Look to your right to find a tall, flat facade of rough stone masonry, anchored by a large rounded archway over wooden doors and crowned with an intricate carving in lighter stone that frames an empty niche. This is the Church of Santa Cruz, a building whose history is a wildly unpredictable pendulum swing of grand visions and harsh realities.
It began as one of the city's earliest, most modest parishes, a simple structure with a single nave, which is the main central hall where the congregation gathers. But the drive for legacy that shapes so much of Cuenca soon took hold. In the mid fifteen hundreds, Bishop Bernardo de Fresneda decided this humble church needed a major upgrade. Fresneda was not just any cleric. He was the personal confessor to King Philip the Second, a position of immense political power. He invited the king to Cuenca in fifteen sixty four, using his high profile status to funnel court resources into transforming the church into a grand Renaissance monument.
Inside these walls rests another ambitious figure from that era, Luis Valle de la Cerda. He was a fascinating sixteenth century spy in Flanders and an economist who promoted credit institutions to save the poor from predatory lenders. As a spy, his life was full of danger. In fact, he once excused his sudden, unauthorized return to Spain from a perilous mission by claiming he had acquired a highly important holy relic... specifically, the foot of Saint Philip.
The church saw another major overhaul in seventeen fifty five. The master builder, Manuel de Santa María, took on the grueling work of vaulting the ceiling. Tragically, he died just before the project was completed, leaving his sons to fight for the final payment of over forty thousand reales, the royal currency of the time, which would be roughly fifty thousand modern dollars today.
And right outside these walls, the earth held a dark secret. Recently, archaeologists excavating for a new mechanical ramp uncovered a fifteenth century street buried under a massive layer of silt. A catastrophic, forgotten flood had completely wiped out the medieval homes next to the church, burying everyday items like golden pottery under tons of mud.
But the building survived, only to face a bizarre architectural reinvention. In the nineteen nineties, the former church was repurposed into a bustling crafts center where local artisans sold traditional wares. Then, ambition struck again. The Roberto Polo Collection arrived in twenty nineteen, turning the space into a contemporary art museum. It did not go well. The project was an absolute disaster. It drew a dismal six thousand visitors in its first eight months, leading the regional government to abruptly tear up the contract. Locals cheered the closure, calling the museum a useless waste of money.
Sometimes, grand artistic visions fail spectacularly. But our next stop is proof of the exact opposite. We are heading to the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art, just a five minute walk away, where a bold artistic rebellion succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. If you ever want to peek inside the Church of Santa Cruz, it is generally open Monday through Saturday from ten to six, and Sundays from ten to three. Let's keep walking.
