Santa María del Azogue

Benavente, Spain

Santa María del Azogue is a Romanesque church of the 12th century with Latin cross floor plan, five apses, three naves, and large cross with four ogive vaults. The two facades of the cross have a pair of doors that are similar.Images of evangelists are used to decorate it.Inside there are Gothic sculptures from the 12th century out of which of note is the group of the Anunciación whose polychromy is still preserved today.The pillars of the church are varied and have decorative motifs based on double zig-zag and small lines of leaves.

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Details

Founded: 12th century
Category: Religious sites in Spain

More Information

www.spain.info

Rating

4.5/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Nuria Carmen Suarez Izquierdo (3 years ago)
Beautiful place,I would like to point out this virgin .
Turista Inglesa (4 years ago)
My three-star review is going against the tide here. I explain why at the end. As Church Squares go, this is really rather good. That is because the church itself is standing proudly in the middle, completely separate from all the other buildings, nothing built on to it (or if it has been, it has subsequently been taken down). You will obviously want to read about the church, there are separate reviews for that, but you do have the big advantage of being to walk all around it, view it from every angle. There are some quite handsome buildings all around the square, many with arcades, making shady places in summer and shelter from the rain in winter. There are some coffee places, tapas bars, a well-known place to buy your ham and other cured meats (Embutidos Muñoz, it's called), and a pleasant busy-ness feel to the place. Unfortunately, however, some busy-ness but not enough, as there were a number of businesses that had shut down completely, with For Sale or To Let signs prominent in their windows. Very sad. This partially contributes to my down-grading. In November 2020, the overall distinguishing feature of this square was, however, the large amount of graffiti. Graffiti on walls, graffiti on pillars between windows, and especially graffiti sprayed all over the windows of the closed-down businesses. Extremely ugly and depressing. The only blessing is that there was none to be seen on the church walls. Whether they had been spared or conscientiously cleaned I do not know, but the rest of it was pretty awful. So downgraded, and I nearly gave it a two-star rating because of this.
Fr. Manuel Gonzalez (Mito) (6 years ago)
Beautiful cuasi-cathedral church in the middle and top of Benavente.
Hans Frederiks (6 years ago)
Nice church and nice places on the square for a drink.
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