Capilla de la Vera Cruz, Salamanca

The Church of the Vera Cruz, located in the city of Salamanca, is a baroque temple headquarters of the Illustrious Brotherhood of the Holy Cross of the Redeemer and the Immaculate Conception, his Mother. the oldest of the penitential brotherhoods of the city. It is indistinctly referred to as Church, Hermitage and more commonly, Chapel.

This church was ordered to be built by its titular brotherhood and dates from the middle of the 16th century according to a project by Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, although it was reformed in Baroque style by Joaquín Churriguera. From the first Renaissance period only the façade and the niche with the image of the Immaculate Conception, the work of Sebastián Dávila, remain.

It has a rectangular floor plan, with a single nave divided into three sections covered with a barrel vault. A fourth section corresponds to the transept, covered with a blind dome on pendentives. Both the vaults and the pilasters that support them and the niches that open in the walls are covered by an exuberant baroque decoration made in plasterwork. The main altarpiece, the work of Joaquín Churriguera with an image of the Immaculate Conception by Gregorio Fernández, stands out. At the foot there is a choir on a segmental arch.

Other outstanding works are the Lignum Crucis by Pedro Benítez, the Baroque carving of Our Lady of Sorrows by Felipe del Corral and a Resurrected Christ by Alejandro Carnicero.

In 1718, the Hall of Insignias was fitted out as the Chapel of Sorrows. This chapel is accessed from a grille door opened on the Gospel side of the main chapel, at the height of the transept. The Chapel of Sorrows has a rectangular floor plan, the chancel being topped by the chapel of the Dolorosa, added in the reform of 1718. It is covered with a flat roof, also decorated with Baroque plasterwork. The current decoration is due to the work of the Salesian Schools of Sarriá in the third decade of the 20th century, subsidised by the image's chambermaid Gonzala Santana.

Attached to the chapel of Los Dolores is the Salón de Pasos, part of the old sacristy, partially covered with plasterwork vaults. It has its own door facing Sorias street. On the other side, with door to the street of Abajo, is the old house of the chaplain of the brotherhood and property of the same.

The building was declared BIC with category of Monument on March 25th 1983, being published in the BOE on May 27th of the same year.