The figure of Andrés de Vandelvira
Discover in all his fullness the great Master Andrés de Vandelvira
The tour begins with the dominions of the powerful Secretary, Francisco de los Cobos, to pass to those of another illustrious family for whom Vandelvira also worked: the Benavides, counts of Santisteban, whose county borders the Advancement of Cazorla and the foothills of Sierra Morena where the colonization of Carlos III took place. Confluence of times and styles go hand in hand in this interesting territory, also of extraordinary natural beauty.
Artist Bio
Andrés de Vandelvira (1505-1575) is the most outstanding architect of those who worked in the 16th century in Jaén and one of the three fundamental names within the architecture of the Renaissance in Andalusia, together with Siloe and Hernán Ruiz II, and therefore in the first line of Spanish architecture of its time.
Born in Alcaraz (Albacete), where he began his career as a simple stonemason, soon from the hand of his father-in-law, Francisco de Luna, he moved to Uclés (Cuenca), headquarters of the convent of the Military Order of Santiago in which Luna he enjoyed great prestige as a master stonemason. There he would have the opportunity to make contact with the first Renaissance, very decorative, the so-called “plateresque”. He immediately moved south to settle in Villanueva de los Infantes, undoubtedly for work reasons related to the parish church of San Andrés in that town. From there and in the company of Luna, he toured the villages of the Sierra de Segura, domains of ...
Andrés de Vandelvira (1505-1575) is the most outstanding architect of those who worked in the 16th century in Jaén and one of the three fundamental names within the architecture of the Renaissance in Andalusia, together with Siloe and Hernán Ruiz II, and therefore in the first line of Spanish architecture of its time.
Born in Alcaraz (Albacete), where he began his career as a simple stonemason, soon from the hand of his father-in-law, Francisco de Luna, he moved to Uclés (Cuenca), headquarters of the convent of the Military Order of Santiago in which Luna he enjoyed great prestige as a master stonemason. There he would have the opportunity to make contact with the first Renaissance, very decorative, the so-called “plateresque”. He immediately moved south to settle in Villanueva de los Infantes, undoubtedly for work reasons related to the parish church of San Andrés in that town. From there and in the company of Luna, he toured the villages of the Sierra de Segura, domains of ...
Andrés de Vandelvira (1505-1575) is the most outstanding architect of those who worked in the 16th century in Jaén and one of the three fundamental names within the architecture of the Renaissance in Andalusia, together with Siloe and Hernán Ruiz II, and therefore in the first line of Spanish architecture of its time.
Born in Alcaraz (Albacete), where he began his career as a simple stonemason, soon from the hand of his father-in-law, Francisco de Luna, he moved to Uclés (Cuenca), headquarters of the convent of the Military Order of Santiago in which Luna he enjoyed great prestige as a master stonemason. There he would have the opportunity to make contact with the first Renaissance, very decorative, the so-called “plateresque”. He immediately moved south to settle in Villanueva de los Infantes, undoubtedly for work reasons related to the parish church of San Andrés in that town. From there and in the company of Luna, he toured the villages of the Sierra de Segura, domains of the Santiago Order, to repair and project parish churches in Hornos, Segura and Orcera.
This first contact with Jaen territory was soon consolidated by establishing himself in Villacarrillo around the middle of 1530, already married to Luisa de Luna, the first family home and where he acquired various farms over time, as well as the founding of a chaplaincy in the parish church, so that Villacarrillo will already be the site for his descendants, his seven children. The construction of the temple would again be the cause of its settlement. However, from the first moment of his arrival, he combined his work with commissions in places of the region, such as Sabiote and especially Úbeda, the prosperous city of Francisco de los Cobos, to whose claim for the construction of the Chapel of El Salvador he went in 1536 to take charge of the works projected by Diego de Siloe, but with his original contributions from 1540 such as the sacristy and side portals.
From this work and from these dates on, the commitment to the construction companies of Cobos in Úbeda and the new domains acquired, Sabiote and Cazorla or Torres, among others, will link Vandelvira with the city to which he ends up moving without ever closing the house of Villacarrillo. His growing prestige leads him to be required by different constituents of the nobility such as Diego Valencia de Benavides, for whom he plans and builds his funeral chapel, the main chapel of the San Francisco de Baeza convent and then another similar intervention in the conventual church of La Guardia , for the Lords of this Villa near Jaén, Mr. Rodrigo Mecí and Mrs. Mayor de Fonseca, and in which the architectural elements that will appear in the Cathedral of Jaén are outlined.
