Restoration of the columns and chains in the Plaza de San Diego in Alcalá de Henares
Located in the historic center of Alcalá de Henares
They are part of the monumental façade of the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso, the work of the architect Gil de Hontañón (1537-1553). The College was declared a National Monument on 19 March 1914, and its surroundings, the “Cisneriana Foundation Block” was declared a Site of Cultural Interest by Decree 12/2019, of 12 March.
Columns and chains in the Plaza de San Diego in Alcalá de Henares
The columns and chains of the Plaza San Diego are located in the historic center of Alcalá de Henares and form part of the monumental façade of the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso.
The Colegio de San Ildefonso was, since its construction, the main building of the Historical University of Alcalá and is currently its headquarters. The columns are located in the fish market, a space located in front of its main façade whose function was to delimit the jurisdiction of the University. This delimitation was not contemplated in the initial project of Gil de Hontañón, but was raised once the monumental façade was finished, between 1553 and 1554, under the direction of Pedro de la Cotera. However, the fish market was not completed until 1561 when the chains were forged by the Montoya brothers, blacksmiths from Alcalá.
However, the intervened columns that currently precede the monumental façade of San Ildefonso are not the original columns installed in 1554, but rather, according to the documentation consulted, they were replaced in the restoration directed by the architect Jose Manuel González Valcárcel (1958-1960), as a consequence of the poor state of conservation they presented. The current columns replicate in form the columns of Pedro de la Cotera, although apparently the pattern is modified, since in the graphic documentation consulted and dated in 1924, prior to the intervention, it can be seen that in the central street, marking access to the building, there were two columns and not the pillars that we now find.
The area of the fish market that has been intervened has an approximate area of 367 m2, delimited by 14 columns with capitals of Ionic order and four pillars of quadrangular section (two at the ends of the space and two in the central street) marking the access to the Colegio de Sal Ildefonso.
Previous state of conservation
The columns generally presented a bad state of conservation as a result of the combination of intrinsic alteration factors, related to the very nature of the materials, and extrinsic alteration factors (humidity, presence of soluble salts, atmospheric contamination, biodeterioration, etc.).
The main cause of degradation of the columns and chains was caused by environmental factors, although the state of conservation was very uneven depending on the intrinsic characteristics of the limestone and its location within the complex. Thus, it was possible to find columns with an acceptable state of conservation, without physical or small damage, while others had significant injuries that put their conservation at risk in the short and medium term.
The main damages detected in the stone material were: superficial deposits, fissures and fragmentation, volumetric loss, biodeterioration and oxidation stains. In addition, numerous interventions with inadequate mortars (filling and sealing portland cement mortar) were located, which contributed to the bad image and deterioration of the columns. Finally, it is worth noting the presence of graffiti that, although they did not damage the physical integrity of the stone material, did affect the aesthetic unity of the complex.
For its part, the main alterations detected in the metal chains were fractures, surface oxidation and volumetric faults that caused a lack of support and loss of anchorage between elements.
restoration project
In 2020, at the initiative of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Community of Madrid, the restoration of the columns and chains of Plaza San Diego in Alcalá de Henares was carried out. The work began with an exhaustive process of graphic documentation of each of the columns: planimetric survey, location of alterations and photographic record.
After carrying out tests and pertinent treatment tests, conservation and restoration work began. In the first place, a superficial cleaning was carried out and both the mortars in poor condition and the old inadequate interventions were eliminated. The next step consisted in the application of a treatment against biodeterioration that was applied by spraying on the entire stone surface.
Once these tasks were completed, a deeper mechanical cleaning was carried out, the objective of which was to eliminate all those deposits and materials that affected both the legibility and the physical-chemical stability of the stone material. Next, structural consolidation work was carried out: sewing, anchoring and adhesion of all those fractured elements through the use of fiberglass rods and epoxy resin. Those areas where significant volumetric losses had occurred were treated, which did not allow the correct evacuation of rainwater or which made it difficult to read the whole, for which volume reintegrations were made with lime-based restoration mortars and expressly formulated. for the work in question.
After evaluating the state of conservation of the metallic material of the columns, a series of restoration treatments were carried out aimed at preserving the metal: disassembly, mechanical cleaning, replacement of missing elements, inhibition, final protection and assembly.
Finally we can conclude that with this intervention it has been possible to recover the original aesthetic values of the columns and stop the progress of their deterioration. In this way, dignity is restored, not only to the columns but to the whole of Plaza San Diego, which offers a new and improved image to its visitors.
Technical data
Colegio de San Ildefonso: origin of the University of Alcalá
In 1495 a historical event takes place that will mark the development of Alcalá de Henares, not only in the immediate centuries, but will give it the imprint and character that the city will preserve to this day: the foundation of the University by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez of Cisneros. In 1499 Pope Alexander VI issued a Bull by which he authorized the foundation of the College and Chairs, beginning its first academic year in 1508 and granting himself in 1512 the jurisdiction of University Studies.
Cisneros wanted to make Alcalá a benchmark for the regeneration of society and transform it into the academic and cultural capital of Modern Spain, turning the University into one of the most outstanding in Europe in whose classrooms important figures of the Spanish Golden Age would be trained, such as Antonio de Nebrija, Mateo Alemán, Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Ignacio de Loyola or Santo Tomás de Villanueva, among many others.
In Alcalá, the task of renovating and improving the facilities and public infrastructures inherited from the medieval period, insufficient and deficient for the new design of the university city devised by Cisneros, was undertaken. The creation of an academic neighborhood with minor schools, a university hospital and a large number of houses to house students and teachers was proposed. As the matrix of the Complutense institution: the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso.
El College of San Ildefonso It was founded in 1499 designed by the architect Pedro de Gumiel and built on two floors with brick and rammed earth. It was organized around the Patio Mayor de Escuelas, where the classrooms, the library, the rectory chamber and the student rooms were located. It constituted the core and governing center of the Institution.
The rector decided to build a large façade to replace the original one, to dignify the building and its library, a fundamental element in the University. The works would be entrusted to the architect Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón in 1537, assisted by the quantity surveyors Juan de la Riba and Pedro de la Cotera. Plateresque in style, some of the most outstanding stonemasons and sculptors of the period were involved in its decoration. The iconographic program of the facade alludes to wisdom and ecclesiastical power, along with monarchy, all equally subject to heavenly power. The access door is crowned by the Cisneros coat of arms and a medallion with the figure of San Ildefonso.
Of the interior rooms, the Paraninfo stands out, with its polychrome wooden ceiling, where the Cervantes Awards are held, the Trilingual Courtyard, built by Pedro de la Cotera in 1564; so called because it welcomed students of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, or the Santo Tomás de Villanueva courtyard, designed at the beginning of the XNUMXth century by Juan Gómez de Mora and finished off years later by José Sopeña, which is one of the hallmarks of the University. of Alcala.
