Church of Sant Jaume

Religious | Palma de Mallorca

Its tight proportions make Sant Jaume a space of great simplicity and beauty. A 14th-century building, it has six vaulted sections with rectangular-based side chapels that provide access to the polygonal presbytery floor, finished by four absidioles with a quadrangular layout that are not always symmetrical. The building has undergone no subsequent modifications, and the keystones still have the coats of arms of the benefactors who propitiated its construction. In this regard, the church is a veritable heraldic display case. Most of its altarpieces are modern, and the artistic remains from the medieval period include a fragment of a table representing the patron saint during worship and pilgrimage, attributed to the painter Francesc Comes. There was also a notable 16th-century sculpture representing the Crucified Christ, from the Sant Sepulcre oratory (today the Diocesan Museum). The main doorway is later than the rest of the church, dating from 1776, and in stylistic terms belongs to the late Baroque period. The bell tower rises up on the left side of the façade and has a quadrangular base. The chapels are Gothic, except for the Sagrario, which is 17th-century Baroque and presided over by an altarpiece dedicated to Sant Gaietà (St. Cajetan); it also contains the Cotoner family sepulchre, where the hearts of Rafel and Nicolau Cotoner, grand masters of the Order of Malta, are kept. The third chapel on the right, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, is noteworthy, and contains a classicist image from 1813.