Indeed, as of 1553, in full maturity, he signed a contract as Master Master of the cathedral and diocese of Jaén, which placed in his hand not only the erection and direction of the metropolitan temple of the diocese, but also the control of all other works ecclesiastical, among which was also the continuation of the Cathedral of Baeza. This stage, the last of his life, will be the one of greatest success and recognition. He combined the mastery of Jaén with that of Cuenca, an unusual case, being required for reports and opinions by the cathedrals of Seville, Guadix and Malaga, where he made a model for the continuation of the work and all this without abandoning civil, public works. and private, ranging from the Houses of Corregimiento de Baeza to the palace of Juan Vázquez de Molina, in Úbeda, Positos and bridges to end at the end of his life with an exceptional work such as the Hospital de Santiago de Úbeda commissioned by Bishop Diego de the Cobos.
Anecdotal / Curiosities
In Andrés de Vandelvira's biography, the number of places where he worked and the distance between them is striking. The teacher moved in a wide radius that went from Cuenca to the north, Seville to the west, Malaga to the south and Guadix and perhaps some point further northeast, all taking into account that his center was in the Jaén-Úbeda axis, it is surprising the many kilometers traveled in a relatively short time taking into account the means of transport, on horseback.
This fact is linked to his enormous capacity for work, which he held in a high regard. In his testament he emphasizes with pride and sense of justice the separation between the assets contributed by his wife to the marriage and those that he contributed, one hundred thousand maravedíes that I had won, and then specifies that the farms and the fruits that he kept in the chambers of His house in Vicarrillo was won and acquired by my industry and work after the death of the said Luisa de Luna, my w ...
In Andrés de Vandelvira's biography, the number of places where he worked and the distance between them is striking. The teacher moved in a wide radius that went from Cuenca to the north, Seville to the west, Malaga to the south and Guadix and perhaps some point further northeast, all taking into account that his center was in the Jaén-Úbeda axis, it is surprising the many kilometers traveled in a relatively short time taking into account the means of transport, on horseback.
This fact is linked to his enormous capacity for work, which he held in a high regard. In his testament he emphasizes with pride and sense of justice the separation between the assets contributed by his wife to the marriage and those that he contributed, one hundred thousand maravedíes that I had won, and then specifies that the farms and the fruits that he kept in the chambers of His house in Vicarrillo was won and acquired by my industry and work after the death of the said Luisa de Luna, my w ...
In Andrés de Vandelvira's biography, the number of places where he worked and the distance between them is striking. The teacher moved in a wide radius that went from Cuenca to the north, Seville to the west, Malaga to the south and Guadix and perhaps some point further northeast, all taking into account that his center was in the Jaén-Úbeda axis, it is surprising the many kilometers traveled in a relatively short time taking into account the means of transport, on horseback.
This fact is linked to his enormous capacity for work, which he held in a high regard. In his testament he emphasizes with pride and sense of justice the separation between the assets contributed by his wife to the marriage and those that he contributed, one hundred thousand maravedíes that I had won, and then specifies that the farms and the fruits that he kept in the chambers of His house in Vicarrillo was won and acquired by my industry and work after the death of the said Luisa de Luna, my wife, and so they are my property and by the way and acquired with the work of my person.
His sense of justice also accounts for the clause in his will of the distribution of property among his children: That all my children are equal, so that my property carries both one and the other according to the declarations ... because my intention and hes will not to offend some more than others and that if they cannot be equal with what they have received those who are married that they return to others what others smell, so that all remain equal and I pray and order to all my children who have love for each other as the debtor obliges them.
Likewise, among his colleagues in the trade he enjoyed a reputation as a just man, as the stonemason Diego Gómez emphasizes when, not satisfied with the amount at which a source he made in Villacarrillo was appraised, he appointed Andrés de Vandelvira as an appraiser on his behalf. which motivates the following question by the justice to other witnesses: ..E if they know that the saying Andrés de Baldelvira is one of the most agile masters of the said trade of stonemasonry destos reynos and of very good conscience and through whose hand the most of the appraisals of all these regions.
Another episode from his youth, working in the convent of Uclés, reveals better, not only his sense of justice, but his courage in defending his principles. It happened that one day Judge Tomás de Ribera arrived at the convent in search of some criminals who he said had taken refuge there, in the face of the opposition of the doorman that it happened because it was a sacred jurisdiction, the judge went ahead and at the second door He confronted the religious in charge of the works, threatening to arrest him if he resisted, then young Vandelvira makes his appearance, calmly and respectfully warning him that the doorman had an order not to let even the emperor pass. The judge's response was to urge the friar to give 200 strokes of his cane as punishment to the daring stonemason, who in the end was humiliated by making him ride a donkey and walk him around the town in the manner of those prosecuted by the Inquisition.
Of the seven children he had, six boys and one woman, the most faithful follower of the profession was his first-born, Alonso. So were the third and sixth, Francisco and Cristóbal, in principle, but the first died soon and the second entered religion. The fourth, Pedro, priest, and beneficiary of the Collegiate Church of Castellar, was the first chaplain of the chaplaincy founded by the father. Juan, the fifth, studied in Baeza and the youngest, Bernardino, we only know that he was the patron of the chaplaincy in 1620. The daughter was called Catalina de Luna.
