in the valley were renovated and enlarged (Arandigoyen, Arizala, Azcona, Eraul, Riezu, Villanueva and Zurucuáin), while others were built from scratch (Arizaleta, Zábal and Murugarren). The enlargement of these churches will consist of the elimination of the Romanesque chancel and the addition of a nave section and a new chancel. This new section will incorporate chapels on both sides to provide the church with a Wayside Cross, thus seeking the spatial centrality promoted in the Renaissance. The headers, on the other hand, will invariably be polygonal. Likewise, many of these churches will cover their naves with complex star-shaped or terceles vaults (Arandigoyen, Arizala, Azcona, Zurucuáin, Riezu and the chevet of Eraul). The churches of Arizala and Arizaleta will also open to the exterior doorways with columns, friezes, pediments and geometric decoration.

On the other hand, it was during the Renaissance when most, if not all, of the churches in the valley were endowed with altarpieces ranging from Plateresque (Villanueva's main altarpiece) to Romanesque (Azcona's main altarpiece). Thus, Arizala, Arizaleta, Azcona, Erul, Lácar, Lorca, Murillo, Úgar, Villanueva and Zábal have a main altarpiece made in the 16th century or early 17th century, although some of them have been greatly transformed and of one of them (Lácar) only the loose reliefs are preserved. They are major altarpieces made preferably by masters of the Estella workshop such as Martín de Morgota (Eraul, Arizala and Azcona), Pedro de Gabiria (Azcona), Juan Zabala (Zábal), Pedro Imberto and Juan II Imberto (Zábal), Bernabé Imberto (Murillo). They are very compartmentalized and sculptural altarpieces, with the exception of the largest by Villanueva. 

Numerous images of virgins and saints were carved at this time, some of which were very popular, such as the Virgen de la Tos de Eraul from around 1570. The iconography of the Virgin of the Milk or galactotrophy will occupy an important place with the example of Santa María de Eguiarte, which closely follows the model of the Virgin of Riezu from the 15th century. As far as the saints are concerned, the carving of Santa Catalina de Azcona from 1588, recently attributed to Juan de Anchieta by professor Echeverría Goñi, stands out among all of them. 

The parish cross will continue to occupy a place of honor in the 16th century in goldsmithing: Zábal and Eraúl (first third), Arandigoyen and Azcona (second third), Villanueva (1560) and Úgar (1585). These crosses were made mainly by silversmiths from Estella, such as Alonso de Montenegro (Eraúl, Azcona, Villanueva). The patriarchal cross of Zábal, made by a workshop from Pamplona in the first third of the century, deserves a accredited specialization due to its shape. 

Detail of the vault of the Wayside Cross of the parish church of Azcona, ca. 1558. Photo: Alejandro Aranda.

The Modern Age: the Baroque 

In the XVII and XVIII centuries the baroque will invade the churches of the valley, like the one of Eguiarte, whose Romanesque nave will be extended with a Wayside Cross covered by an orange average . Likewise, medieval churches of Ibiricu and Murillo and the Renaissance church of Murugarren will be covered with barrel vaults with lunettes, in vogue in the Navarrese Baroque. For its part, the basilica of Mendigaña (1702-1706) in Azcona will be built with a new floor plan, constituting, thanks to its architecture and rich decoration, the best example of Baroque in the Yerri Valley and one of the most notable in Navarre.

On the other hand, like the great devotional chapels of San Fermín in Pamplona, Santa Ana in Tudela and San Andrés in Estella, the parishes of Riezu and Eraul will erect side chapels to San José and the Virgen de la Tos respectively. They will be a modest version of their urban references with their centralized silver, their average orange dome and plasterwork decoration. 

On the exterior, the churches will also have porticoes, sometimes monumental, such as those of Villanueva and Azcona, which will incorporate a balcony or loggia for use as a conjuratory. Some bell towers will also reform their bell towers, as in Zábal or Arandigoyen.

But it will be in the altarpieces where the Baroque entrance in the valley will be felt the most with the addition of numerous collateral altarpieces (Arizala, Arizaleta, Azcona, Eguiarte, Eraul, Riezu and Úgar) and major altarpieces (Eguiarte, Grocin, Iruñela, Riezu and Zurucuáin). The larger altarpieces will occupy the whole of the chevet, giving rise, on occasions, to the format of a shell altarpiece (Eguiarte, Gorcin and Zurucuáin). As in the Renaissance, most of these altarpieces were made by the sculpture workshop of Estella, with authors such as Gabriel de Berástegui (Iruñela) or the Carthaginian Tomás Martínez (Eguiarte), among others.

Main altarpiece of Riezu, second half of the 18th century. Photo: Archbishopric of Pamplona.