Iglesia de Santa María del Collado

Plaza de los Jesuitas, 1,. 23379, Segura de la Sierra

Monument of the Historic-Artistic Complex. Declared 07/05/1962. The practical visits by the visitors of the Order of Santiago to the populations dependent on the Encomienda de Segura de la Sierra, provide us with numerous data on the situation of its parish factories, some of them built new, others with important consolidation works , expansion or reform.

Precisely through the visit of October 9, 1525, we know that the parish church of Santa María del Collado is being built again, with the stonemason Maese Rodrigo in charge of the factory. Through the description made by the visitors in the visit to the temple on January 19, 1537, it seems that it was finished.

On this occasion, with the visitors, the master stonemasons Francisco de Luna and Andrés de Vandelvira traveled to Segura de la Sierra, undoubtedly to inspect what was built by Master Domingo, which apparently had certain problems; Luna and Vandelvira prepared a statement “(...) for the repair and security of the church and the village and the need that it has near it and what it contains, and do what they do in the said church and in the first two years Que vernan (...). "

In the documentation the detailed content of said declaration is silenced and, therefore, we do not know the level of intervention of both masters, but they had to give orders to solve the defects of the Gothic factory built by Master Rodrigo, but also to finish, among other works , the spire of the tower, the stairs of the choir or the domed chapel of the baptism. However, the most clearly Vandelvirian piece preserved in the temple is its main portal, sheltered by a large arcosolio with a half-barrel vault of Castilian-La Mancha tradition; it was ordered to be worked by the visitors in 1554, although what was ordered was not carried out until the end of the century.

Vandelvira died in 1575 and, therefore, could not deal with it, but in any case the piece responds to a clear compositional scheme developed by him on the doorways of the churches of San Miguel de Jaén, San Juan Evangelista de Mancha Real, or that of San Nicolás in Úbeda, but with a greater constructive and ornamental dryness not exempt from classical correction; It is made up of the usual semicircular arch on imposts with jambs and recessed thread, which is flanked by two pairs of columns of compound order and transpilasters with the same order raised on bases with mirrors, the traditional niches to house sculptures have been replaced by double recessed rectangles, it is completed with an entablature crowned at the ends with neoclassical mensulones, placed in the restoration that the temple suffered years after its partial destruction by Napoleon's troops in the War of Independence.

The data provided and the consequences that can be derived from them suggest a direct intervention by Andrés de Vandelvira in the church of Segura de la Sierra and a fluid relationship with the people of Santiago responsible for his factory. This relationship began thanks to his father-in-law Francisco de Luna, a stonemason master whose professional activity from the beginning was closely linked to the Order of Santiago in Castilian-La Mancha.