Main altarpiece of Aoiz

The renovation to the dictation of the fashions made that the Renaissance altarpiece was replaced in 1746 by the current rococo executed by Juan Tornés, retablist and sculptor of Jaca, reusing the carvings and reliefs executed by Juan de Anchieta. Having just finished the tabernacle of Tafalla, the sculptor living in Pamplona contracted in 1584 with the mayor and aldermen of Aoiz, the work of the main altarpiece of San Miguel, which was to be done in a four-year deadline according to his own design with oak and yew wood for the masonry, and walnut for the sculpture. We know that its dimensions must have been 32 feet high by 22 feet wide and that it was a perfect assembly machine without nails, with an octagonal plan, adapted to the head of the temple, similar to that of Cáseda. Nothing to do with the current eighteenth-century organism with four columns of giant balustrades, behind which the Romanesque reliefs are embedded, as if they were paintings. Its heroic classicism contrasts with the dynamism of the Rococo archangels that populate the scenographic attic. The Romanesque expository tabernacle also disappeared, replaced by the current Rococo one with an illusory floating dome.

In general terms, Tornés respected the original organization of the "historiado" or program of the Romanesque altarpiece, which has allowed the conservation of almost all of Juan de Anchieta's sculptural work. However, the polychrome of "natural cloths" and flat colors applied by Pedro Antonio Rada in 1772 dulls the fineness of the carving and prevents us from fully admiring the master's gouge. In the sotabanco we see the profane topic of young nude recumbent and facing each other, between St. Mark and St. Luke, in a characteristic pose that reminds us of the ignudi of the Sistine and, more specifically, of the figure of Adam in Michelangelo's Creation, of which he must have had drawings. The second register of the bench is occupied by pairs of apostles, in which he has played with various types of counterpositions and hand gestures.

Among the Michelangelesque prototypes of Aoiz, these paired saints are the main protagonists, since between the bench and the streets we count thirteen saints, framed in houses and ovals respectively. The master from Guipuzcoa must have seen this iconography in the altarpieces of the basilica of El Escorial, when in 1583 he was called to appraise the statue of Saint Lawrence and the royal coat of arms of Philip II on the main façade. These duos, which he had already captured in Añorbe, reach their peak here, in what we can qualify as the set of "Olympian dialogues" between saints in the heights, dealing with issues of their common faith, although they had lived in different times. In the first body board to saints of different cycles, such as St. Mark and St. Francis of Assisi, an evangelist and a founder of his order, or St. Jerome and St. Luke, a Father of the Church with another of the evangelists. This is not the case with the pairs of the second body, which are two bishops, reminding us of Plato and Aristotle of the School of Athens, and St. Emeterius and St. Celedonius, brothers and martyred Roman soldiers.

In the Romanist carving of the titular Saint Michael with the devil at his feet, Anchieta's hand is disfigured not only by the 18th century polychromy, but also by the addition of Baroque hairpieces such as the unfolded wings and the glass eyes. He holds in his right hand the Jupiterian beam of rays, while the spear is improperly supported in the foreshortened hand with which he conquers outer space. At the foot of the cross, the relief of the Deposition of Christ dead in the tomb by St. John attracts our attention, which offers us a magnificent study of the nude that denotes the knowledge of programs of study of Michelangelo and treatises of Anatomy as that of Juan Valverde de Amusco.

Outside the altarpiece there are several images, among which are the bultos of the Virgin and Child and the crucified Christ of the original Calvary, together with several reliefs of saints reused in the collateral altarpieces. The first is a grandiose Renaissance Madonna with the characteristic face of a classical matron who, respectfully interposing a softly folded cloth, holds the naked Child who holds the orb and blesses with his right hand. It is one of the best Michelangelesque carvings of a sculptor who was in full maturity, although the later polychromy prevents us from describing it as a perfect work. The Crucified Christ has all the characteristics of the anchietanos Christs, as it represents him dead, with three nails and a triangular purity cloth knotted on his right hip that allows a detailed study of the Anatomy. The Virgin and St. John, with those who made up the Calvary, are on the altarpiece on either side of a baroque Christ.