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Points of interest in El Burgo de Osma

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Episcopal Palace

On Main Street, near the Cathedral, is the Episcopal residence of Oxomense. The most interesting feature is the doorway, from the time of Bishop Alonso Enriquez (1506-1523). Of Hispano-Flemish Gothic scheme, it consists of a semicircular arch formed by large voussoirs, with lobed intrados, framed by an alfiz of Muslim memory that rests on corbels and which houses the coat of arms of Bishop Enriquez. The importance of the episcopal dignity in El Burgo de Osma is so important that it is difficult to reach an integrated understanding of the values of the population without taking into account this close link between town and temple, between civic life and ecclesiastical presence. Since 1342, the bishop was temporary lord of the town and its land, acquiring the rights to the Cathedral Chapter. Today, the Palace houses, in addition to the residence and episcopal offices, the diocesan archives.

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City Hall

The architect Ángel Vicente Ubón drew up the project and was in charge of the construction of the work in exchange for 38,000 reales. Construction began in 1769 and was completed in February 1771. Ubón built a Town Hall with arcades in front of which several doors opened: the main one gave access to the hallway and stairs to go up to the main floor; the others corresponded to the royal weight, one to each of the two office rooms and another smaller one that was the exit to the bullpens. On the first floor, in addition to the aforementioned rooms, there was a large barn, with two doors to the street, which is why it was called the Alhóndiga (today the Music Band), and a large corral in the back, with two pens for the bulls. There were also two small dungeons that could be accessed through two doors at the back of the doorway. On the main floor was the majestic Council Hall, through which one could go out to the corridor to watch the public functions, especially bullfighting. From the Hall of Councils there was access to the Town Hall, with archives and an oratory. The central body of the building has two floors. The lower one, with Tuscan columns taken from the old City Hall, has embedded in the facade a coat of arms of King Philip II, two of Bishop Tello (all taken from the old houses) and a tombstone that mentions the old City Hall and the construction of these new ones. On the entablature of the porch there were columns supporting an arcade that constituted the front of the gallery of the main floor, today modified by uninspired concrete pillars that support the architrave instead of the graceful arches. The clock on the roof was placed in 1886. The towers at the ends were paid for by Bishop Bernardo Antonio Calderón so that the City Hall would have a structure similar to that of the front of the Hospital.

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Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption

XII-XVIII centuries The Cathedral of Burgo de Osma is one of those buildings that impart a complete lesson of art history by the numerous extensions, adaptations and furnishings or liturgical endowments that has been experiencing since its construction. But the Cathedral not only dazzles for its architecture and sculpture, for its altarpieces and stained glass windows, for its canvases and frescoes, for its books and documents, for its gold and silver work and fabrics; it has also conditioned the history of the episcopal town. Of the Romanesque cathedral that began to be erected after the diocesan restoration by St. Peter of Osma (1101), few remains remain, since it was demolished to build the present Gothic church. The promoter of the Gothic temple was Bishop Juan Díaz. The works began in 1232. Most of the lateral chapels of the temple were built during the late Gothic period, as was the flamboyant Gothic cloister of the 16th century. The façade and staircase of the chapel of San Pedro, the Chapel of Santiago and some of the cloister façade are from the Renaissance period. Baroque are the monumental tower and some chapel domes. The most important expansion carried out in the Cathedral took place in the 18th century, during the neoclassical period: main sacristy, chapel of Palafox, ambulatory and other rooms built with the main objective of providing the temple with worthy spaces on the occasion of the planned beatification of Juan de Palafox.

