Subbetica
Aurora Chapel
This beautiful chapel was built around 1715 and its brotherhood upholds the tradition of the ‘campanilleros de la Aurora’ (dawn bell ringers), so characteristic of the villages in southern Córdoba. The chapel has a rectangular floor plan divided into five sections, with the fourth and fifth corresponding to the spaces covered by the dome and the chancel respectively. The dome rises above pendentives decorated with stucco foliage, framing the coats of arms of the chapel’s patron, Don José de Arjona y Hurtado. The high altarpiece, attributed to Francisco José Guerrero and completed in 1759, represents in its structure the decorative synthesis of this altarpiece maker, who produced such a wealth of work in Lucena. The niche created for the image of the patron saint between 1756 and 1759 is circular in plan and small in size, measuring some two metres in diameter; it fits, much like an apse, at the head of the church, profusely decorated with rocaille, stipes, mirrors and cherub heads. All the stylistic features of this small space point to the Lucena-born sculptor and woodcarver Pedro de Mena y Gutiérrez, who was at that time working on the plasterwork of the High Altar of San Mateo.