|
From San Sebastian going through
the Llano de la Cruz, which as its name says, holds a large flat
cross in the centre, we follow the Juan Colín street, popular
setting in the morning of Holy Friday, and we finally arrive at
La Silera and the Munda Square.
Next to this, at the top of Ancha
street, we find San Agustin Church and its old convent,
recently declared a Property of Cultural Interest.
The foundation of the Augustan
convent on 10th June 151 was due to the will of Alonso Sánchez
Recio de León. This Alonso was the grandson of a knight
from Leon called Francisco Sanchez, who settled in Montilla when
he returned after capturing Antquera to where he had gone with
the Infant don Fernando, brother of Huan II. The chosen location
was the hermitage of San Cristobal, and the building started in
1520 with the Augustan Brother Pedro de Valencia taking possession.
In 1746 the alteration and raising
of the current cloister was carried out.
This temple has a neoclassical
architecture with a single nave and a wide nave. The present vault
substituted the old coffered ceiling in 1861, having to renovate
it again in 1884.
The main altarpiece has two sections
with Renaissance style columns from the turn of the seventeenth
century, headed by a crucifix of a peculiar style.
In the small chapel the admirable
sculpture of a life-size Jesus the Nazarene is worshipped, probably
by Juan de Mesa, belonging to the brotherhood of the same name.
The images of Santo Tomas de Villanueva, San Juan Evangelista,
San Agustin and San Juan de Dios are in the side niches.
Numerous images and altarpieces
deserve special attention. The image of the Cristo de la Yedra
belongs to the Seville school of the sixteenth century, which
was previously in the hermitage of La Paz in the private oratory
of San Juan de Avila. When he died it went to the Compañia
de Jesús, and after they were expelled by Carlos III it
was taken to San Agustin.
In each of both cases we find
the Cristo Yacente of the seventeenth century and the Virgen del
Transito from 1528. There are some baroque altarpieces and images
such as San Antonio by Gaspar Lorenzo de las Cobos, and the San
Juan and the Dolorosa by Juan de Mesa.
The walls are decorated with enormous
canvases of the apostles from the eighteenth century, paid for
in Seville with twelve large wine earthenware jars, belonging
to the Nazarene Chapel. Next to the wrought-iron entrance gate
there are two paintings that represent the martyrdom of Friar
Diego Ortiz in Bilcabamba, from Peru and of Friar Tomas de San
Agustin, missionary in Japan.
The chapel of Jesus the Nazarene
was built under the auspice of Luis Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba,
the principal Brother of the Brotherhood. It is a piece of work
by Pedro de Borja.
The altarpiece is by Cristobal
de Guadix and the sides by Gaspar de Lorenzo de las Cobos. In
a canopy coming in on the right there is a crucifix Cristo del
Perdón which belongs to the central altarpiece and whose
author was probably Cristobal de Guadix. Next to this is a figure
of Maria Santisima de los Dolores, by the Montillan sculptor Manuel
Garnelo y Alda, dated 1942.
|