"In the Ruedo villa, surrounded by olive trees alternating with golden ears of wheat, I started work as a servant for a well off farmer who lived most of the time in the Baetica capital, Cordvba".

Villa of the Ruedo

"There I learnt how to work the wheat and olive crops. My life is made up of observing nature and broadening my learning in equal measure. But my daily preferences make me favour passing my hours studying Virgil, rather than fixing my gaze on the distant heavenly bodies."

The villa was a sumptuous residence and I passed hours and days hynotized -never better said- contemplating Hypnos, the son of the Night and Erebos. No wonder the famous Homer described him as Lord of the Gods and of all men."

Hypnos. The dream

The Baroque is the artistic triumph of form and shape: churches and buildings adorned with sumptuous decoration; lines that break up and twist round and round; barley-sugar columns twirling on their own axes; curved and divided pediments, giving the work added movement. Colour and light are fundamental elements of the Baroque, images take on new expression and realism; all a product of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Andalucía took on this new aesthetic as the ideal form to give free expression to its religious fervour and imagination. Ample proof can be found in the richly adorned chapels and the imagery to be found during the Easter Holy Week.

In the "Subbética", this artistic expression was to proliferate, often with peculiar local features, helped by the economic situation of the eighteenth century in the towns of Priego, Lucena and Cabra, above all. Works of particular artistic interest are the shrine (sagrario) of the parish church of La Asunción in Priego, and the shrine of the church of San Mateo in Lucena.

Priego de Córdoba: at 8 kms.

Cabra: at 30 kms.

Lucena: at 39 kms.

Parroquia de La Asunción (Priego de Córdoba)

Fuente Del Rey (Priego de Córdoba)

Parroquia de S. Mateo (Lucena)