FRAGMENT OF THE NATIVITY ALTARPIECE

HISTORY 

No details are known about the person who commissioned this work. Nor does the altarpiece's bibliography refer to a possible earlier location, which is the reason we can reasonably suppose that it has always stood in the Nacimiento Chapel to whose saint it is dedicated. Manuel Gómez Moreno in the Monumental Provincial Catalogue drawn up between 1906 and 1908 refers to its being located: "in one of the ambulatory chapels", without specifying exactly to which he was referring. However, he did add that it probably belonged in the Nacimiento (Birth) Chapel founded by bishop Cabeza de Vaca (1448-1459).

Apparently, however, it originally seems to date from quite a lot earlier; more specifically, from approximately 1260. The altarpiece had previously been dedicated to the worship of Saints Ildefonse and Peter, both of whom appear in the church's glass windows along with other important church dignitaries.

The tomb of bishop Arnaldo Nuño, who died in 1253, is set into one of the walls. Above the tomb is a tympanum and the figures of two angels escorting the dead bishop's soul to Heaven.