Don Benito Travel Guide May. 2015 | Page 5

Santiago Church The Church of Santiago considered cathedral for its style and location, has its origins in the 16th and 17th centuries and it was declared “Site of Cultural Interest” by the Junta de Extremadura. The main façade shows the main staircases with an entrance of Renaissance and Herrera style influence, framed with a semicircular entrance, which features two pairs of fluted columns of Corinthian style resting on large plinths. Above the door there is a sculpture of the Immaculate Conception and over it a circular window with the coat of arms of bishop D. Pedro González. The façade is topped with a cross of granite from the year 1964. The adjacent 40-meters-high tower, covered with Quintana granite in 1965, collects the belfry, the lantern or flashlight and the sides apart from buttresses present the south façade, where you can see the coat of arms of Bishop Martín of Córdoba and Mendoza, the year 1576 and the north façade dated 1598. The interior, where the light penetrates through large three-mullioned Gothic style windows, is of enormous spatiality and consists of three naves of equal height composed by vaults of triangular shape and others more adorned in the sotocorro. The altarpiece of Baroque style destroyed in 1936 and replaced in 1956 by one similar to the original, work of the local woodcarver Claudio Martin Soriano. Also you can see 17 tables painted by the dombenitense Juan Aparicio.