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Medieval Wall

The wall encloses the medieval core of Burgos. It was built by Bishop Montoya in 1458, considering the situation that Castile was going through at the time of Henry IV, when the fortress of Osma was not considered sufficient defense for the town. The masonry wall of lime and stone with ashlars in the angles that serve as reinforcement and crowned with battlements, is preserved in some sections. Its layout, starting from the Puerta del Puente Viejo (Old Bridge Gate), bordered the river, turning at the height of Calle del Cubo (today Poeta Malo de Molina), crossed Calle Mayor, reached the current Calle Rodrigo Yusto, passed in front of the Seminary and crossed in front of the convent of El Carmen; from this point the wall would meet the bridge gate. Along the wall there were several gates, but the only one preserved is that of San Miguel, reformed in the time of Bishop Tello (1567-1578) as revealed by its arms. Montoya had the wall built for defensive reasons, but this was not its only function throughout history. The protection against plagues and various contagions was the object of special care on the part of the municipal authorities. The wall facilitated the collection of taxes on products that entered the town and was also the protagonist of ceremonial acts with a strong symbolic charge, among which was the entrance of the bishops who came to El Burgo to take possession. The prelate and his retinue would stop before the gate through which they were going to enter, then a representative of the town would ask the bishop, before passing through it, to swear to keep its uses, rights and praiseworthy customs as his predecessors had done; the bishop, after pronouncing the oath, would receive the keys of the town and, as spiritual and temporal lord and master of it, he would pass through the gate. The wall lost its raison d'être as a result of the expansion of the town in the 18th century with the creation of new urban spaces.

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Old Hospital of San Agustín

XVII and XVIII centuries The building of the old Hospital de San Agustín was built at the expense of Bishop Sebastián de Arévalo y Torres. Construction began in 1694 and was completed in 1701. Bishop Montoya, in the 15th century, had founded a Hospital with the title of San Agustín, within the walls. This Hospital became obsolete, both for its size and its location, and this was the opinion of Bishop Arevalo who, however, respected the name under which Montoya had founded it. The name of the architect who drew up the plans for this monumental work, whose execution was the responsibility of Ignacio Moncaleán and Pedro Portela, costing more than 80,000 ducats, is unknown. The Hospital follows the model of the palace of the House of Austria, of the Alcazar type with a rectangular façade flanked by two towers. In the splendid facade, of strict symmetry, there are two niches that shelter the statues of San Sebastian, saint of the same name as the bishop builder, and San Francisco, because this prelate belongs to the Franciscan order. In the center, over the door and main balcony, there is a niche at the foot of which is the coat of arms of Bishop Montoya. The coat of arms of this prelate appears between the corbels that support the Solomonic columns that flank the niche where the sculpture of San Agustín, titular of the Hospital, is placed. The niche is crowned by a triangular pediment broken to place the arms of Arévalo. To the sides of the central body the towers are erected with a spire. In their fronts they appear, on a balcony, the arms of the bishop Arévalo, of a variegated baroque style. This facade is a bridge of connection between the austerity of the first baroque, with great Herrerian weight, and the full baroque. Crossing the door, to the right of the portal is the chapel. The courtyard of the Hospital is formed by two floors of arcades. The lower arcade is semicircular and the one on the main floor is made up of bell-shaped arches.

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Santa Catalina University

XVI century The old University of Santa Catalina was financed in the middle of the XVI century by the bishop Alvarez de Acosta (1539-63). It is a square building of 53 meters on each side, with unmistakable features of the purist Renaissance. The façade consists of a semicircular arch, with a recessed soffit, between attached columns. On the spandrels there are reliefs of wise old men, an allegorical iconography very appropriate for a university building. Above the arch, a niche shelters the sculpture of Santa Catalina, patron saint of philosophers and belonging to a family of which Bishop Acosta was considered a descendant. On the sides, two coats of arms of the donating prelate were placed, in which the wheel of Saint Catherine and some ribs appear, to signify that his works were made ?at the cost of his ribs? The central patio is framed by a two-story arcade, the lower one formed by semicircular arches and the upper one by carpanels. The monumental staircase leading to the main floor, like the courtyard, shows the harmony of this building with the dominant aesthetic and typological trends of the time. The balustrade and the parapet once again feature the Acosta coats of arms. The founding bull of the Colegio Universidad dates from 1550. It housed faculties of Theology, Philosophy, Law and Medicine. The studies were suppressed in 1770 to be recovered in 1778. On the occasion of the War of Independence it was closed again, resuming its activity in 1814 to be definitively closed as a University in 1841 when the institution was transferred to Soria, where it did not survive. Later it was a Secondary School and hosted the University Summer Courses. Currently the building has been renovated to convert it into a thermal hotel.

