Semana Santa Estepa

Seville enchants

The 13th-century Santiago Apóstol Church has a rectangular plan, also known as a hall church, with a nave covered by groin vaults and two aisles with pitched ceilings. As the plaque on the right aisle reads, the original church was demolished owing to its dilapidated state. It was rebuilt on a larger scale in 1883.

This chapel was built in 1511, probably as a charity hospital called Hospital de la Sangre. As with the chapel of La Soledad, the Vera Cruz Chapel underwent extensive renovation.

Although the origins of this chapel are unknown, it is thought that a charity hospital dedicated to the San Sebastian martyr stood on this site. The Confraternity has a rulebook from 1879 that is a copy of an earlier one from 1584.

Much of the cloister of the Monastery of the Incarnation has been converted into a Museum of Sacred Art, which is structured around the main cloister. The Museum consists of 4 rooms that house a significant collection of the Child Jesus, goldwork and notable sculptures.

In 1513, the 4th Count of Ureña gifted the old San Sebastián Chapel and the adjoining charity hospital to the friars of the Order of Preachers so that they could found their convent. The Count had it recorded that the Chapel should not be demolished but rather incorporated into the new church. Its construction was completed on 7 March 1547.

The Shrine to Santa Ana is located on the outskirts of Osuna. It was initially a convent founded in the first half of the 16th century by Maria de la Cueva, the wife of the 4th Count of Ureña, and run by the Poor Clare sisters. The nuns moved to their monastery on La Huerta Street in 1599 given that the Shrine was in an uninhabited place.

There is documentary proof that, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the present-day Oratory of the Confraternity of the Solitude was the “El Calvario” where the “Cruz de las Toallas” (penitential cross) was placed. Before the penitential procession in Holy Week, the Descent from the Cross was re-enacted using an articulated image of Christ. This event took place until the mid-20th century.