Situated at Plaça del rector Rubí, in the center of Manacor. Its construction began at the end of the 19th century and commended by priest Rubí to naval engineer José Barceló Runggaldier,who drew up the designs,and constructor Gaspar Bennàssar, who directed the works and built the bell-tower, the highest building in town known as Torre Rubí. Apparently this site was a cult place in the Islamic period. It is the place where, after the conquest of Jaume the First, the church of Santa Maria was situated. For this temple was very small, in the 14th century another one was built, which was finished in the 16th century, although the main doorway, originally situated on the side of the bell-tower, dates from the end of the 18th. This church was demolished to build the actual church. Some parts of the 18th century still remain, like the chapels of Sant Antoni and Sant Francesc, the towers of the ancient main façade at both sides of the bell-tower, part of the Mother of God sacristy and part of the old bell-tower. Built in negothic typology it has a latin-cross floor shaped one-hall basilica with chapels between the buttresses, with its transept arms in the fore section to the presbytery. There are ten aisles, five on every side, and in the chancel there is one chapel on every side and in the high altar. On every transept arm there are seven chapels, standing out the one consecrated to the Immaculate Virgin and the other to the Sant Crist of Manacor.
The chapel on the right and the first section of the vault of the main nave, where the coat of arms of Capdepera can be seen, are preserved from the primitive church. The temple had to preserve two images: that of San Juan and that of the Santo Cristo. The latter, made of orange wood and originally polychrome, is an early Gothic carving that was restored and reintegrated in its original place, where it remains today. The small church of San Juan was renovated in the 16th century and became the main nave of the present church. At the beginning of the 18th century the present side chapels were built. The baroque chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary (1703), corresponds to this time. After 1840, when the village church had already been built, religious ceremonies ceased to be celebrated. It was not until 1871 that the cult would be recovered, then already converted into a sanctuary of the Virgen de la Esperanza, whose feast day is celebrated on December 18.
In the mid-sixteenth century, around 1563, the bishop of Mallorca gave license to the inhabitants of Búger, to build a church, as many people died without sacraments due to the impossibility of moving to Campanet. This was the first church because, between 1694 and 1739, the present church of Búger was built, under the patron saint Sant Pere. The organ of the church of Sant Pere was built in the convent of Campos, in 1763, by the organ builder Pere Josep Bosch. In 1821, Gabriel Thomàs installed it, at first, in the choir of the church. In 1876, Julià Munar installed it in its present location. It consists of two keyboards; the main organ, with eleven stops, and the cadireta (lever), with four. The pedal has seven buttons attached to the manual.
The cemetery, documented since the early seventeenth century, is located next to the parish church of San Juan Bautista. In it are buried some of the illustrious people who lived in the village. It is accessed by climbing a paved road lined with cypress trees and dotted with small chapels with scenes of the Stations of the Cross. From there a beautiful panoramic view of the town and its surroundings can be observed. Among the intellectuals and artists buried in the cemetery are the English writer Robert Graves and the Mallorcan painters Antoni Gelabert and Antoni Ribas Prats.
The present church of Calvià, dedicated to San Juan Bautista, replaces a church already documented in 1248 under the name of Sante Johannes de Caviano. It was, according to the preserved descriptions, a small medieval church, built on an old farmhouse, which was modified and expanded until, in the eighteenth century, it was decided to demolish it, in order to build a new building that would accommodate all the parishioners of the parish. The new church, whose construction began on July 25, 1867, was built on the foundations of the old one, which was almost completely destroyed, preserving some remains: a corner of the Sagrario tower, an access portal that went from the rectory to the interior of the temple, part of the bottom of a chapel and a crypt in front of the current chapel of San Sebastián. The church of Calvià, visible from almost all the town, is a historicist temple that combines neo-Romanesque and neo-Gothic elements.
