17/03/2010
Vitoria- Gasteiz, 17th March 2009.- The guided visits to the Santa Maria Cathedral will have from this Friday a new place to discover, the St. Christ Chapel. It is a chapel of the XVIIIth century beside the central nave of the cathedral and it iwll be now reopened to the public after the restoration works.
The project and the technic direction have been made by the technicians of the Foundation and with the 365.00 euros given as a subvension by the Spanish Goverment, who through the Council of Vitoria chose this project and another fifty for the E-Plan for the economic reactivation. The St. Christ Chapel was founded in the XVIIth century by the Galarreta family. It is an octogon beside the north nave of the cathedral. It´s construction was possible because Martin de Galarreta sent from Flandes between 1661 and 1633 a picture done by the stonemasons Pedro de Amezti and Juan Ansola Ibaiguren. The exterior was made of sandstone carried from Sierra de Elguea and inside we can find white limestone ashlars from Ajarte.
Restoration works
Before the restoration works began, the technicians discovered the existence of a dome built in the XVIIth century but hidden in the XVIIIth century. This dome had a lantern that lighted the chapel´s inside. After this discovery, the technicians suggested the possibility of building a new lantern similar to the original one. The restoration works have had a duration of eight months and they have also cleaned the inside and restored the east facade, that was very damaged after the fire suffered in the XXth century. The restoration of the chapel is one of the cultural more interesting elements of the cathedral.
Furniture Patrimony
In the chapel stands out the picture ´ Lamentation above dead Christ´ whose author is the painter Gaspar de Crayer and it is belive that it was installed on 1663. After several location changes of the painting inside the cathedral,currently we can find it in the Sacred Art Museum. There is also a big image of a Crucified Christ done around the second half of the XVIth century, and then it was moved to the north transept. The ´New Christ Altarpiece´ belongs also to this chapel (dated from 1775) but nowadays we can also find the shield, the ´Lignum Crucis Relicary´,a piece of 1672 that we can now find in the sacristy, and the painting of ´Christ´s Bury´, that it is a copy of a famous Caravaggio painting. There are also some silver pieces and sacred ornaments for using them in special celebrations. Non of these work of arts, , except from the Relicary, are now in the cathedral because of the restoration works.