The work of Andrés de Vandelvira
Andrés de Vandelvira's work is characterized, in a few words, by its constructive solidity and constant experimentation with architectural language.
The constructive solidity is given to him by his mastery of the stereotomy or technique of cutting the stone, the fundamental material with which he works. Such knowledge, although inherited from the rich medieval tradition and shared by most of the master builders in Spain, nevertheless in the hands of Vandelvira he will know an extraordinary conversion or adaptation to the Roman or ancient language, which was the language of the Renaissance. This means cutting each one of the stone pieces or voussoirs, which make up the entire spatial ensemble built, with the precise shape so that they fit together with each other, they support themselves. The difficulty will be that of enclosing the space with curved surfaces and gaps, given the systematic use of the semicircular arch that dominates in ancient or Roman archite ...
Andrés de Vandelvira's work is characterized, in a few words, by its constructive solidity and constant experimentation with architectural language.
The constructive solidity is given to him by his mastery of the stereotomy or technique of cutting the stone, the fundamental material with which he works. Such knowledge, although inherited from the rich medieval tradition and shared by most of the master builders in Spain, nevertheless in the hands of Vandelvira he will know an extraordinary conversion or adaptation to the Roman or ancient language, which was the language of the Renaissance. This means cutting each one of the stone pieces or voussoirs, which make up the entire spatial ensemble built, with the precise shape so that they fit together with each other, they support themselves. The difficulty will be that of enclosing the space with curved surfaces and gaps, given the systematic use of the semicircular arch that dominates in ancient or Roman archite ...
Andrés de Vandelvira's work is characterized, in a few words, by its constructive solidity and constant experimentation with architectural language.
The constructive solidity is given to him by his mastery of the stereotomy or technique of cutting the stone, the fundamental material with which he works. Such knowledge, although inherited from the rich medieval tradition and shared by most of the master builders in Spain, nevertheless in the hands of Vandelvira he will know an extraordinary conversion or adaptation to the Roman or ancient language, which was the language of the Renaissance. This means cutting each one of the stone pieces or voussoirs, which make up the entire spatial ensemble built, with the precise shape so that they fit together with each other, they support themselves. The difficulty will be that of enclosing the space with curved surfaces and gaps, given the systematic use of the semicircular arch that dominates in ancient or Roman architecture. This is where Vandelvira will combine his manual experience with a Euclidean mathematical knowledge, which will allow him to create daring circular or square vaults, but always with a curved profile, known as vaulted vaults, which give the sensation of weightlessness and lightness to spaces closed by tons of stone. .
This virtuosity requires constant experimentation with the forms that explains the variations in his style throughout his work, also taking into account the contacts with other more experienced architects. Thus, until his arrival in Úbeda and acquaintance with Diego de Siloe, we did not find special stereotomic solutions in his work and instead a neat ornamental work covering the surfaces, in accordance with the so-called Plateresque style, visible in Uclés and on the cover of the alhorí de Alcaraz (1530) or even already in Úbeda in the chapel of Dean Ortega in San Nicolás, attributed to him.
From 1540 on, there would be a shift in favor of innovative structural approaches based on his own designs for Salvador de Úbeda, specifically the sacristy with its cover and access space, where anamorphosis dominates as a daring game in the domain of forms. made by stone cuts. The presence of the human figure almost free or in high relief also replaces the small and neat fantastic decoration that dominates in Plateresque.
This enhancement of the sculptural plastic is due to the collaboration of the Frenchman Esteban Jamete. Balance between structural experimentation and decoration dominate in his mature work of the 1550s and 1560s, ending in the last five years of his life with the triumph of mass and pure volumes with a minimal, very geometric decoration in support of the structural values, represented above all in the Hospital de Santiago de Úbeda.
Characteristics or particular idiolects of its architecture are:
- Columns with very thin shafts in interior patios
- Ribbed shafts with the lower third occupied by canes at unequal height, alternating, and sometimes with stone garlands according to French taste.
- Continue the composition of the facade plan from the sides.
- Frequent use of mullion on windows or balconies.
- Use of discs, with or without ceramic, inside the pediments.
- Frequent use of swollen friezes in the Ionic order, inspired by Serlio.
Known his work
Antiguo Convento de Santo Domi ...
La Guardia de JaénIglesia de Santa María
LinaresAyuntamiento de Baeza
BaezaCastillo de Canena
CanenaCastillo de Sabiote
SabioteCatedral de Baeza
BaezaCatedral de Jaén
JaénHospital de los Honrados Viejo ...
ÚbedaHospital de Santiago
ÚbedaIglesia de la Asunción
OrceraIglesia de la Inmaculada Conce ...
ArquillosIglesia de la Inmaculada Conce ...
Huelma