Iglesia de Santa María de Deba : iconografía de sus claves de bóveda

Abstract

The coastal town of Deba houses one of the most interesting churches in the province of Gipuzkoa, the Church of Saint Mary. Apart from its facade and its cloister, for which it was declared a National Monument, one can see wonderful intersectings ribs vaults with keystones skifully sculptured. These are an iconographic sample of the postulates of the Council of Trent. In fact, their mentors, by following a hierarchy in arrangement, grouping and display fron top to bottom, managed to convey to the faithful of the time idea of a militant church commited to the Counter-reform. The image was used to state the following: sources of the faith, tradition and the Holy Scripturethe Sacraments, mainly those Protestants disagreed whiththe advocation of the Churchthe Virginthe new devotionsthe religious attitudes preached after the Council of Trentthe main religious ordersthe exemplary life of martyrsand the persistence of a medieval religiosity at the begining of the 17th century, also saints were included. Saint Mary's Church in Deba and its 98 sculptures keystones provide shelter for a magnificent Trentine catechism