Teruel Cathedral or Catedral de Santa María de Mediavilla de Teruel is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

Teruel Teruel () is a city in Aragon, located in eastern Spain, and is also the capital of Teruel (province), Teruel Province. It had a population of 35,900 as of 2022, making it the least populated provincial capital in Spain. It is noted for its har ...

Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and ; ) is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces of Spain, ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Dedicated to

St. Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

, it is a notable example of

Mudéjar Mudéjar were Muslims who remained in Iberia in the late medieval period following the Christian reconquest. It is also a term for Mudéjar art, which was greatly influenced by Islamic art, but produced typically by Christian craftsmen for C ...

architecture. Together with other churches in the town and in the

province of Zaragoza Zaragoza (), also called Saragossa in English,''Encyclopædia Britannica''Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)/ref> is a province of northern Spain, in the central part of the autonomous community of Aragon. Its capital is the city of Zaragoza, whic ...

, it has been listed as a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

since 1986.

History

The Cathedral of Teruel has its origins in the church of Santa María de Mediavilla, upon which work started in Romanesque style in 1171 and ended with the erection of the Mudéjar tower in 1257. In the second half of the 13th century, the

Morisco ''Moriscos'' (, ; ; "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Catholic Church and Habsburg Spain commanded to forcibly convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed Islam. Spain had a sizeable Mus ...

alarife Juzaff restructured the old Romanesque work and endowed the building with three Mudéjar naves of

masonry Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound, and pasted together by mortar (masonry), mortar. The term ''masonry'' can also refer to the buildin ...

and

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

. The Romanesque

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

s were replaced in the same Gothic-Mudéjar style as early as the 14th century, as can be seen in the head of the major

chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

. The number of supports was reduced by half, leading to greater luminosity and spaciousness in the

pointed arch A pointed arch, ogival arch, or Gothic arch is an arch with a pointed crown meet at an angle at the top of the arch. Also known as a two-centred arch, its form is derived from the intersection of two circles. This architectural element was partic ...

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

s. Additionally, the walls were enlarged. In 1423, the Aragonese pontiff

Antipope Benedict XIII Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor (25 November 1328 – 23 May 1423), known as () or Pope Luna, was an Aragonese nobleman who was antipope with the regnal name Benedict XIII during the Western Schism. Early life Pedro Martínez de Lu ...

, the so-called "Pope Luna," raised it to the rank of a

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons, a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing ...

. The Mudéjar aspect has changed little since then. In 1538, the

lantern tower In architecture, the lantern tower is a tall construction above the junction of the four arms of a cruciform (cross-shaped) church, with openings through which light from outside can shine down to the crossing (so it also called a crossing lante ...

of the central nave was built by Martín de Montalbán in the

Plateresque Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" (''plata'' being silver in Spanish language, Spanish), was an artistic movement, especially Architecture, architectural, developed in Spanish Empire, Spain and its territories, which appeared ...

-Mudéjar style. It was built on an octagonal plan on

squinch In architecture, a squinch is a structural element used to support the base of a circular or octagonal dome that surmounts a square-plan chamber. Squinches are placed to diagonally span each of the upper internal corners ( vertices) where the w ...

es and has on its exterior ajimezate windows with Plateresque decorations. Later, in 1587, with the creation of the diocese of Teruel, the building was promoted to the status of Cathedral and consecrated as such. Finally, in 1909, the facade was constructed in

Neo-mudéjar Neo-Mudéjar is a type of Moorish Revival architecture practised in the Iberian Peninsula and to a far lesser extent in Ibero-America. This architectural movement emerged as a revival of Mudéjar style. It was an architectural trend of the late 19 ...

style based on a design of Pau Monguió.

The tower

The Mudejar tower began to be erected in 1257; its lower part is a

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

that passers-by can walk through. It is one of the oldest Mudéjar towers in Spain. It is square in shape with three sides profusely decorated with

azulejo (, ; from the Arabic ) is a form of Portuguese and Spanish painted Tin-glazing, tin-glazed ceramic tilework. ''Azulejos'' are found on the interior and exterior of church (building), churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, r ...

s and

ceramic glaze Ceramic glaze, or simply glaze, is a glassy coating on ceramics. It is used for decoration, to ensure the item is impermeable to liquids and to minimize the adherence of pollutants. Glazing renders earthenware impermeable to water, sealing th ...