It was founded in 1607 at the request of Pedro Santandreu, guardian of the convent of San Francisco de Palma, born in Petra. In 1609 a small temple had already been built, whose space corresponds to the current Bethlehem chapel. Due to the good reception by the people, in 1657 the construction of a new temple was begun under the direction of the master Rafael Poquet, which was completed in 1677. Here, Fray Junípero Serra began his studies, in fact the names he gave to the missions he founded are related to most of the invocations of the chapels that the church houses as the city of Los Angeles or San Francisco. With the disentailment (1836) the Franciscan community was exclaustrated and the convent was divided into enclosures to be sold. In 1969, the Franciscans returned to the convent with smaller dimensions than before the confiscation. The church is of Renaissance style with a basilica floor plan with a single nave with barrel vault and six side chapels on each side that house baroque altarpieces made between the late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. The most outstanding altarpieces are the main altarpiece, the altarpiece of Santo Cristo, the altarpiece of the Virgin of the Angels and the altarpiece of San Francisco. The chapel of the Bethlehem stands out for containing figures of Gothic period (the angels) belonging to the old manger that was in the convent of Jesus de Palma. The pavement of the chapel is lower than the others and is covered by a barrel vault lowered as if it were a cave. The convent houses two rooms displaying antique furniture and liturgical objects, objects related to the life of Fray Junipero Serra and a series of glass paste paintings depicting passages from the life of Father Serra. The main façade located on the main street preserves a semicircular arched doorway and a coffered vault. On the sides there are two niches where the disappeared images of the Franciscan saints would be.
One of the most gratifying outings you can make from Alcúdia is the climb to the La Victòria hermitage and lookout point, either by car of by foot, around 445 above sea level. The hermitage, which boasts a Baroque style, was built in the 14th century and refurbished in around the 18th century. From it you can catch outstanding views of the two bays, Pollença and Alcúdia, the Cap Formentor and, on clear days, the island of Menorca. Atop La Talaia mountain, almost 450 metres above sea level, are the remains of the Alcúdia tower. This circular-shaped defence tower was built in the 16th century as part of the system of alert towers along Mallorca’s coastline to notify the authorities and the population of the arrival of any danger by sea, such as pirates. During the day, the towers used a system of smoke signals, while at night they used fire. This tower was also used to transmit messages to the city of Alcúdia by waving banners atop a pole.
The history of the Sant Bonaventura (Saint Bonaventura) convent begins in 1608, when the first group of Franciscans reached Llucmajor. The definitive convent complex was built throughout the 17th century, and it includes a church, a cloister, several auxiliary buildings and a vegetable garden. The church was blessed in 1656, and the church roof was finished in 1691. The internal spaces of the convent – cells, workshop, refectory, kitchen, library, chapterhouse, etc. – are arranged around the cloister, which was finished between 1690 and 1697. This cloister features the Baroque style of the Franciscans: a square shape with a double superimposed gallery with semicircular arches held up on quadrangular pilasters, and outer pillars topped by relief stone balls. The convent premises were occupied by the Franciscan order until the Mendizábal Disentailment (1836). From then until 1998, the complex was used as a Civil Guard barracks, the Justice of the Peace and a municipal slaughterhouse. As a result of these varied uses, the complex became architecturally distorted, so in 1999 its refurbishment was undertaken, reconverting it into a civic, social and cultural centre. It was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 2002. The murals, repeatedly whitewashed after the disentailment, were uncovered in 1999 by a group of historians from the University of the Balearic Islands. Restored today, they are an iconographic testimony of the history of the Franciscan order.
Sant Francesc street in Sineu is the home to the former Convent dels Mínims, founded in 1667. In 1722 it underwent a wholesale refurbishment, and the cloister was built then, in addition to other elements. In 1835 it fell into secular hands as the convent was disentailed. This building has housed the Sineu Town Hall since 1877. The main façade is two stories tall with a centrally-located Baroque doorway. On the ground floor, the windows are bell-shaped, while on the upper story they are quadrangular, with corbels and eaves. There are also a few tiles bearing pictorial motifs. The cloister is Baroque in style and has a quadrangular, slightly trapezoidal shape. The columns over plinths hold up flat arches, and the capitals have small Ionic-style flutes on the tops, while the lower parts have little wreaths with curious reliefs that alternatively portray the mitre and star of the coat-of-arms of Bishop Estela. In the middle is the lip of an octagonal cistern bearing the inscription Charitas, the slogan of the Minims, which dates from 1693.
The hermitage was erected in the 17th century in honor of a statuette of the Mother of God found in the same place. The present building dates from the decade of the 20's of the 20th century, when it was rebuilt after being destroyed by lightning.
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