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Collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor of Salas

Salas, Oviedo, Asturias

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature

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Collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor of Salas

Monument · Salas, Oviedo, Asturias

A church founded by the Valdés-Salas family in the first half of the 16th century, with a single nave to which later renovations added chapels; the apse holds two 17th-century reredoses, the main one from the Valladolid school with biblical scenes, and another in the Malleza chapel, the work of Pedro Sánchez de Agrela and Luis Fernández de la Vega. Its principal piece is the alabaster mausoleum of Fernando de Valdés Salas, inquisitor general and founder of the University of Oviedo, carved between 1576 and 1582 by the Italian Pompeyo Leoni, who worked for Philip II at El Escorial. It has three tiers: the Valdés family's biography and coat of arms on the lower one, the archbishop praying between Charity and Hope on the middle one, and Faith defeating Heresy on the upper one. It is the greatest piece of Asturian funerary Renaissance art.

Photo: Zarateman (CC0)

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