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Diocesan Seminary Sto. Domingo de Guzmán

XVIII century Building originally financed by Joaquín Eleta. The works began in 1785, being inaugurated in 1791. Luis Bernasconi was in charge of the design and direction of the work. The building has a quadrangular floor plan with a central courtyard. On the first floor were built the chapel (today the assembly hall), the refectory, the kitchen and the pantry; on the second floor, around the courtyard, the various classrooms were arranged; the second floor was reserved for the rooms. The façade is built of masonry with ashlars framing the openings. The semicircular arch of the doorway is flanked by pilasters that support a curved pediment. Above the doorway is the magnificent coat of arms of Bishop Eleta, at whose expense the Seminary was built. In the upper part of the coat of arms are the arms of the Eleta family of Navarre and in the lower part are the arms of the Inquisition, of which the royal confessor was dean. The shield is surrounded by the cord of the Franciscans and crowned by the archiepiscopal capelet. The initial nucleus of Eleta was enlarged in the middle of the 19th century with two wings on each side, which protrude from the original façade line. Other enlargement works, already in the 20th century, gave more height to the building and endowed the chapel of the Minor Seminary, today a museum of Holy Week, to the east of the façade, which shows a façade with Herrerian classicist influences.

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Real Hospicio - San José Residence

XVIII century The architect in charge of building the Hospice was Luis Bernasconi. The Hospice was begun in 1785 and in 1790 it was finished and already lacking resources, so in 1793 the inmates were taken to Zaragoza and the building was occupied by the Real Compañía de Ganaderos de Soria y Burgos, which built, attached to the Hospice, a wool manufacturing factory, with washing, fulling and dyeing facilities. The Company occupied the building until 1803. After the seizure by the Treasury, the Hospice became the property of the Diputación de Soria, which still owns it today. During the reign of Bishop Horcos (1853-1861), the nuns of San Vicente de Paul took over the care of orphans and foundlings. Today it is still used for charitable purposes under the name of Residencia San José. The Royal Hospice is a voluminous building, of enormous simplicity and a quadrilateral floor plan. It has a frontage of 84.8 m. by 46.4 m. deep. Inside you can see two courtyards, undoubtedly similar to the central courtyard of the Seminary. Its masonry is of masonry with the corners and edges of the openings of ashlar, like the doorway. The most interesting part of the Hospice is the main doorway with the upper balcony. The entrance door is a very low arch above which there is a balcony on the main floor that gives the composition an elegant, very Sabatine-like appearance: the door that leads to the balcony opens into a niche. Crowning the opening, in the niche itself, is a striking stone coat of arms of Carlos III.

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Church of Santa Cristina (Osma)

XVI-XVIII centuries The church of Santa Cristina stands on the right bank of the river Ucero, enlarged by the waters of the Abión that flows a few meters upstream. Its location is witness to the gentle murmur of the river, next to the ancient stone bridge, at the foot of the rock castle and under the gaze of the original Uxama Argaela. The temple has a Latin cross plan, with a single nave, a choir at the foot, a half orange dome on pendentives covering the transept and a presbytery with flat headwall. The roof of the central nave has a barrel vault with lunettes and sections separated by semicircular arches that correspond to the exterior of the buttresses. The bulk of the current temple dates from the early eighteenth century. It was designed by Domingo Zaguirre and executed by Alonso Martínez de Ochoa and Manuel de Arribas. In 1779, the building suffered a fire and restoration work was completed in 1782. From previous periods, the most outstanding feature is the Renaissance façade, from the second half of the 16th century, with two Corinthian columns before pilasters on podiums flanking a semicircular arch with the relief of the Eternal Father in the tympanum. In 1789, the Oxomense presbyter Felipe Sanz, canon of the Cathedral, requested and received the body of Santa Cristina, coming from Rome, and gave it to this church of which it is the titular and in whose main altarpiece it has been venerated since then.

