Collegiate Church of Santa María (La Seu)

What it is

La Seu is the collegiate basilica of Santa María, Xàtiva's great church and, with the castle, the city's silhouette. It is a Site of Cultural Interest and stands in Plaza de Calixto III, on the site of the old mosque. Saint John of Ribera laid the first stone in 1568, when the city aspired to be an episcopal seat, something it never achieved. The works lasted more than four centuries and it is still unfinished today; in Xàtiva they say something "lasts longer than the work on La Seu". The bell tower is nineteenth-century and the main door was not finished until the first third of the twentieth. On that door are the bronze statues of the two Borgia popes born in the city, Calixtus III and Alexander VI, the work of Octavio Vicent.

The church outside and in

It has a Latin-cross plan, with a very marked transept and ambulatory, and the dimensions of a great Gothic cathedral, although its Herrerian sobriety relates it to El Escorial. Walk round it to see its doors: the Mercat door, Renaissance, the oldest, facing Calle Sant Vicent; the Escalones door, Baroque, on the north façade on Calle Abat Pla, with the castle and all its towers in the pediment; and the main one, the Popes' door.

Inside, the pink marble columns are each made from a single piece brought from the Buixcarró range. The high altar is the work of Ventura Rodríguez, the great Neoclassical architect, and is presided over by Mariano Benlliure's Mare de Déu de la Seu.

The museum and the bell tower

The collegiate museum is entered from the ambulatory. It holds Gothic painting, with altarpieces attributed to Jacomart, and goldwork linked to the Borgia popes. The processional cross, of late fourteenth-century silver with some 30 translucent enamels, is among the best Gothic pieces of the former Crown of Aragon. The great monstrance, of fifteenth-century Flamboyant Gothic, goes out every year in the Corpus Christi procession; tradition says it was made with the first silver to arrive from America, a gift from the Catholic Monarchs to Alexander VI, who donated it to the Collegiate Church. There are also the gold chalice of Calixtus III and the altarpiece of Saint Anne, commissioned by the pope for his family chapel and attributed to Jacomart, to Pere Reixac or to both, on the border between Gothic and Renaissance.

The bell tower is 60 metres high and is climbed by 180 steps to the little temple of the Virgin of La Seu, patron of the city.

Hours and tickets

The museum and the bell tower open Tuesday to Friday from 10:30 to 13:00, and Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from 11:30 to 13:00. Closed on Mondays. It costs €3; children and groups of at least ten people, €2. The tourism website mentions audio guides. The Collegiate Church's phone is 962 281 481, and it has its own website at seudexativa.org. It is one of the stops on the Borgia route, and opposite it, in Plaza del Mercat, is El Cullerot for lunch.