Phone: 926 54 04 56

Email: ofituralcazar@hotmail.com

Website: www.turismoalcazar.org

Location

A few meters from the Plaza de España, city centre and the Town Council building. Accessible on foot and by car. Limited access for large vehicles.

Type of monument

Religious Architecture

History

Owing to the population increase experienced by the city, in 1587, by order of the Council of Alcázar, work was started on building this church which was finished in 1604.

Is seems to have been built according to the plans of Juan de Herrera, brought by the Alcazarian architect Miguel Barroso, who worked on El Escorial. The work was begun by Juan de Oza and continued by Rodrigo de Argüello and Andrés de Astián.

It is a Church of the Order of San Juan, a dependent of the Archbishopric of Toledo.

On the 7th May 1921 the bell tower and part of the church collapsed, and the parochial archive and altarpieces were destroyed during the Civil War in 1936.

Period

Between 1511 and 1604.

Art style

Classical Baroque.

Surroundings

La Plaza, on of the most important places in the city, where the wealthy families of the era built their homes. The Town Council building was an old Casino founded in the mid-19th century by businessmen from the railways and the wine industry.

How to get there

Road transport

The Church of Santa Quiteria is an austere building with clear lines, it is Classic Baroque, belonging to the earliest stage of the Baroque period. It is a church of great dimensions built on blocks of reddish coloured stone.

The exterior has buttresses in the central nave, used in very early Baroque churches, very similar to the classicist churches of Valladolid.

The classicist facade is modelled on El Escorial. Built of stone, it is made up of a semicircular triumphal arch, supported on Tuscan columns on a high podium. On the facade, a curved and partitioned pediment archhouses a niche with a box inside.

The interior consists of three naves; the central nave is covered by a barrel vault ceiling, with pediment arches supported on great pillars. The lateral naves are supported on Tuscan pillars. The chancel is covered by a great dome on pendetives.

The chancel is dominated by the figure of Santa Quiteria and a carving of Christ on the Cross. The original altars, paintings and reliquaries, and the parochial archive disappeared in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.

In the interior of the building it is worth noting the decoration of the keystoneswith coloured arches of clearly Arabic inspiration, a pointed arch, decorated with pebbles; and a side chapel decorated in plateresque, with medallions, grotesques, fantasy animals, human beings and carvings, symmetrically developed and encased between square mouldings and friezes. For some historians this is the chapel of the Virgen del Rosario built by Francisco de Mazas, Master Mason who worked in the Uclés Monastery.

Following the restoration of the monument, it is also worth noting the Cruz de San Juan, in the Choir area.

Timetables

Hours of Worship.

Services

A guided tour can be requested through the Alcázar de San Juan Tourist Board.