Although it is actually called the Parish Church of St. Nicholas of Bari and St. Peter the Martyr, poor St. Peter is hardly mentioned by anyone. For everyone, this is the church of San Nicolás, and for the travel guides, which always take the opportunity to use the most distinguished names, it is the Sistine Chapel of Valencia.
read more
Although it is actually called the Parish Church of St. Nicholas of Bari and St. Peter the Martyr, poor St. Peter is hardly mentioned by anyone. For everyone, this is the church of San Nicolás, and for the travel guides, which always take the opportunity to use the most distinguished names, it is the Sistine Chapel of Valencia.
Mind you, when you go in and see the stunning baroque frescoes that decorate the vaults, you may not find that honorary title so exaggerated.
You will be inside a building erected in a place that was sacred to the Romans, the Visigoths and the Muslims. Jaime the Conqueror arrived in the thirteenth century, Christianised the mosque that was here and gave it to the Dominican monks. Still, it wasn’t until a couple of centuries later that the temple would be rebuilt in Gothic fashion.
Sometime later, on that Gothic structure, the baroque was going to arrive to make its mark. The interior was completely reformed and redecorated, and it was decided to go one step further with an ambitious pictorial renovation. At the end of the seventeenth century, the prestigious master Antonio Palomino was in Valencia, and he was commissioned to design a difficult and spectacular iconographic ensemble. The only thing he was not in charge of was to paint it. This task was left to one of his disciples, named Dionís Vidal.
Following the idea of his mentor, Dionís bequeathed to posterity the impressive work that covers the Gothic nave of Saint Nicholas. It is made up of scenes from the lives of the two titular saints of the parish, together with celestial choirs, virgins and allegories in such abundance that there are two thousand square meters flooded by the paintings.
The visual impact of the frescoes, after the 2016 restoration, is so powerful that you may forget that this temple retains genuinely Gothic elements and, because of this alone, is of great architectural interest. But here you will also find a peculiar aspect unrelated to arches, doorways or stained-glass windows.
It is the worship of St. Nicholas, who, according to an ancient tradition, listens to the wishes of the faithful who come to pray for a solution to their problems. But the wish will only be granted if it is requested in this sanctuary during three consecutive Mondays, and the person has to come walking and in silence. So now you know...
