Plaza Fra Félix - Cadiz - Andalusia

Plaça Fra Félix is an old urban square in the Pópulo district. Since the Middle Ages, some of the city's most important buildings have been built on this square, such as the Cathedral , the Bishop 's Palace and the Ecclesiastical Bills.

It opens next to one of the sides of the so-called "Old Cathedral" of Cadiz, now renamed the Church of the Holy Cross . In the square, this church has the outer wall of its corridor, a very sober wall that gives no indication of the size of its interior, where the wide spatial concept of a columned church and the exceptional quality of its furniture, such as altarpieces and statues of religious representations, do not stand out in vain the Church is the canonical seat of several of the most important Penitential Confraternities of the Holy Week of Cádiz.

The square was expanded in the second half of the 17th century . To overcome the unevenness caused by the enlargement, a staircase was added, the front part of which was articulated by pilasters and on which stood several marble statues that are missing today . At the beginning of the 18th century, a cistern designed by Torcuato Benjumeda was built in the square, with an entrance reminiscent of a humiliation chamber, which today dominates the square.

The buildings that were the College of Santa Cruz and Contaduría house the Cathedral Museum with an outstanding collection of magnificent works of art from the 15th to the 20th centuries, the first building being an excellent example of late medieval civil architecture.

The old bishop's house, located between the two cathedrals, preserves important Phoenician and Roman remains from the 7th and 1st centuries BC. BC, some of which are visible from the outside.

At the foot of the stairs is the Estopiñán house, dating from the first half of the 17th century, with a striking facade crowned by the owners' coat of arms.1

Willem Vandenameele