Segorbe Cathedral: Diocesan Seat and Historic Church in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Aragon, Kingdom of Valencia, Spanish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page13 sections
History
Segorbe Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mary of the Assumption, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Segorbe, Spain, built and enlarged by the Christian community from the medieval period onward. Its rebuilding is associated with 1246, and its architecture preserves successive Gothic, Baroque, and Neoclassical phases. Standing at the center of the historic city beside the walls, it became the principal seat of the Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón and is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.
Christian foundation and medieval rebuilding
During the Christian conquest, Segorbe had only one church, Saint Peter’s, outside the walls. After Christians settled within the fortified city, they established a modest Church of Saint Mary by adapting a mosque. The city’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction remained contested throughout the thirteenth century between the Archdiocese of Tarragona and the Diocese of Valencia.
The medieval rebuilding of the cathedral began in the period associated with 1246. In 1329, Pope John XXII granted an indulgence to people who contributed to the construction of a worthy cathedral seat. This encouraged the building of a church with a timber gabled roof supported by diaphragm arches, transverse arches that divide and carry a roof space.
A further indulgence issued by Pope Clement VII in 1385 accelerated the work. The nave, part of the cloister, and the Chapel of the Saviour were completed, with the expansion directed north because of the city wall. During the episcopate of Bishop Pérez de Heredia, from 1387 to 1400, the cloister and the chapels of Saint Clare, Saint Eulalia, and Saints Anthony the Abbot and Anthony of Padua were completed. Joan de Burgos built the presbytery, the area around the high altar reserved for the clergy.
Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century additions
The Chapter House, the room where the cathedral chapter met for administrative and religious business, was built in 1417 parallel to the Chapel of the Saviour. The Chapel of Saint Michael and the bell tower followed around the middle of the fifteenth century. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, builders added the interior cloister entrance known as the Saint Mary doorway and completed the upper cloister.
During the sixteenth century, the presbytery was renewed in Renaissance style, and Vicent Macip painted the high altarpiece. The cathedral was consecrated on 7 May 1534.
Baroque transformation
The Chapel of the Tabernacle was built at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Mateo Bernia constructed the main facade in 1665, and the presbytery was renewed in 1696 under the influence of Pérez Castiel. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Gothic choir was replaced by a Baroque choir made by the sculptor Nicolás Camarón. During the first third of that century, an Archive Room was added above the Chapter House.
Neoclassical remodelling
The most extensive transformation took place from 1791 to 1795. Vicent Gascó designed the work with Francisco Marzo and Mariano Llisterri, during the episcopate of Lorenzo Gómez de Haedo. The project strengthened and faced the perimeter walls, demolished the earlier apse and vaults, and extended the nave, creating a Neoclassical interior.
In 1801, Mariano Llisterri replaced the Baroque portico at the main entrance with a central mullion and two doors. One served as the entrance, while the other was a false door standing against a wall buttress. Manuel Camarón decorated the apse vault in 1806. Josep Vergara painted the medallions in the nave vault, with further work by Lluís Planes and Vicent López. Additional work was carried out in the sacristies and in a chamber for devotional images.
Museum, collections, and modern status
A Diocesan Museum was established in the Episcopal Palace in 1924. The Spanish Civil War placed its collections in danger, but the Artistic Treasure Board safeguarded part of them. After the war, the cathedral chapter and the Recovery Board recovered further works. These objects, together with works from the cathedral and diocese, formed the Cathedral Museum of Segorbe in 1949.
The museum was first installed in the upper cloister gallery. In 2001 and 2002, during the exhibition The Light of Images, it expanded into the lower gallery, its chapels, and the cathedral interior. This arrangement continued when the museum reopened in 2004. The cathedral contains the burials of most diocesan bishops, as well as that of Jaume Josep Soler i Roquer, a theologian and Bishop of Teruel who lived from 1799 to 1851.
