Page 213 - The mystery of faith

After 1537, Pardo’s fortunes are linked to his father-in-law, Alonso Covarrubias, who was senior master
of the Cathedral and responsible for the most important sculptures, such as the decorations for the
Portada de la capilla de la Torre (1537). Also connected with Covarrubias are Pardo’s royal
commissions in Madrid for Don Alonso de Castilla, Bishop of Calahorra (1538, Museo Arqueológico
Nacional).4 Between 1539 and 1542, Pardo carved reliefs depicting The Coronation of the Virgin and
The Miracle of Saint Leocadia, and a few years later carved the exceptional walnut cajoneria, or
wardrobe, in the anteroom to the chapterhouse (1549), which is a masterpiece executed in the artist’s
now unmistakable style.

This brilliant artistic career was suddenly cut short around 1551, and Pardo’s last commission was for
the sepulchre of Don Fernando de Córdoba, head of the Calatrava Order, which was to be placed in
the chapel he founded in Almagro (1551, Ciudad Real). Unfinished at Pardo’s death, in 1552, the tomb
was completed by Covarrubias with the help of Vergara the Elder, and, most importantly, Bautista
Vázquez. It is particularly significant that it was Vázquez who supervised the completion of Pardo’s
final project, as his work also came to be typified by contained emotionalism, formal balance and
idealized aesthetics.5

The Cathedral of Toledo contains the highest concentration of important works from the Spanish
Renaissance. When Pardo first arrived to begin work on the choir decoration and the other works
commissioned by Tavera, he was the only sculptor working in a style opposed to that of Alonso
Berruguete, and it is partly this maverick status vis-à-vis the great Castillian master that establishes
Pardo’s place in the history of Spanish art.

The present work is a rare and important addition to the small number of extant works known by
Pardo, the scarcity of which is partly the result of his premature death and partly due to the loss of
many of his works. Based on its simple style and sense of Renaissance purity, the present relief can be
dated to between 1548 and 1550, at the peak of Italian Mannerism, when Pardo, nevertheless, was still
basing his aesthetics on the lucidity and clarity of classical models.

1 J. NICOLAU, in Archivo Español de Arte, 1983, pp. 416–418. 5 The epitaph for the tomb was written by Canon Juan de
2 I. DEL RÍO DE LA HOZ, El escultor Felipe Bigarny (h. Vergara, and published in a work of Alvar Gómez published
1470–1542), Junta de Castilla y León, Valladolid 2001, p. in Lyon by Gaspar Frechsel, Alvari Eulaliennno Eidyllia
238, fig. 53. aliquot sive poemática (Lyon, 1558). Here, one can read of
3 I. DEL RÍO DE LA HOZ, El Coro de la Catedral de Toledo, the special and pronounced affection that Covarrubias felt
Col. Cuadernos de Arte Español, no. 52, ed. Historia 16. for his son-in-law, and how he wrote an elegy to Pardo and
4 M. ESTELLA, ‘Los artistas de las obras realizadas en Santo his wife (cited in J. MARTÍ Y MONSÓ, Estudios histórico-
Domingo el Real de Madrid’, in Anales del Instituto de artísticos relativos principalmente a Valladolid, Valladolid
Estudios Madrileños, XVIII, 1980, pp. 41–65. See also A. 1901 (facsimile ed.), p. 52.
BUSTAMANTE GARCÍA, ‘Forment, Bigarny y Gregorio Pardo’,
in Boletín del Museo e Instituto Camón Aznar, XXXIV,
1988, pp.167–171.

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