Santa María la Mayor Collegiate Church and Castle
An ancient 9th-century Moorish castle that was conquered in 1067; an early Romanesque church was built on the site—part of whose cloister remains—and later expanded in the Gothic style. The cloister has a second floor th
The earliest surviving document dates back to 851, when the Christians were in the north of the peninsula and the Arabs were in the south. This fortress was conquered by King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon in 1067.
The cloister contains six capitals:
Herod’s Banquet and Salome Dancing
Adam and Eve with the Serpent, and Cain the farmer with Abel the shepherd.
Noah’s Ark
Three-headed Trinity
The bishop alongside other figures consecrating the church in 1099
The Sacrifice of Isaac
The cloister’s four walls are painted. The paintings date from the 14th to the 18th centuries and depict the life of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
The current church is in the Late Aragonese Gothic style and was built by the architect Juan de Segura. Inside is the main altarpiece, dated 1593 and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Several chapels adorn the church’s walls, but the most notable is the Chapel of the Holy Christ (1615), which houses the image of the Holy Christ, dating from the 12th to the early 13th century. This is a carving made of pine wood and four nails.