Church of the Santísima Trinidade, Ourense, Gothic church in central Ourense, Spain
The Church of the Santísima Trinidade is a Gothic church in Ourense with two cylindrical towers on its main facade, one topped by a square bell chamber. The west portal has a triple pointed-arch archivolts on smooth columns with carved capitals; the north portal has three late-Romanesque archivolts with four-petaled flowers and sawtooth edges. Inside, the single nave leads to a rib-vaulted main chapel.
The church was built between the 12th and 16th centuries next to a pilgrim hospital near thermal springs that drew travelers. This extended construction period reflects how pilgrimage routes shaped this location into an important religious gathering place.
The main altarpiece, carved in the 16th century by Cornielles de Holanda, who also made the high altarpiece of Ourense Cathedral, has five tiers and a dark green polychrome with gilded details. It is crowned by a Crucifixion with God the Father behind and the Holy Spirit as a dove on the ceiling. The church also keeps a 16th-century Plateresque cross, carved by Jácome de Moure, father of the Ourense sculptor Francisco de Moure, in its atrium.
The church has two entrances: the main west doorway with three pointed arches and a smaller north doorway on the Gospel side, reached from the atrium. The atrium is entered through a 16th-century Renaissance doorway moved here from the Alameda, where the post office now stands. The head of the church faces Rúa Padre Feijoo, braced by buttresses.
The atrium gate came from the Hospital of San Roque, founded in the 16th century by Bishop Francisco Blanco, and was moved here from the Alameda do Concello, where the Correos building now stands. Its round arch is flanked by two fluted columns with medallions of Hippocrates and Galen, and a triangular tympanum holds a stone image of Saint Roch between two fantastic figures representing evil, with an angel at the top.
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