VALLADOLID, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Capital city of the province of the same name in Spain.
The archdiocese has an area of 2,400 sq km with a population of 220,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholics, distributed in 94 parishes served by 209 diocesan priests and 135 regulars; it has a conciliar seminary, 20 male religious communities and 64 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 441).
At the request of Philip II, who was born in V., Pope Clement VIII created the diocese of V. on 25 September 1595, by dismemberment of the southern part of the diocese of Palencia, as a suffragan of Toledo. The name of V. appears for the first time at the time of the Arab domination as Belad Valed (Land of the Wali); from the 13th century it was the seat of the governors of Castile and favored by the kings of Spain; three provincial Councils were held there. The Cathedral was erected on the site of the ancient 11th-century collegiate church; work was begun by Philip II in 1580 under the architect Herrera and continued later by Churriguera and then by Ventura Rodriguez, but was never completed. On the exterior, of the four towers only one was completed, but it collapsed in 1841 and was rebuilt in 1880-85; it is now surmounted by a statue of the Sacred Heart which is illuminated at night. In the interior with three naves, on the high altar, are preserved a retable by Juan de Juni and the Assumption by D. Velázquez; at the end of the right nave is a Transfiguration by Luca Giordano. In the sacristy is a silver tabernacle, a masterpiece of Juan de Arfe (1590). The church of St. Mary la Antigua, or of the Assumption, was founded in 1095, transformed in the 14th century and restored in 1932; the bell tower and the cloister are Romanesque; the interior with three naves presents a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic.
The church of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias was erected between 1597 and 1604; it contains in a chapel on the right the image of the Virgen de los Cochillos by Juan de Juni. The church of St. Michael is from the end of the 16th century; that of St. Nicholas is from the 17th; that of St. Lawrence from the 15th, transformed in the 17th; it contains an ancient image of the Blessed Virgin which was crowned in 1917; the church of the Passion has a Baroque facade (1666). The church of St. Benito el Viejo was transformed in 1583; the churches of the Magdalene, of St. Philip Neri and of the Most Holy Savior are from the 16th century. On the site where the Sacred Heart appeared to Fr. Bernardo de Hoyos arose the Santuario Nacional de la Gran Promesa, which has become a destination for pilgrimages. The church of St. James, from 1490, contains a retable by Berruguete with the Adoration of the Magi. The Colegio Mayor de S. Cruz was erected between 1487 and 1491; on the portal is the image of the founder, Cardinal P. Gonzales de Mendoza. In the interior are the provincial archaeological Museum and the Library, rich in more than 50,000 volumes and with precious manuscripts. The Dominican College of St. Gregory, founded by Innocent VIII and erected between 1488 and 1496, enjoyed great renown. V. was the seat of the famous dispute between the Dominicans and the Jesuits. In V. Christopher Columbus died in 1506, in whose honor a monument was erected in 1905 at the gate of Madrid. In the house of Cervantes, inhabited by him in 1605, is the popular Library. In V. developed a Benedictine branch known as the Congregation of St. Benito de V. Established in 1390, it flourished especially from the 16th century to 1835, the year in which it died out. The relevant documents are for the most part preserved in the monastery of St. Dominic de Silos. - See plate LXXXIX.
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Enrico Josi