Photograph: Guillermo Maestro CasadoPhotograph: Guillermo Maestro CasadoPhotograph: Guillermo Maestro CasadoPhotograph: Guillermo Maestro CasadoPhotograph: Guillermo Maestro CasadoPhotograph: Guillermo Maestro Casado


Name of Monument:

Cathedral of Santa Maria

Location:

Plaza de la Catedral, s/n, Teruel, Spain

Date of Monument:

Second half of the 13th century to 1538

Architect(s) / master-builder(s):

Yusuf de Huzmel (plasterwork and painting on the transept and apses, 1335), Juan Lucas and Martín de Montalbán (respectively designer and master builder of the dome, 1538).

Period / Dynasty:

Mudéjar

Description:

The city's first Mudéjar monument and cathedral since 1587, it was originally the church of Santa Maria de Mediavilla before becoming a collegiate church in 1342. The tower is the oldest part, adjoining at the base and erected between 1257 and 1258. The tower, like all towers in Teruel, functions both as a bell tower and as an urban amenity. Its pointed-arch opening, which extends into a vault above transverse or diaphragm ribs and allows passage from one side to the other, facilitates negotiation of the narrow lanes of the medieval quarter. The square tower is hollow inside above a pointed barrel vault and is divided into rooms one above another, to which access from neighbouring floors would probably have been gained using a wooden staircase. The part housing the bells has two superimposed series of semi-circular arched spaces, twice as many on the top as on the bottom. On the outside it is divided into three sections separated by imposts. A noteworthy element is the large frieze of intertwined semi-circular arches carved in stone and decorated with diamond point in the southern arcade. Direct precedents of this type of arch can be found in the façade of the Aljafería Mosque in Saragossa. The alfiz panel that frames the flared apertures is also a Muslim tradition. However, the most noteworthy architectural decoration is the green and manganese ceramic of the plates or disks, the shafts and the rhomboid-shaped tiles, which may derive from Almohad precedents.
The naves and the ceiling of the central nave, whose restoration revealed the existence of an earlier Romanesque building, belong to the second stage of the building's construction. The Romanesque naves were raised, closing some spaces and opening new ones, while maintaining the difference in height between the central and side naves. This nave is covered with an exposed collar-beam roof with double tie beams supported on corbels, a design deriving from Almohad art. Recent restoration work has uncovered the original brilliant, solid colours, dominated by reds, blacks, blues and greens. They paint a complex iconographic system, covering the different classes of a society saved by the redemption of Christ, as seen in the Crucifixion. The technique used was tempera on board.
Between April and September 1335, Yusuf de Huzmel did the plasterwork and painting on the transept and apses. The current dome was designed by Juan Lucas, known as 'Botero', and constructed by the master builder Martín de Montalbán in the summer of 1538. This dome clearly replaced an existing one, referred to in a document from 1404 as 'the dome of that church'. Its traditionally Islamic interior layout follows the system used in Aragon of intertwined arches forming eight-pointed stars; an ideal system for vaulting that can also be seen in Saragossa Cathedral.

View Short Description

This church, one of the oldest Mudéjar monuments in Teruel, contains a masterpiece of the Spanish Mudéjar style: the polychrome ceiling above the main nave, in which the Muslim artistic tradition is used in a Christian iconographic arrangement noteworthy for its representation of the different social classes of the time.

How Monument was dated:

Abundant documentation refers to the building, such as the commission for the 'Moorish master of Coglor' Yusuf de Huzmel (document from the cathedral archive) or the diary of Gaspar Sánchez Muñoz, a citizen of Teruel, in which he mentions the construction of the dome by Martín de Montalbán. The wood used in the ceiling has been dated to between 1080 and 1192 using dendochronological analysis at the laboratories of the Spanish National Institute of Agrarian and Alimentary Research and Technology (INIA).

