Quick Access in the page
date: 17/05/2012 latest update: 15/05/2012
15th-16th century
Picture on the left: The substitution of stone vaults for wooden ones required that buttresses be built to compensate for the force exerted on the walls. The photograph shows the buttresses which support the walls of the southern nave. Picture on the right:Tomb of Don Martín Saez de Salinas, built during the 16th century and later moved to its current location. (Quintas).
15th century´s plants:1- Erronda-pasabidearen oinplanoa.
2- Vault level.
3. Lower level.
4. Triforium level.
16th century´s plants:1- Vault level.
2- Triforium level.
3. Lower level.
On 7th October 1496, a bull was granted for the transfer of the Armentia Collegiate Church to Vitoria, although this move did not actually take place until 14th February 1498. Santa María, until this time just a simple parish church, now became a Collegiate Church, as part of the oligarchy's plan to, in the opinion of J.R. Díaz de Durana, "bring prestige to the city and make it the ecclesiastical centre of the region".
As this lecturer at the University of the Basque Country says, the transfer of the Collegiate Church to Santa María aimed "in the first place, to distinguish Vitoria as an urban centre, a political subject and an ecclesiastical focus point (...) something which ... would further reinforce the grandeur of the city itself, bestowing on it, from an ecclesiastical point of view, a status similar to that of an episcopal see".
This historical event serves to explain and justify the process of expansion and beautification to which Santa María was subjected towards the end of the 15th century and most of the fifteen hundreds - a process which is largely responsible for many of the problems which still beset the building to this very day.
Building work, especially during the 16th century, was frenetic. It was during this period that the tower, choir stalls and San Juan, la Inmaculada Concepción, Altar del Cristo, San Roque, San Marcos, de los Reyes, San Bartolomé, San José, San Prudencio and de la Piedad Chapels were built, along with a series of magnificent tombs such as those of the Ortiz de Caicedo family, Don Cristóbal Martínez de Alegría and Don Martín Sáez de Salinas, among others.
