San Juan Bautista

The Iglesia de San Juan Bautista or the Church of San Juan Bautista is a Roman Catholic church devoted to John the Baptist, in Velez-Malaga, in the province of Malaga, Spain. It is an artwork-historical monument that, through the years, has passed through multiple architectural adjustments to its shape based totally on existing tendencies. The authentic church dates from 1487 and was built in the Gothic-Mudejar style. In that equal century it was revamped and among 1541 and 1564, Fray Bernardo Manrique, the then bishop, completed similarly enlargement, building the tower at this time. Significant adjustments have been made at some stage in the Baroque period, lines of which nevertheless continue to be.

Further reforms were carried out within the late eighteenth century. This worried the decoration of the vestry, an remarkable piece, built in 1789, and attributed to Jose Martín de Aldehuela. Its portal is accessed through a foyer with Evangelio nave, has satisfactory stucco decoration with vegetal factors and apocalyptic symbols. The principal changes performed to the original church were accomplished between 1853 and 1860, by Bishop Juan Nepomuceno Castellana, from which it obtained its neoclassical imprint. These works were commissioned by way of lawyer Federico Vahey, then minister of Grace and Justice below Isabel II. He ordered the development of the funerary chapel to be committed to the worship of San Federico, now called the Cristo de las Vigias.