Selected bibliography:

Alquézar, E., Arias, I. and Franco, A., “Carpintería y Elementos Arquitectónicos Mudéjares en el Museo Arqueológico Nacional Procedentes de Aragón”, in Actas VI del Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo, Teruel, 16–18 September 1993, Teruel, 1996, pp.874–7.
Borrás Gualís, G., Arte Mudéjar Aragonés, Saragossa, 1985, Vol. II, pp.381–4.
Rabanaque, E., Novella, A., Sebastián, S. and Yarza, J., El Artesonado de la Catedral de Teruel, Saragossa, 1981.
Torres Balbás, L., “La Iglesia de Santa María de Mediavilla, Catedral de Teruel”, Archivo Español de Arte, 26, Madrid, 1953, pp.81–97.
Mudéjar Art: Islamic Aesthetics in Christian Art, pp.107–10.

Citation of this web page:

Ángela Franco "Cathedral of Santa Maria" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;es;Mon01;21;en

Prepared by: Ángela FrancoÁngela Franco

Ángela Franco es Jefa del Departamento de Antigüedades Medievales en el Museo Arqueológico Nacional.
Obtuvo el Grado de Doctor por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid con la tesis Escultura gótica en León y provincia, premiada y publicada parcialmente (Madrid, 1976; reed. León, 1998); y la Diplomatura en Paleografía y Archivística por la Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica, con la tesis L'Archivio paleografico italiano: indici dei manoscritti, publicada en castellano (Madrid, 1985). Becas de investigación: beca posdoctoral del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Academia Española de Bellas Artes de Roma (1974-75); beca posdoctoral del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Academia Española de Bellas Artes de Roma (1975-77); beca de la Fundación Juan March de Madrid (1978).
Tiene en su haber 202 publicaciones, fundamentalmente sobre arte medieval cristiano, en especial la iconografía: Crucifijo gótico doloroso, Doble Credo, Danzas de la Muerte, temática bíblica en relación con la liturgia (el Génesis y el Éxodo en relación con la vigilia Pascual) o con el teatro (Secundum legem debet mori, sobre el “pozo de Moisés” de la cartuja de Dijon). Es autora de cuatro catálogos monográficos del Museo Arqueológico Nacional, entre ellos el de Dedales islámicos (Madrid, 1993), y de publicaciones sobre escultura gótica y pintura en la catedral de León y sobre escultura gótica en Ávila, así como de numerosas fichas para catálogos de exposiciones.
Ha participado en innumerables congresos nacionales e internacionales, presentando ponencias y mesas redondas, y ha dirigido cursos y ciclos de conferencias. Es Secretaria de Publicaciones en el Museo Arqueológico Nacional desde 1989.

Copyedited by: Rosalía AllerRosalía Aller

Rosalía Aller Maisonnave, licenciada en Letras (Universidad Católica del Uruguay), y en Filología Hispánica y magíster en Gestión Cultural de Música, Teatro y Danza (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), ha obtenido becas de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional y la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia de Madrid, así como el Diplôme de Langue Française (Alliance Française), el Certificate of Proficiency in English (University of Cambridge) y el Certificado Superior en inglés y francés (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Madrid). Profesora de Estética de la Poesía y Teoría Literaria en la Universidad Católica del Uruguay, actualmente es docente de Lengua Castellana y Literatura en institutos de Enseñanza Secundaria y formación del profesorado en Madrid. Desde 1983, ha realizado traducción y edición de textos en Automated Training Systems, Applied Learning International, Videobanco Formación y El Derecho Editores. Integra el equipo de Museo Sin Fronteras desde 1999 y ha colaborado en la revisión de los catálogos de “El Arte Islámico en el Mediterráneo”. Así mismo, ha realizado publicaciones sobre temas literarios y didácticos, ha dictado conferencias y ha participado en recitales poéticos.

Translation by: Laurence Nunny
Translation copyedited by: Monica Allen

MWNF Working Number: SP 25

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