Introduction

The parish church of Santa María de Lerín is one of the most outstanding examples of Renaissance architecture in Navarre. Built between the last third of the 16th century and the first years of the 17th century, its designs were provided by Juan Luis de Musante and Amador de Segura in the novel and modern mannerist taste of the time. The death of the first designer, Juan de Villarreal, who had planned a building with Gothic forms, and the concurrence of these two brilliant artists, who were familiar with the treatises of Palladio and Vignola, made possible the building that can be seen today. A building of imposing forms and proportions on the outside and with an interior full of pilasters, capitals, friezes and cornices that transport the beholder to the Italian Renaissance itself.