Description

 

The presence of the Trinitarian mothers in the city dates back to 1587, the year in which they founded their house, outside the walls, adjacent to the convent of St. Eufrasio, also of the Trinitarian Order. In the early years of the seventeenth century the patron saint of the main chapel, Don Martin de Valenzuela, knight of twenty-four and captain of the local militia, obtained it. His coat of arms is on the outside of the chapel.

 

In this convent Mother Sister Luisa Diañez (or Yáñez), who predicted the outbreak of plague suffered by the city in the year 1680, professed that on the day of Our Lady and Pure Conception of 1680, when her solemn procession went through the Puerta del Sol to begin its journey through Audiencias street, the Trinitarian Mothers, who saw the retinue with great joy from the viewpoint of their convent, watched in amazement as Sister Luisa Diañez, at that moment, began to pale and anguish and the anxiety was seizing her while the procession approached.

 

The sisters, when contemplating the face of Sister Louise, changed the chants of the first moment by the fear and the anguish to fear for their life: What happens to you sister?, asked one of them. Are you indisposed?, said another. Sister Luisa was lowered quickly to the parlor to alleviate her illness; to it he went among others, to be interested in what happened, Don Pedro Soldado and Rojas, city councilor. But the surprise and the fear took over all of them when the nun, taking her breath again, commented that the cortege that accompanied the Mother of God, she had seen it as authentic walking corpses.

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Before the ear, Don Pedro Soldado said: bad times are coming for the city according to the image that this holy sister has had!; God help us! they repeated each other.

 

Indeed, only a few days had passed when the effects of the black plague or bubonic plague were felt in the city, as well as in other parts of Spain's geography.

 

Pedro Bernardo de Valenzuela took charge of the city in such difficult moments, in which the corregidor of the city delegated full powers, so that he would arrange everything necessary and face such a critical moment. Don Pedro Bernardo, like his family, remained in the city and in it he developed great activity for the creation of hospitals and collection of money and food with which to help the victims.

 

The whole city recognized the strength of mind and faith that Don Pedro put into such a difficult enterprise, since he did not faint at any moment in those difficult moments. An inner strength seemed to illuminate all his performance, fruit of the faith he put in the words that in one day said Sor Luisa de Diañez: "Pedro Bernardo must remain in your position and serve your neighbors because you must not be afraid, nor for you or for yours, since the plague will pass through your door, as in his day did the angel of the Lord before those of the families of his chosen people there in his exile in the land of pharaohs." History that gathers Don Carlos de Torres Laguna in his work Leyendas y Tradiciones iliturgitanas and that would give rise to one of the most awaited traditions of the calendar of the city: the procession of the Inmaculada, to which the town of Andujar, brotherhoods and corporation under Mazas attend every year to fulfill the vow made in 1680.

 

Of the original convent little remains for the passage of years and the successive renovations. The convent church, very austere according to the norm of the period, is the only nave with altars along the walls. It is covered with a barrel vault with lunettes separated by transverse arches. The section of the feet has been adapted for choir, high, and oratory below it. The main chapel, of good ashlar masonry, covered with half orange on pendentives decorated with the lineage of the Valenzuela, its founders.

 

In the immediate section to the main chapel there is a small sacristy where there is the polychrome carving of the Blessed Simón de Rojas in the Baroque style (18th century).

 

Account the temple with three doors although two of them blinded at present. One of them is the door of the feet, with a semicircular arch, decorated with a pillow, like the jambs. It is framed by padded pilasters and triangular pediment. In the apex a pinaculillo, in its vertices and in the interior of the pediment, shield with the Trinitarian Cross. Above the door and on its axis, a window in which it repeats the outline of the door from its impost line, although without heraldic decoration. On the cinch cornice, a narrow body with three rectangular windows between pillars. On its north side, the double-store belfry and three half-point spans.

 

The door of the street of the Nuns, open in the second section, is very simple. Lintel and topped by a split pediment with niche in its center. The third door, of small proportions, is located in the Main Chapel, with a tower shape. This door was intended exclusively for the private use of employers. Currently it is blinded.

 

The temple keeps several works of interest inside. His altarpiece, in the Baroque style, paid for by Mrs. Melchora in 1704, was badly damaged in the civil war and is currently in the process of being restored. To it must belonged the polychrome carving of the Inmaculada, now in the choir, which is modeled to be seen only from the front. In the choir is also the size of the Virgen Prelada, probably from the Granada school of the eighteenth century.

 

His canvases include the one that represents the Trinity and the Holy Family. By the type of composition, its juicy color and invoice should be linked to the second half of the seventeenth and the Sevillian imprint. The Calvary, of Baroque style, has undoubted relation with the Granada workshops.

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Association of Friends of the Patrimony of Andujar