ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL
MURCIA, SPAIN ROMAN CATHOLIC
PAUL SCOTT
My wife and I enjoyed a week-long stay in Murcia (pronounced Mur' thia by the locals) in 1998. My interests in those days were rather more mathematical than ecclesiastical / architectural, but we were introduced to Murcia’s Cathedral. Time to visit it again! It has been claimed to be Spain’s most beautiful cathedral. This may be, but it is undeniably very large and impressive.
None of the photos appearing on this site are mine. Some have a direct accreditation in the text. Groups of photos from the same source have a short code and a link in the Conclusion. Examples are Murcia Cathedral [MC] and the Flickr pages of Francisco Javier Guerra Hernando [fjg]. Many photos come from ‘public’ collections such as Trip Advisor [TA] and Google Street View [GSV]. In these cases the contributor’s name is given in the text and the group link in The Conclusion. Some further comments can be found here too.
There follows a short index of places visited in the Cathedral. You can use these to go directly to the indicated place with a click or tap.
00 Entry
SATELLITE VIEW GSV
This is a satellite view of the Cathedral. It shows that the Cathedral has a basic cruciform shape, but surrounded by chapels, and having a blue dome at the western end, and a rounded apse at the eastern end.
As usual we shall use liturgical directions on this site, identifying the eastern apse to be in the East direction (capital E), and the blue dome at the West. Other directions will be named accordingly.
We note that this Cathedral is closely enclosed by various streets and plazas. We shall begin our exploration at the Cardinal Belluga Plaza at left, to admire the elaborate façade of the Cathedral. We then follow around in an anti-clockwise direction along the Apostles Street, past the South transept door. There is an imposing chapel (the Vélez Chapel) at the Apostles Plaza corner, and we then follow up narrow Oliver Street, arriving at the impressive bell tower. So to the Hernandez Armores Plaza where there is a large cross. A decorated pavement leads to the North transept entry. We continue around the large square of the Cathedral Museum, returning to our starting point. We are now facing the decorated Baroque West face of the Cathedral. After taking time to be suitably impressed, we enter the Cathedral by the door to the right.
PLAN MC
This excellent plan of the Cathedral comes from the Cathedral guide book.
In our investigation of the interior of the Cathedral, we shall follow the marked path and numbering. This will lead to some strange numbering anomalies for two reasons. Some of the locations (for example the central nave [7]) require a large number of photographs, resulting in a very large section or several manageable subsections with the same number. As well, several chapels are not marked on this plan. There are four of these which occur between Chapels 5 and 23, and Chapels 3 and 25. And there are further items of interest between Chapels 4 and 24!
There are two chapels for which I have been unable to find sufficient information. I would be delighted to complete these if information is supplied.
Some further copies of the Plan are scattered in the text to help with the navigation.
HISTORY
[Wikipedia]
Years Built : 1385 – 1467
Address : Catedral de Murcia, Pl. del Cardinal Belluga s/n, 30001 Murcia, Spain
The Cathedral Church of Saint Mary in Murcia, commonly called the Cathedral of Murcia, is a Catholic church in the city of Murcia, Spain. It is the Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cartagena.
The Christian king Jaime I the Conqueror conquered the city during the Mudéjar revolt of 1264–66. Jaime I took the Great Mosque or Aljamía to consecrate it to the Virgin Mary; a custom he put in place when he conquered any settlement. However, it was not until the 14th century that construction of the Cathedral would begin. In 1385 work on the foundations started and in 1388 the first stone was laid. Another six years passed until constructions upwards continued; the Cathedral would be finished in October 1467. Nevertheless, the cathedral continued to evolve until the 18th century, demonstrating a variety of artistic styles.
The interior is largely Gothic in style; the facade is Baroque and it was designed by the Valencian architect and sculptor Jaume Bort i Meliá.
The heart and the entrails of King Alfonso X the Wise are buried under the main altar of the cathedral, as he indicated in his testament, as a gift and proof of his love to Murcia and in thanks to the fidelity that the city showed to him.
In 1854 the Cathedral suffered a terrible fire that destroyed the high altar and the choir stalls. The repair works consisted in the creation of a new neo-Gothic altarpiece (work of the sculptors Pescador and Palao), and the commission of a majestic organ, undertaken by the Belgian firm Merklin-Schütze. Under the organ 16th-century plateresque chairs from the Monastery of Santa Maria de Valdeiglesias were installed, a donation made by Queen Isabel II to the Cathedral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murcia_Cathedral
