The stone house was built by Antonio Aguilera Rueda (1931-1960) and is perhaps the most emblematic monument in Porcuna, or certainly the best known and most visited. The huge masterpiece is also testament to the ancient local practice, used since the third millennium BC, of forming ashlars from local quarries with which to build and decorate. This building process has carried Porcuna’s name across the world.
Museo Arqueológico de Porcuna
The public fountain is situated next to one of the eight gates of the Santa Catalina Castle wall. Its design and construction is attributed to Alonso Barba, of clear Renaissance aesthetics and remarkable height, it is composed of a total of two bodies and a coronation attic.
The monument is of a lizard, being the most famous legend of the capital. The saying goes: “Hopefully you will burst like the Lizard of Jaén”. There are a few versions of the legend however it is thought the lizard lived in the fountain of Magdalena and went out to kill people and animals. A shepherd killed the lizard using as bait a bloody lamb skin filled with burning tinder that, when swallowed, hugged the entrails of the lizard and made it burst. In memory of the shepherd a scene has been painted in the same fountain of the Magdalena. Therefore, when someone eats a lot, they are told that “he is going to burst like the lizard of Jaén”. There is a similar legend in Córdoba and Valencia. Located on Calle Santo Domingo.
At the top of Cerro del Calvario stands the hermitage, a rectangular building measuring 16x7.3 meters. The origins of this ordeal are difficult to pin down: its oldest references are from the mid-eighteenth century. In 1999 it was demolished, and it was built again that same year. Little way to south
The Capuchinos Dark Chamber was installed in one of the towers of the Alameda auditorium, intended to recover the view offered by the old Capuchin viewpoint. Its location is considered the ideal one for contemplating the olive-growing countryside of Jaén, to have fantastic views of the monuments of the city, as well as to observe the wonderful nature that surrounds the city.
The Palacio de los Vilches is a Renaissance palace from the sixteenth century with a corner facade of six semicircular arches supported on eight Doric columns; among them busts of heroes of antiquity.
A robust arch with Gothic lines constitutes today the only visible remnant of what was the previous Iglesia de San Lorenzo, a parish created at the end of the thirteenth century. Located on Calle Almendros Aguilar.
The church is a temple of great architectural interest situated on the grounds of an Islamic mosque, the entire current church dates back to the first quarter of the sixteenth century, in the style known as Flamboyant Gothic.
The Royal Convent of Santa Clara, in the Gothic-Mudejar, Renaissance and Baroque styles, is thought to be the oldest convent in the city. It was built between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, and in 1979 it was granted the historical architectural monument designation.
The convent dates from 1580 and was built under the Order of the Mercedarian Fathers, who moved to live there and left a small house that they had near the Puerta Martos where they had their residence since the Re-conquest in 1288.
The small church is of medieval origin, being erected as a parish in the fourteenth century and built between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. A space with a steep slope that is softened by stone “cantons”, being delimited by a series of stately buildings of which there are still vestiges and among which the, Casa del Conde de Águila, stands out, better known as the “House of fear”.
It is one of the first temples in Jaén, as it dates from the second half of the fourteenth century, and was built on a mosque; proof of this is the existence of the remains of a Muslim minaret on Calle Martínez Molina.
In the chronicles about this Convent it tells us about Francisco Ullua Palomino and his wife, Doña Luisa de Quesada y Valenzuela. His Christian piety was not content with having given a son and three daughters they had to the Order, they decided to give a good part of their property, founding a Convent of nuns.
The Paseo is a long and straight avenue that runs north from the historic and monumental center of the city. It begins in the Plaza de la Constitución, one of the liveliest places in the city, and ends in the Plaza Jaén por la Paz, approximately 1.4 km away, where the railway station is located.
This bridge without a name is, importantly, one of the first reinforced concrete bridges built in Spain and currently in operation. It was executed by expert civil engineer Ramón del Cuvillo, who, through his explanations, offers a broad vision of the historical value of this bridge, a symbol of modernity due to the materials and technology that were used in its construction.
Ayuntamiento
The Town Hall is a large two-story building with two ashlar stone facades. On the main façade, the portal is set within a hollow framed by a semi-circular arch and Doric semi-columns; a cornice separates it from the upper floor, where a trilobed balcony opens. The left side is composed of three semicircular arches on columns on the ground floor and lintel-shaped openings on the upper floor. Next to it is a high tower, which is topped with a clock and belfry. Located in Plaza Andalucía.
Ermita del Santo Cristo
The chapel was designed by Miguel Peinado in 1953. Inside, the image of San Isidro, patron of the district of La Quinteria, is preserved. Located on Calle Santo Cristo.
This fifteenth-century church is typically Renaissance in style. The large temple has a central nave that ends in a ribbed vault where the main altar is presided over by an altarpiece from 1961, the work of Mariano Piñar Ferrer helped by his disciple, a native of Villanueva called Juan María Medina Ayllón. The previous altarpiece from the Alonso Berruguete School, probably from Sebastián Solís, was burned during the Spanish Civil War.
The Lituergo caves are houses next to the Guadalquivir River, which served to shelter many families from the town. At the peak of their use, there were more than fifty caves, and each had a living room, kitchen and bedroom.