Iglesia Nuestra Señora del Mayor Dolor
by Saskia Mier
The Iglesia Nuestra Señora del Mayor Dolor stands next to the Castillo Fortaleza overlooking the village below. It is the oldest and most emblematic church in Aracena and its construction began at the end of the thirteenth century. The works stopped throughout the fourteenth century and resumed at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The decoration follows the same style of the Giralda in Seville, but with greater poverty and coarseness. Its interior holds a series of arches that extend their threads to form a network of starry polygons separated by a central spike resting on a Gothic bracket. They are finished with a flowered cross, that is said to be the representative cross of the Order of the Temple.
The main altarpiece is of Neo-classical style of the nineteenth century and is presided by the image of the Virgen del Mayor Dolor, patroness of Aracena, made in 1959 by Sebastián Santos Rojas.
In the small chapel to the left of the presbytery, is the tomb of Prior Pero Vázquez, a sculpture lying in glazed clay by Miguel Florentín from the sixteenth century.
Tel: 663 93 78 77
Cerro del Castillo
