Hermits

IDOIA

Hermitage in Isaba (Navarre): It is a recreated medieval nucleus with vaulted ceilings with straight ribs from the 16th century and 18th century alterations. It has a single nave with three bays with chapels at the height of the transept and a straight chancel. The choir is located at the foot with beams decorated with geometric Mannerist motifs based on ovals and rectangles. The rectangular sacristy is located on the epistle side and is accessed through a linteled door from the presbytery. This room is covered with a Baroque lunette vault.

On the outside, the chapel appears as a large rectangular block, with medium-sized ashlar walls that are well carved with three prismatic buttresses marking the sections and other diagonal buttresses at the corners of the chancel, all of which have been raised to reach the roof. The access door is located on the Epistle side and is formed by a pointed arch with two archivolts, the inner one chamfered and the outer one curved, and an outer arch with a rain guard. There is a small stone belfry on the end wall. The house of the brotherhood or hermit's house is attached to the foot of the hermitage; its entrance door bears the inscription of 1800.

The interior of the hermitage is presided over by a beautiful Baroque altarpiece made around 1700, which is stylistically related to the one in the parish church of Santiago de Garde, made around 1697 by Juan Baines, a sculptor from Isaba who settled in Zaragoza. However, this Idoia altarpiece is of a higher quality in terms of its decorative carving and can therefore also be related to workshops in Tudela or Aragon at that time. It has a vertical bench structure, a body with three sections articulated by Solomonic columns and an attic with a central section with a flat niche stipes flanked by two gigantic curved finials with vegetal scrolls. The iconographic programme is reduced to the Baroque images of Saint Vincent and Saint Joachim in the side streets and the round figure of Saint Cyprian in the attic, all of them from the time of the altarpiece, Baroque, except for the carving of the main figure, Our Lady of Idoia, from the Gothic period of the 13th century, which follows the typology of a seated Virgin with the Child Jesus on her left knee. Its appearance has been transformed by a restoration that transformed its face, clothing and crown.

Inside, the iron railing that separates the nave from the presbytery, which dates from the first half of the 16th century, stands out. Tradition has it that this railing was brought by the Roncal girls from the monastery of Igal in Salazar. It is made up of smooth and helicoidal bars and topped with fleur-de-lis and spearheads. Tradition has it that it was brought from the monastery of Igal. A polychrome wooden Baroque crucifix hangs on these walls. This figure presents an agonising attitude with its head tilted to one side and can be dated to the middle of the 17th century. In the sacristy there is a silver chalice from the first half of the 17th century with a smooth structure, with the lion and CES mark of the city of Saragossa on the back of the base.