This castle can be found in the Auringi countryside, and existed when the Roman legions under Scipio seized Jaén and the Carthaginians were defeated in the Battle of Castulo.

Situated on a small hill,4m of the height of this quadrangular tower have been preserved. On the surface there are glazed ceramic elements, from the Medieval period, as well as some from the Roman era.

Conde de Argillo is the oil produced at Finca Arroyovil, in the foothills of the Sierra Mágina. From its springs come the waters used to irrigate its 8,000 centenary olive trees, which produce Extra Virgin olive oil of the Picual olive variety.

The main square is an important meeting place for the locals, equipped with shady trees and benches to rest and talk. Many of the town’s most important streets converge at this point, including its emblematic Calle Maestra.

This palatial seventeenth-century house is also known as Casa de Doña Paz, named after the woman who lived there under usufruct with her two daughters until her death.

The church is the most significant cultural asset of Mancha Real, and its design and construction is credited to numerous prestigious architects from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, such as Andrés de Vandelvir, Juan de Aranda, Eufrasio López de Rojas and Ventura Rodríguez.

Following the Re-conquest, the mosques of Porcuna were destroyed and replaced with Christian temples. Surviving this erasure is the Torre de Boabdil (Museo Arqueológico de Obulco), considered by Juan Eslava as “the most beautiful example of military architecture in the Kingdom of Jaén”.

After the collapse of a previous Gothic Iglesia de Santa María la Mayor, the current church was erected on the same site, although incorporating the sacristy, which had been renovated in the seventeenth century by the mannerist Benito del Castillo.

Arco de la Plaza - Porcuna

The religious, administrative and social centre of Porcuna is the Plaza de Andalucía. The generously proportioned space features balconied houses and is accessed through a Gothic-style archway. The arch was once the gateway to the medieval fortress of the walled enclosure, and was rebuilt in 1952.

Location

Located in Plaza de Andalucía.

The Neoclassical Town Hall was previously the Royal Pósito (grain store) and was built by Carlos IV in 1798. It has a basilica floor plan and is made of carved local ashlar. The façade presents, in the centre, a portal with a staircase and a door flanked by Tuscan pilasters on podiums. Inside are rooms 3A and 3B of the Archaeological Museum, housing an exhibition of the Prehistorical, Iberian and Roman culture of the city.

The chapel was once that of San Sebastián, with a Latin cross plan covered with a barrel vault. It also has a remarkable altarpiece with biscuit stipes and asymmetrical composition, and a profuse Baroque dressing room in rockery, from the eighteenth century.

In 1437, the chapel was a priory of the Order of Calatrava, after the conquest of Porcuna in 1240, and a Benedictine Monastery. This Gothic chapel faithfully synthesizes the Cistercian spirit of the Order and integrates very different Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical elements.

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 - Porcuna

Museo Arqueológico de Porcuna

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.