Main altarpiece of Ziga

The old altarpiece of the parish of San Nicolás de Pamplona, completed in 1715, was transferred to the altarpiece of Ziga when another one was built in 1905 and removed after the last restoration works of the temple, a few decades ago.

Pamplona in the nineteenth century was especially respectful of baroque works. There was a fever against that style, especially since, in 1785, the secretary of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Don Francisco Ponz, criticized the monstrous ornamentation of the chapel of San Fermín -which would end up destroyed- or the altarpieces of San Saturnino or Carmen Calzado, which also succumbed later.

However, the old altarpiece withstood the anti-baroque fevers of academicism and the nineteenth century and was moved to Ziga in 1904, saving it from destruction, as happened with many others in the city.

Another circumstance makes the work special: the sermon that was preached on the occasion of the placement of the image of the patron saint, after its construction by one of the most prestigious masters of Pamplona, Fermín de Larrainzar, who had made position of it in 1708, has been preserved.

The author of the altarpiece, Fermín de Larrainzar (c. 1674-1741), was the son of a carpenter and was related to other masters, such as the Aragonese sculptor Manuel Gil and the multifaceted José Pérez de Eulate, who married one of his daughters. His training, begun in the family workshop, was completed, from 1691, in one of the best workshops in Pamplona in the last third of the seventeenth century, under the direction of Juan Baron de Guerendiain. In 1695 he took his entrance exam to the guild of San José for the specialties of carpentry, assembly and architecture. His artistic degree program was fast and, besides having deserved the appointment of overseer of works of the diocese of Pamplona, he monopolized most of the altarpieces of the best clients of the kingdom and of the bishopric, like the altarpieces of the cathedral girola or the Benedictines of Lazkao. In 1700 he litigated against the aforementioned guild to differentiate architecture -considering it a liberal art- from assemblage, in order to emancipate himself from the concept of craftsmanship and acquire a certain intellectual recognition.

On July 23, 1708 he signed the commitment for the realization of the main altarpiece of the parish of San Nicolás de Pamplona, according to his own design, for 400 ducats and to be made in pine wood. The execution deadline was set for Christmas 1714. In its elevations the windows of the Gothic chevet of the Pamplona church were taken into account, so as not to impede the passage of light, which was not very abundant in the interior of the enclosure. It consists of a bench, a body divided into three sections and an attic. The only body is articulated by means of four salomonic columns that suppose certain originality as for their ornamentation, since they present a great garland of flowers that runs surrounding the throats of the supports, leaving the breasts of the salomónicas to the sight.

With respect to the iconographic program, the relief of the Annunciation in the central street and the carvings of St. Peter and St. Paul on the sides currently appear in the first body. These last two and the two virtues that mount plumb on the extreme columns belong to the altarpiece that Larrainzar worked, not so the mentioned relief and the sculpture of the holder of the parish of Ziga, San Lorenzo, that occupies the templete of the attic, from where a Crucifix was removed with which the primitive altarpiece counted on the primitive altarpiece. The presence of the great relief of the Annunciation is due to the fact that this passage in the life of the Virgin was celebrated in the Pamplona parish with great solemnity, as she was the co-patroness of the aforementioned parish. The quality of some of these carvings reminds us of the way of working of some foreign sculptors who may well have made position of them, such as the Madrid-born Antonio González and other masters from Aragon, among whom were his own brother-in-law Manuel Gil y Luna, an Aragonese sculptor from La Almunia, or Jerónimo Sánchez, son-in-law of the aforementioned Pedro Onofre.

One of the most important data of the piece is the incorporation of the new subject of salomónicas, possibly influenced by the Aragonese artist Pedro Onofre Coll, who came to work on the tabernacle of San Fermín in 1714 incorporating salomonic columns "dressed with flowers", as stated in the conditions for making the altarpiece of the Virgin of Jerusalem of Artajona.

When the work was finished, in 1715, it was placed in the presbytery of the parish and blessed without missing the sermon delivered by Matías Jerónimo Izcue, vicar of the church, which was printed in the Pamplona presses of Francisco Picart, with the degree scroll Oración panegírica de San Nicolás en el día en que se consagró su nuevo retablo. The preacher dedicated it to the workers of the parish. As it is known, the Obrería was a kind of board of administration and factory that existed in the old parishes of Pamplona until the XIX century. The panegyrist, Miguel Jerónimo de Izcue, was from Pamplona and a doctor of theology.