Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción - Villatorres
There is little data on the church as its archive was entirely lost during the Spanish Civil War, as well as most of its objects of worship, images and altarpieces.
There is little data on the church as its archive was entirely lost during the Spanish Civil War, as well as most of its objects of worship, images and altarpieces.
The sixteenth/seventeenth-century chapel has an esplanade from which you can see the entire town, as well as neighbouring towns such as Baeza, Jabalquinto, Mancha Real, Mengíbar and the city of Jaén.
The church stands out as the most significant cultural asset in the urban area. It consists of a gabled nave covered with Arabic tiles,a slightly pronounced transept, as corresponds to its Latin cross-shaped plan, a dome that is covered in four waters on the outside and a belfry, which marks the maximum height of the temple.
Construction of the palace was ordered by Don Íñigo Fernández de Córdoba y Mendoza towards the middle of the seventeenth century. It was divided into two sections, a sunny upper terrace and a lower access section, which was made through large semicircular arches on simple pilasters that extend vertically to the upper floor.
Francisco Cerezo was a very prolific painter who kept a large collection of his works on his property towards the end of his life. It was at this time that the artist offered his entire collection to the town of Villargordo, on the express condition that a permanent exhibition of it be mounted.
Representative of post-war colonial architecture, this church was built in the 1950s according to a project by Víctor López Morales. Its plan is rectangular and its interior is spacious. The presbytery is characterized by white walls surrounding a large central mural, a figurative rendering of the annunciation of the Virgin.
The church is formed by a single nave decorated with a seventeenth-century coffered ceiling, currently hidden by half-barrel domes from the mid-twentieth century. The tower is dated between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, made in three parts; the first consisted of the baptistery crowned with a late Gothic vault;the second part was probably constructed towards the end of the seventeenth century (or early eighteenth); and the third part, dating from the nineteenth century, consisted of a belfry to crown the tower. Today, the tower is topped with a twentieth-century plasterwork dome, which references the Holy Land.
The chapel is a small temple which, according to legend, was built on top of the hill where the Virgin appeared. The current image is a replica of the original, which was destroyed during the Civil War. Towards the eighteenth century, the chapel was built on the remains of a cemetery. During the War, around 1936, the image was attacked; a rope was tied around its neck and it was dragged through the street.
The chapel was built in 1994 by Antonio Salazar Gay and Asunción Rísquez Pamos on the occasion of a promise of illness. The image of Santa Gema came from Gerona two years before the construction of the chapel; during that time the image remained in the couple’s house. Once completed, the chapel was inaugurated and blessed by the Priest who lived in the town at that time, Don Francisco Martínez Rojas. At present, the chapel is open on the fourteenth of each month,when it is visited by its devotees.
On November 30, 1227, King Ferdinand III of Castile conquered the city of Baeza, and a year later, on December 8, 1228, the Castilian King donated the territory of Martos and its region to the Order of Calatrava, who built the mill of Cubo in 1437.
The chapel dates to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries, with a Gothic sacristy from the time of the reign of the Catholic Monarchs.
This Renaissance-Baroque-style chapel is situated on the road to Martos. It seems that the construction of the church was related to a plague epidemic which devastated the locality in 1580; the chapel was inaugurated on September 26, 1584. The primitive hermitage underwent various restorationsin the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The castle dates from the thirteenth century and features an irregular quadrangular plan, 80m long and 50m wide, with angles reinforced by square and circular towers more than 11m high and 5mwide. Under the domain of the Order of Calatrava, improvements were made to the castle, consisting of the construction of a fortified moat, presenting a double walled circuit in the middle of the fifteenth century.
The San Sebastián bridge dates from the sixteenth century. It is contiguous on one side with the former Puerta de Martos and on the other with the pillar of the same name that rises over the bed of the salty stream. It responds to a Renaissance trace, made in stonework and with beautiful proportions. It is composed of a single semicircular eye framed by strong stirrups.
This building was originally commissioned as the Town Hall, to serve one of the most important nuclei of the Order of Calatrava.Its construction was sponsored by the Mayor,Don Andrés de Guevara Calatayud, began in the early seventeenth century and ended in 1642. The building is of great significance to the community, both a symbol of the splendor of Tosyrian history and a statement about architecture’s crucial civic and economic role. In 2007, it was declared anAsset of Cultural Interest.
This fountain is of medieval origin and was renovated in the eighteenth century. The façade is organized by means of four Doric-Tuscan pilasters, between which there are blind semicircular arches, topped by an entablature and decorated triangular pediment studs, on whose tympanum the Torredonjimeno shield appears in half relief and cartouches on each side, with legends alluding to its construction in 1721.
This church was built in the sixteenth century, taking advantage of the materials of the urban wall of the city. It was reformed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and has a Gothic architectural style. The original altarpiece dated from 1537 butwas largely destroyed in 1936;only the crown and curtains survived, and they have been perfectly integrated into the current altarpiece’s design, the work ofAmadeo Ruiz Olmos.
This Renaissance-style church, designed by Francisco del Castillo, was built in 1592. It is divided into three naves by sober Tuscan columns that support a Mudejar coffered ceiling. The altarpiece, from the first halfof the seventeenth century, is originally from a convent in Valladolid. Also noteworthy is the large number of Holy Weekpaintworks, many of them by Francisco Palma Burgos and Amadeo Ruiz Olmos.
Founded by Don Jerónimo de Padilla, Knight of the Order of Santiago, to house a convent and school for maidens. Around 1550, the works on the church and the rest of the monastery’s premises were finished. Inside are the burial chambers of the founders and their family. The church has a single nave, with side chapels embedded in the wall. It has a double choir on the feet and on the side of the presbytery. The Baroque altarpiece dates from 1728.
The seventeenth-century convent was in operation until 1840, when it disappeared due to the confiscation of Mendizábal. Only the convent church that occupied the entire block is preserved, of which only the vaults and sides are conserved as original elements.