Municipality of Santa Cruz - Cadiz - Andalusia

This building , dating from 1262-1263 , was rebuilt in the 17th century in Mannerist and Baroque styles .
It was a cathedral until 1838 , when the city's cathedral was moved to the new cathedral. From that date, 1838, it is only considered a parish church .

Excavations in the basement of the old bishop's palace next to the church of Santa Creu suggest that it could be an early Christian and Visigothic temple or the Roman theater of Gades.

It is known that around 1262-1263 King Alfonso X of Castile the Wise built a church on the remains of an Arab mosque to be buried there. But when he died, he was buried in Seville.

The Gothic church and tiled roof were remodeled in the 15th and 16th centuries until it was burned down by the Anglo-Dutch squadron in 1596.

After the destruction of the previous church, it had to be rebuilt in the 17th century and has been preserved ever since. The 17th-century building was built in Mannerist and Baroque styles . The outside of the roof is made of different colored tiles . The exterior of the vaults is covered in colorful early 17th-century tiles.

The bell tower was built separately from the rest of the church in the 15th century and is topped with a spire of polychrome tiles . The first two floors consist of a staircase core, the third floor communicates with the Casa de la Contaduría (where the Cathedral Museum is located), which is rectangular and ends with a spire also covered with tiles.

In the second half of the 17th century, the Cathedral of Santa Creu was enriched as the population grew and the city prospered thanks to trade with India.

Major Works:

The altarpiece of the high altar , work by Alejandro de Saavedra; the Genoese chapel, the Capella dels Vizcaínos , with the image of the Last Communion of Sant Ferran , painted by Antonio Hidalgo in 1683.
The Chapel of the Relics, the Sagrario Tower (second half of the 18th century), the work of Torcuato Cayón, paintings and images thanks to the patronage of Bishop Alonso Vázquez de Toledo, the side facade in Genoese marble by Andreoli.

Willem Vandenameele