Collegiate Church of San Martín de Tours

The collegiate church of San Martín is a Catholic church located in the Spanish town of Bonilla de la Sierra, in the province of Ávila, in the autonomous community of Castilla y León. It was declared a national historic-artistic monument -the antecedent of the figure of cultural interest- on June 3, 1931. The building, begun in the first half of the 15th century, is Gothic in style. It has a single large nave divided into five sections by pointed arches. The tower, from the 16th century, has a square floor plan. The building was restored between 1974 and 1980. The main chapel is an addition to the primitive construction, but its construction must have taken place shortly after, and, perhaps, directed by the same architect, and that would explain its perfect assembly to the rest of the set. The vault that covers it is of terceletes, with semicircular arches, and is illuminated on its sides by two ample and round windows that do not clash with the whole. On the cornices there are modillions and finials with 17th century fenecings, as is the case with the sacristy, which is evidence of a later renovation. In this main chapel is installed a baroque altarpiece that covers the whole front, from the altar to the plementería, which is dated in the year 1688. But the most valuable of the set are its ten painted tables, in which different significant events of the life of the patron saint of the temple, San Martin de Tours, are narrated. There are many who attribute these paintings to the school of the so-called Master of Avila, but they do not agree as to who was their executor; some attribute them to Samson Florentino, others to Juan and Marcos Pinilla, and others say they are the work of Pedro de Salamanca, belonging to the Flemish school of Avila. Great similarity is found between the paintings of the Bonilla altarpiece, and those that on San Marcial, appear in the antechristy of the cathedral of Avila, as well as in others, that the referred master left painted in the church of Barco de Avila and in San Miguel de Serrezuela.