Segorbe Cathedral became a minor basilica, an honorific status granted by the pope to certain Catholic churches, in 1985. It was declared a Valencian cultural-interest property on 24 September 2002, under reference RI-51-0009270.
Remains
The cathedral is a monumental complex of stone masonry laid with lime mortar and ashlar blocks. Its present form combines the retained perimeter of the Gothic church with a large Neoclassical single nave, a semicircular apse, chapels set between the buttresses, and a choir at the western end. Paired fluted pilasters in the nave and single pilasters in the presbytery support a substantial entablature and cornice. Above them, the nave has a barrel vault with lunettes, semicircular sections of vaulting, while the presbytery has a quarter-sphere vault.
Main church and facade
The original Gothic church had one nave divided into three bays and covered by rib vaults. At the western end, diaphragm arches carried the earlier timber roof. The vaulted presbytery contained a star vault with tiercerons, secondary ribs branching from the main ribs. The main chapel stood at the west end beside the bell tower and an entrance that crossed the city wall.
The main facade lies on the Gospel side, the side traditionally associated with the Gospel reading during the liturgy. Paired Doric columns support a broken pediment containing a window. Between the columns is a semicircular-arched entrance that was later closed and converted into a double doorway with a broad central mullion.
Bell tower
The trapezoidal bell tower rises in three sections divided by horizontal string courses. The lower two sections are solid. The upper bell stage has two semicircular openings on each face, except on the northeast face, which has one. These openings have balustrades. The tower faces measure approximately 9.75, 7, 6, and 6.5 metres in width, and the tower reaches 36 metres in height. A terrace supports a smaller upper structure containing the clock belfry.
The tower originally had two sections. Its former upper section had pointed-arch openings resembling those of the present bell stage. When a third section was added, those openings were blocked but remained visible, and the clock was installed in the former upper section.
Cloister and associated spaces
Gothic cloister
The Gothic cloister has a trapezoidal plan because it occupies the space between the city wall and the church. It has two levels and opens toward the garden through pointed arches. In the lower gallery, rib vaults rest on corbels decorated with fauna and flora. The cloister connects with the cathedral near the choir and also has two entrances from the street.
Chapels and Chapter House
Seven chapels enclosed by wrought-iron grilles open from the lower cloister. The Chapel of the Saviour has a Baroque doorway transferred from the Valldecrist Charterhouse, a monastery of the Carthusian order. Its rib vault, with tiercerons, rests on corbels bearing narrative carvings. The square Chapter House occupies one corner of the cloister and has a ribbed vault raised on squinches, structural devices that support a vault over a square space.
The upper cloister has windows of Aragonese tradition, probably executed in a Moorish style. A bridge connects the cathedral with the former Episcopal Palace.
Cathedral Museum
The Cathedral Museum preserves chiefly paintings, together with sculpture, goldsmiths’ work, textiles, silks, and embroidery dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Its paintings represent International Gothic, a late-medieval style known for refined forms and detailed decoration, fifteenth-century Flemish influence, sixteenth-century Valencian painting, and Neoclassical works by Camarón, Planes, and López.
Among the identified works are a panel from the former Life of the Virgin altarpiece by Miquel Alcanyís, the Saint Jerome Altarpiece made around 1450 by Jaume Mateu, and the late-fifteenth-century Life of the Virgin Altarpiece attributed to Martí Torner. The collection also includes the Saint Luke Altarpiece by the Master of Saint Luke, the Visitation Altarpiece by the Master of Segorbe, and the Mass of Saint Gregory Altarpiece.
Other works include the former high altarpiece of 1525 to 1531 by Vicent Macip and Joan de Joanes, depicting the lives of Jesus and Mary, and the 1523 Saint Vincent Ferrer Altarpiece by the same artists. A Renaissance Virgin and Child relief is attributed to Donatello. The museum also preserves the Vallterra Sepulchre, a sixteenth-century Passion Triptych with Limoges enamels, a reliquary of the Virgin and Child, and a chalice belonging to Bishop Gilabert Martí.
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