Interesting places / The Parish Church of Santa Maria de La Asuncion y del Manzano

City: Hondarribia


 
Built on fragments of old walls, this church is located in the centre of the town’s historic quarter. It has a Gothic design with added Renaissance and Baroque touches. It was built with elements used from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The sacristy was built on the medieval wall in the first half of the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century Baroque belfry, built on a previous tower house, is a work of Francisco de Ibero.

The temple’s ground plan has a Latin cross shape, with three naves at different levels. The star-shaped vault under the choir stall that is supported by a highly decorative low arch is outstanding, where the varied religious and heraldic iconography is striking. The picture of the Trinity as a figure with three heads merged together holding an equilateral triangle in his hands attracts attention. According to some specialists, this is the only picture of this type that has survived in the Iberian Peninsula and is probably one of the very few that exists in Europe.

The church has two entrances from the outside. The main one is from the Mayor (Main) street. This main entrance, the construction of which was contracted in 1566, offers a hybrid appearance between a Gothic and Renaissance style. A large decorated arch with casetones frames the entrance literally divided into two parts by a mullion on which a classicistic boarding is placed, crowned by a kind of pediment with the image of the Virgin of the Assumption standing out in the centre.

The oldest part of the temple is on the north side, with a simple doorway with three archivolts in the shape of a carpanel arch that would indicate flamboyant or Elizabethan Gothic. The town’s original coat of arms is here. This facade has several interesting elements like the above mentioned entranceway, the shape and tracery of its windows and the cresting of the crown. This double levelled cresting is not on the border of this facade and consists of two parts: on the one hand, the entirely Gothic work decorated in circles filled with flamboyant tracery and, on top f it, a band with schematic vegetable decoration that clearly looks posterior and that seems to respond to the desire to build up these side walls to be able to install the gabled roof.

On the façade facing south the four enormous windows stand out (one of which cannot be seen) which were installed at the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as the cresting with open worked decoration typical of the end of the Gothic era. The archivolt fragment situated on the lower part of most western side of this facade also stands out. It was used as a construction material and may have belonged to the first temple. The graffiti of the architectural design on a true scale, situated under one of the above mentioned windows, also draws attention. It is engraved into the stone and it represents elements of the cresting and a plant of the cornice of the belfry.

The wall runs alongside the east end of the church, which marks the “Paseo de Ronda” that crosses the supports and is perfectly integrated into the church’s architecture. The robustness and defensive character of the church’s contour draws attention.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, important changes were made such as the substitution of the Renaissance wooden altarpiece made by Joanes de Iriarte– who had also substituted another Gothic made of English alabaster - for a new neoclassic one. Fragments of the substituted altarpieces are kept in the sacristy. Delicate robes, some of which are said to have been used at the marriage between Princess Maria Teresa of Austria, daughter of Philip IV, with the king of France, Luis XIV, are also kept in this sacristy. The most outstanding are chasubles, capes and tiaras embroidered in silk richly adorned with a clearly oriental influence.


More Information

A building declared as a monument
Reservations and guided tours: Tourist Office. Calle Javier Ugarte, 6.
Tel. no.: + 34 943 64 54 58;
Fax no.: + 34 943 64 54 66

tE-Mail

Photo of The Parish Church of Santa Maria de La Asuncion y del Manzano

+