Introduction

Three of the best Spanish sculptors of the Modern Age were Juan de Anchieta, a Basque living in Pamplona in the 16th century, Gregorio Fernández, a Galician established in Valladolid in the 17th century, and Luis Salvador Carmona, a Spanish based at the Court of Madrid in the 18th century. Anchieta was surely the most select interpreter of Michelangelo's style, without having personally known the Florentine genius, surpassing even many of his Italian disciples. He is considered the father of one of the largest Michelangelo schools in Europe in the three northern kingdoms of Castile, Navarre and Aragon. He was a true Renaissance man and one of the artists with the greatest projection, not only through his disciples, but above all through a mass of followers, as Concepción García Gainza, author of the best monograph on this great master, has highlighted.

Romanism or Michelangelo's mannerism is a classical-heroic style designated by the artists themselves as the "true manner". It is based on the imitation of the prototypes and compositions of Michelangelo and his disciples, and was adopted by the Roman Curia as the official style of the Church and the most effective propaganda of the provisions of the Council of Trent. For its creation, the Florentine genius started, in turn, from Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, in which he admired the fusion of dramatism and formal perfection. His sense of beauty, of Christian Neoplatonic inspiration, is based on the adequacy of form to content, so it is governed by unwritten rules that Anchieta knew how to capture as few sculptors. Some of the most evident are the generalized anatomical exaltation, regardless of age or sex, to emphasize moral virtue, the expressions of fierceness and Roman authority, the abundant canvases that reinforce the monumentality, and the eight-headed canon, known in Spain as the quintuple proportion. To represent the intention of the soul and the inner world, he will use different formulas to suggest movement, such as forced torsions, declamatory attitudes, arms raised or crossed energetically, serpentine lines, contrapposti, displacements of the main topic , physical and spiritual links, different visual contrapositions and a varied non-verbal language of gestures and hands.

In the XXV session of the Council of Trent, the catechetical function of the images and the altarpiece was clearly defined as a history of the mysteries of our redemption, for which reason the attics of the Romanesque altarpieces are invariably reserved for Calvary, with Christ crucified as the culmination of salvation. In the lower serliana is the Assumption-Coronation of the Virgin as mediator. The stories in relief, with readings from left to right, refer to the life of the Virgin and Infancy of Christ and the Passion. The foundations of the revealed doctrine, which are the evangelists, Fathers of the Church and virtues, are usually placed on the benches, while the apostles, as symbolic pillars, are placed in the interstices. The examples of life to follow are found in the images and hagiographic cycles of the saints. In all the themes, the authority of the pope and the prelates, and the value of the sacraments and other Tridentine dispositions are affirmed in the face of the Protestants. The tabernacle is a micro-architecture that guards and exposes the Eucharist, and usually shows in its doorway the risen Christ, triumphant over death.

The most unknown period of his life until recently, the twenty years as apprentice and journeyman in Castile, between 1551, the date of his apprenticeship, and 1571, when the altarpiece of Santa Clara de Briviesca was commissioned, has been revealed in a book by Vasallo Toranzo. He analyzes his interventions as an official in the service of different company chiefs such as Inocencio Berruguete or Juan de Juni, whom we can consider his master, in several altarpieces in Valladolid and Palencia. As had already been assumed, it has been confirmed that he worked under the orders of Gaspar Becerra in the main altarpiece of the cathedral of Astorga, whose novel design and style constitute a manifesto of Romanism in Spain. Between 1566 and 1569 he was the author of the most elaborate carvings and reliefs of the main altarpiece of the monastery of Santa Clara de Briviesca, contracted by Pedro López de Gámiz and considered the most ambitious liturgical piece of furniture of all times in Spain.

His fruitful period, after his marriage in 1570 and once he had achieved his master's degree, was spent in Pamplona, where he developed a great activity as an altarpiece designer and sculptor until his death in 1588, a year in which, paradoxically, he multiplied his commitments, some of which he left unfinished or did not even begin. His mature work during the last quarter of the 16th century is well known to us, and can be grouped by decades. The seventies saw the realization of a large issue of altarpieces and carvings in Aragon (Zaragoza and Jaca), Burgos (Las Huelgas and cathedral), commissioned by Castilian bishops of Pamplona, the Basque Country (Zumaya and Vitoria) and, mainly, in Navarra (Añorbe, Cáseda, cathedral and convent of Augustinian Recollect nuns of Pamplona), which we will treat in each case in its respective route. In the eighties, from his workshop established in Navarrería Street, other altarpieces are dated, such as those of Aoiz, Obanos, of which only some of its carvings remain, and the tabernacle, benches and first body of Santa María de Tafalla, which was finished, following the original design by his disciple Pedro González de San Pedro. In the last year of his life he finished the bench of the altarpiece of San Pedro de Moneo (Burgos), in the chapel of board of trustees of the bishop of Pamplona Pedro de la source, and the Virgin of the Rosary of Navarrete (La Rioja). As with his reference, the divine Michelangelo, death would surprise him at work.