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The Castle (Osma)

X, XI and XVIII centuries The fortress is located on top of a rocky massif that separates the Abión and Ucero riverbeds and is separated by a hill from the moors that border the Duero valleys to the south. In 912 the village of Osma is documented and although it could be thought to be a repopulation of the ruins of the Roman city of Uxama, there is evidence of structures on the hill of the current castle that would allow locating this initial village there. Around 933, when the first defeat of the Caliphate troops took place in Osma or in 934 when Ramiro II of León and Count Fernán González took refuge in the castle (there are doubts whether in this or in that of Gormaz), most of the fortress that we see today must have been built by the Leonese. The strategic importance of the castle of Osma increases decidedly after the Muslim defeat of 939, in the continuation of the battle of Simancas, to the south of Gormaz. The Caliphate reacted in the following years by recovering Gormaz and fortifying it. Thus for fifty years (between 934 and 989) the castle of Osma was the main defense of the gates of the kingdom of León in this section of the Duero and undoubtedly the Christian castle most exposed to the attack of the terrible Muslim enemy. The work of Ramiro II of León was attached to the previous towers and was made of thick masonry with an abundance of Roman stones and superb ashlars carved with stonework marks in corners, doors and arrow slits. The high castle had four towers (the two pre-existing ones and the two new ones, one of them pentagonal and hollow) and two gates, to the north and south, that allowed to go down towards the rivers Abión and Ucero. Fifty years resisting against the Caliphate and the formidable fortress of Gormaz is a long time but in the end, Almanzor was Almanzor, and Osma fell into his hands in 989. In 994 San Esteban and Clunia fell and the following year the Castilian count Garci Fernandez lost his head in Alcozar. The famous general from Algeciras repopulated with Arabs and refortified the castle of Osma and part of the exterior plating of the tower overlooking Uxama could be his, remaining in the power of the Caliphate until 1011 when it passed back into Christian hands.

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Medieval bridge of Roman origin (Osma)

First century B.C. Popularly known as ``Puente de la Torre del Agua''. Eduardo Saavedra y Moragas (1829-1912), who took this bridge as a starting point to describe the road between Uxama and Augustóbriga, maintains that the construction contains a lot of ashlars, the rigging is deficient and irregular, the slope is in the form of an "ass's back" typical of medieval bridges and that there are ashlars engraved with initials, very typical of the Middle Ages. There is also another very authoritative current of opinion, among them, Carlos Fernández Casado (1905-88), who thinks that there are enough original materials of Roman origin to be able to accredit its filiation: perfectly carved ashlars, above all in the minor vaults and in the mouths, the stone courses try to maintain the same height, the wedge-shaped cutwaters, as well as in their construction, seem Roman, the epigraphic signs that appear in some stones are characters of the ancient Iberian alphabet, very common in Roman civil works, built with local labor. In 1753 an intervention took place due to the deterioration of the bridge, carried out by the master masons José de Oñaederra, Manuel de Arribas and Gabriel Martínez. The works were reviewed by the Intendente Corregidor of the Villa and by the master builder Fray Antonio de San José Pontones. In the map of the Villa made by Francisco Coello de Portugal in 1860 it appears as ``habilitado''. It consists of 3 openings with semicircular arches. Between them there are two strong piers reinforced by two powerful wedge-shaped cutwaters-spandrels and a gabled roof that in height do not surpass the kidneys of the arches. The walls up to the abutments are made of limestone ashlars, irregular in volume; in the lower areas there is a predominance of ashlars and in the spandrels, pieces of greater depth, with an adequate carving, well assembled. In cutwaters and spurs the stone is more regular. The gabled roof and thick parapets of ashlar and ashlar crowned by a fine coping of the same material. The current pavement is composed of boulders and flagstones. There are stone stairs on both sides to access the river (left abutment).

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