Page 155 - The mystery of faith

church’s completion was postponed by the school’s economic crisis during the 1630s, when priority was
instead given to building new dormitories.16 With regard to Roldán’s sculptures, Palomino only
mentions some stone figures and an Inmaculada that decorated the temple’s exterior.

On the night of 2 April 1767, the grounds and contents of this Jesuit school were confiscated. Despite
this the monks were only compelled by the Inquisition to vacate the buildings in 1784;17 this spelt the
end for the seminary.18 It is precisely at this date that the Secretary of the Royal Academy of San
Fernando, Antonio Ponz, writes in his work Viage de España that the school’s church: ‘…belonged
before […] to those said Regulars. It is oval in plan, very pleasant to the eye, and the sculpture on the
high altar is by Pedro Roldán; but its interior ornamentation is extravagant. At its entrance there are
sculptures of various saints and an Inmaculada in the centre, some of which are [also] by Roldán, who
is also thought responsible for the church’s layout’.19 Ponz, an educated traveller, confirms Palomino’s
testimony but extends Roldán’s work to the interior, and credits him with the creation of the
Inmaculada (the main sculpture of the school). Moreover, Ponz also criticized what he deemed to be
the ‘extravagance’ of the church’s ornate interior, which grated on his Neoclassical convictions. Later,
the Dominican historian Fernando Díaz de Valderrama (writing under the pseudonym Fermín Arana de
Varflora) briefly quoted Palomino’s and Ponz’s comments.20

What is particularly telling is the manner in which the erudite Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez began his
description of Pedro Roldán: ‘…a sculptor, the last of any merit in Seville’.21 Ceán Bermúdez then went
on to describe Roldán’s work as modest, of fine form and correct line. Moreover, he portrayed the
sculptor’s lifestyle as ‘philosophical, in a country house away from Seville, enjoying Nature and
studying it without the nuisance of visits and compliments, which take so much time away from
artists’.22 Indeed, all testimonies of Roldán’ s career, from those of his contemporaries through to Ceán
Bermúdez’ writings in the nineteenth century, confirm his architectural and sculptural work, and note
his authorship of this church’s and interior/exterior decorative schemes. However, the most enlightening
data comes from the Sevillian historian Félix González de León.

During the nineteenth century, The Artistic News, first published in 1844, was the main point of
reference for everything concerning the city of Seville and its monuments, and is the printed source that
offers the most information on the school of Las Becas, covering its architecture, assets and history.
Excerpted from the text, we can read:

In the main chapel or chancel (testero) opposite the door, approached by proportioned steps, stands the
high altar surrounded by an iron grill, and within is the main altarpiece made of two sections of carved
wood, painted red and golden. The first section had at its centre the image of the Inmaculada, titulary of
this church, flanked on either side by sculptures of Saint Joseph and Saint Joachim, all three having been
made by Pedro Roldán. In the aisles of the church were four additional altars, two on each side, all
sculpted in wood, and unpainted: the first altar on the Gospel side venerated Saint Ignatius Loyola, and
included two sculptures side by side of Saint Stanislas [Kostka] and Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. The second
altar was dedicated to Saint Francis Borgia. On the opposite side, the first altar was dedicated to Saint
Francis Xavier, whose statue is flanked by those of Saint James and Saint John the Evangelist; in the final
altar is a sculpture of Saint Stanislas. All of these images were made by Pedro Roldán.23

155