. The top is an

octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

roof lantern A roof lantern is a Daylighting (architecture), daylighting architectural element. Architectural lanterns are part of a larger roof and provide natural light into the space or room below. In contemporary use it is an architectural skylight stru ...

from the 17th century.

Mudéjar reform

After the completion of the Mudéjar tower, further changes were made in the second half of the 13th century under the direction of the Moor Juzaff – the elevation of the naves (in the line of the Gothic raising the temples), the construction of new Mudéjar

s, and the covering of the naves with ceilings in this same style. Construction for the first part of the building had advanced from the apses to the Mudéjar tower. Now, renovations proceeded in the opposite direction. Indeed, once the height of the three naves was raised and its illumination enhanced, and the new Mudéjar ceiling over the central nave was arranged, the primitive head was undoubtedly dwarfed and disproportionate in relation to the new naves. Therefore, a crossing and three new apses were constructed. This work was completed with the dismantling of

centring Centring, centre, centering"Centering 2, Centring 2" def. 1. Whitney, William Dwight, and Benjamin E. Smith. ''The Century dictionary and cyclopedia''. vol. 2. New York: Century Co., 1901. p. 885., or center is a type of falsework: the temporary s ...

s and with the plastering and painting thereof in 1335, according to a list of accounts kept in the Cathedral archive. The director of these last plastering works was the Moorish master from Coglor, Yuçaf de Huzmel.

Ceiling of the central nave

Almost all Mudéjar ceilings are

coffer A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, al ...

ed, that is, merely decorative elements. In this case, it is a roof covering, whose framework supports the upper part of the nave and consolidates the structure. It has been called the "

Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel ( ; ; ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope's official residence in Vatican City. Originally known as the ''Cappella Magna'' ('Great Chapel'), it takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and ...

" of Mudéjar art, for its great architectural and pictorial value. It measures 32 meters in length and dates from 14th century. In its coffers are paintings of officers, craftsmen, historical figures, and fantastic beings. These diverse human types and extensive variety in pictorial imagery are well preserved because they were covered by a false Neoclassical ceiling in the 18th century, which protected the paintings from inclement weather. Some damage was suffered in the bombings of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, but this was repaired.

Lantern tower

The

was designed in 1537 by the master Juan Lucas "Botero", who had been the architect of the lantern tower on Mudejar squinches of the Seo of Zaragoza and of the Cathedral of Tarazona. It was carried out in 1538 by the master builder Martín de Montalbán. The lantern tower illuminated the new main

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

(1536), a Renaissance masterpiece of the sculptor Gabriel Yoly.

Recent construction

Around the year 1700, the Gothic head was modified to create an

ambulatory The ambulatory ( 'walking place') is the covered passage around a cloister or the processional way around the east end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar. The first ambulatory was in France in the 11th century but by the 13t ...

. Likewise, the ornamentation was modified to adapt it to the Neoclassical tastes, hiding behind the false ceiling of the 18th century, the original Mudéjar roof, which allowed the painting to be conserved. In 1909, the enormous historicist southern façade was constructed, which combines a Neo-Romanesque structure of semicircular

archivolt An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental Molding (decorative), moulding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental mouldings (or other architectural elements) surrounding an arched opening, ...

s with a typically neo-Mudéjar decoration. It was planned by the

Modernisme ''Modernisme'' (, Catalan for "modernism"), also known as Catalan modernism and Catalan art nouveau, is the historiographic denomination given to an art and literature movement associated with the search of a new entitlement of Catalan cultu ...

architect Pau Monguió. The

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

closes with an iron gate by Matías Abad, which was inspired by the choir inside the cathedral, made by the 15th century master Cañamache.

World Heritage Site

The tower, roofing and lantern tower of the Cathedral of Teruel were declared, together with the Mudéjar monumental ensemble of the city, a

in 1986.Mudejar Architecture of Aragon
at

website According to the declaration:

References

Bibliography

* Santiago Sebastián; ''Artesonado de la catedral de Teruel''. Savings Bank and Mount of Piety of Zaragoza, Aragón and La Rioja (Ibercaja, Obra Social y Cultural) 1981

External links

Description and images of the cathedral
*

{{Subject bar , portal1= Architecture , portal2= Catholicism , portal3= Spain Buildings and structures in Teruel Churches in Aragon

Mudéjar architecture in Aragon Romanesque architecture in Aragon Buildings and structures completed in 1257 Religious buildings and structures completed in 1538 Towers completed in the 13th century Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in the Province of Teruel Buildings and structures with azulejos in Aragon World Heritage Sites in Spain