The Iglesia de San Mateo in Jerez de la Frontera

The Iglesia de San Mateo is a church located in the historic center of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Situated in a historic district of Muslim origin, it was one of the six parishes established in Jerez de la Frontera after the Reconquista in 1264. While its construction offers some elements of Romanesque character, the building is basically a Gothic structure built during the transition of the 14th-15th centuries, featuring Renaissance and Baroque additions. The church was recently restored and has been a site of cultural interest since 2000.

As a parish church, it formed a neighborhood around it at the western end of the historic center. In terms of urban layout, it is the most important element in the articulation of urban residential spaces with other industrial areas, represented by the wineries. The building is defined by its stone masonry. It features a single nave with three sections plus another acting as a transept, which does not project out from the width of the nave or the presbytery. Various side chapels open from this single nave.

On both sides of the flat header, two towers are attached, one topped with a pyramidal spire and the other with a flat top. A two-bodied bell gable housing three bells rises on the epistle side. These five sections correspond to two different construction moments. The final three sections of the feet are covered with rib vaults with tercelets, which are lower than the vaults of the other two sections, where the vaults are star-shaped with richly decorated ribs in their keys.

The side chapels offer a variety of vaulting. Notable examples include the half-dome with oval decorations in the Renaissance style in the chapel of the Cristo de las Penas, and the 12-piece dome on drums covering the chapel of the Virgen de la Cabeza. The chapel of the Cristo de las Penas features a portal in a semicircular arch flanked by Doric pilasters supported by pedestals with rampant lions on the exterior and griffins on the interior. The reja that closes this chapel, also with decorative Renaissance motifs, dates from 1594 according to the central cartela of the frieze.

There are two exterior portals. The one on the epistle side is of Mudéjar typology, although it is very transformed. The one at the feet, currently blocked, is the most interesting and primitive. It has a pointed arch with a gablete flanked by two needles as buttresses, with ribs and a crowning of pinnacles. The composition and decoration relate it to Gothic portals in the Seville Cathedral. As a consequence of the Lisbon earthquake, the main door was walled up; since then, the door on the epistle side is used as the main entrance. While the temple was being repaired, mass was celebrated in a chapel built for that purpose, called San Mateo chico, built in the Palacio de San Blas with direct access to the current Calle San Ildefonso.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons