Avila Cathedral

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is a Catholic temple of worship in the Spanish city of Ávila, episcopal seat of the same name, in Castilla y León. It was designed as a temple and fortress, its apse being one of the cubes of the city wall.

It is surrounded by various stately houses or palaces, the most important being the Velada, the Rey Niño and the Valderrábanos, which were assigned to defend La Puerta de los Leales or the Peso de la Harina.

History

Cathedral apse.

It is not known precisely when the construction of the cathedral began, there being two theories, one that defends that Alvar García began to build it in the year 1091 on the remains of the Mozarabic church of San Salvador, ruined by successive attacks Muslims, and that Alfonso VI of León raised the necessary money to build it.

However, most historians give the master Giral Fruchel the authorship of the cathedral and date it to the 12th century, coinciding with the time line of the Castilian repopulation carried out by Raymond of Burgundy. It is believed that Fruchel built the oldest part of the cathedral, the one corresponding to the chancel, while the body of naves, the adjacent chapels and the top of the towers, would be the result of successive works between the centuries XIII and XVI.

In 2009, the Supreme Court ruled on the appeal of cassation against the Avila bishopric for some works started by the then bishop Adolfo González Montes. The works concluded in 2002 and a structure was placed on the tombs that prevents the contemplation of lauds. The Royal Academy of History denounced him and the High Court agreed with him in 2005, demanding the removal of the altar and the ambo. The Bishopric and the Cathedral Chapter appealed alleging that the work was necessary.

The reform works of the cathedral presbytery were inaugurated on June 23, 2002 with a mass. They had a budget that exceeded 180,000 euros and lasted for more than three years.

The building

It is the first Gothic cathedral in Spain, in the style of the French ones from the Île-de-France (Saint-Denis, which it looks a lot like, and Vézelay) being the area built by Fruchel in a transitional Romanesque style to gothic. Subsequently, different masters continued and modified the plan of works already in full Gothic style.

From the 13th century are the first body of the towers and naves and the XIV the second body of the towers (one of them unfinished), the cloister, the vaults and the flying buttresses. In the XV century, all the works on the cathedral were finished and, in 1475, Juan Guas built the mechanical clock, in addition to to transfer the primitive western doorway to the north side.

Portico detail.

The spatial perception of the temple was substantially modified with the construction of the choir; the retrochoir, made by Lucas Giraldo and Juan Rodríguez, is a large limestone work.

Throughout the centuries they built various chapels, such as San Segundo and Los Velada, in the XVI century. Another important work by Juan Rodríguez in collaboration with Lucas Giraldo is the altar of Santa Catalina.

The main altar was started in 1502 by Pedro Berruguete, author of the eight tables on the predella: evangelists, doctors of the church, the Flagellation and the Prayer in the Garden, probably finished by Santa Cruz, an artist who would continue the work with the tables of the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Epiphany. Finally, the Juan de Borgoña altarpiece is finished.

Under the protection of the generic declaration of the Decree of April 22, 1949, and Law 16/1985 on Spanish Historical Heritage.

Interior

Alonso de Madrigal tomb.

Charles Clifford: Abside Avila Cathedral, 1860

Avila Cathedral is considered the first Gothic cathedral in Spain.

The plan has French influences and some resemblance to the Saint-Denis basilica, the first Gothic church. The head is highly original, for two reasons: on the outside it is fortified, in the form of a solid and crenellated apse, popularly known as "Cimorro"; while inside it presents a double ambulatory, with fine columns and pointed arches, which give this space a sensation of lightness and openness.

The body of naves corresponds to a period in which the Gothic had entered a more refined and luminous phase. The three naves are of the same width, but the central one is notably higher, and it opens with large windows to the outside. The vaults are mostly simple quadripartite ribbed.

Personalities

In the cathedral rest the mortal remains of the historian and penultimate president of the government of the Second Spanish Republic in exile, Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, and of the president of the Government of Spain from 1976 to 1981 Adolfo Suárez and his wife, Amparo Illana.