Look for the light grey facade defined by its three arched doorways, a prominent circular rose window above a row of slender columns, and an asymmetrical single bell tower rising only on the left side. Welcome to the Church of San Bartolomé.
This spot has been sacred ground for a very long time. When Christian forces conquered the city in February twelve sixty-six, they took over the existing Muslim mosque right here in the center of the medieval medina and transformed it into a parish.
But the building you are looking at now took an almost comical amount of time to actually get built. In the eighteenth century, the city decided to demolish the old medieval structure and start fresh. They broke ground on this current iteration in August seventeen sixty-seven. And then... the motivation, or perhaps the funding, simply ran out. Construction completely stopped.
By the year eighteen twenty-one, over fifty years later, all they had finished was the apse, the semicircular dome at the back of the altar, and part of the transept, which is the crossing arm that gives the church its Latin cross shape. For decades, the congregation just used a humble side door as their main entrance because the front of the church simply did not exist.
It was not until eighteen seventy-nine that an architect named Justo Millán was brought in to finally finish the job. He completed the main central hall, known as the nave, and designed the facade in front of you. Millán used an eclectic historicist style, which is a polite way of saying he mixed and matched his favorite parts of history, blending chunky Romanesque arches with Byzantine geometric details.
Notice the single bell tower on the left. Architectural historians love to argue over whether a matching tower was planned for the right side but left unfinished. However, if you look closely at the right side of the facade, the masonry is wider and completely different from the left. It seems highly likely the mismatched, lopsided look was entirely intentional.
Inside, the church houses an incredible collection of art, though it nearly lost it all. During the Spanish Civil War, the building was heavily looted. Statues and altarpieces were violently destroyed. But thanks to the swift action of the local mayor, Fernando Piñuela, several priceless works were hidden away. Among the saved treasures is a spectacular sculpture of the Virgin Mary from seventeen forty, widely considered to be the very first masterpiece by the legendary local sculptor Francisco Salzillo.
If you want to view that masterpiece yourself, the church is open most mornings and evenings during the week, with varied afternoon access on weekends. It took centuries of false starts, clashing architectural styles, and a daring wartime rescue to give us this stubbornly asymmetrical survivor.
Take a moment to admire this quirky survivor before we head out.
