Description
Its construction dates back to the mid-16th century. With Renaissance stylistic elements, mannerists and Baroque, it was initiated by Juan de Ostiaga and by 1591, it was appointed as supervisor of the works Alonso Barba, architect of the Jaén Cathedral.
In the first half of the 17th century the presbytery was covered and the major chapel was restructured and, in the 18th century, the interior was repaired and the bell tower was remodeled.
Its plant is very long and of a single ship arranged in three unequal sections: The presbyterium, also elongated, covered with a canyon vault with lunetes; an earlier space, a little wider covered with a vault of edges and flanked laterally by hornacino chapels; the third section, is centralized and covered with a half-orange vault on pechines. On the main altar, the Linaran painter Francisco Baños, in 1961 painted a fresh mural in his schematic and geometrical pictorial line.
The most significant elements of the facade are:
The cover with a simple half-point arch with trapezoidal dovens and in the upper body, a hornaine with dogrous columns - on its sides, plates with cut diamond tips and pinacles on the extreme - dogrous and triangular fronton.
The tower of the bell tower, has a first body of square floor, and the second, of polygonal plant, topped by a conical volume covered with Arab tile.
In this Church we worship St. John the Baptist, the patron of the Villa, whose chromed poly size is the work of the sanctisteño sculptor Jacinto Higueras (1940 approximately). It is classic, with harmonic and perfect proportions.
One of the most important and valuable pieces that are preserved in this church is a silver cross adorned with low-reliefs that represent the Old and the New Testament on one side.
From 24 to 29 June the parties are held in honor of Saint John the Baptist. Within the playful acts, "the bulls" stand out, a custom in which the young men run through the streets of the village to the bullring, from time immemorial. In the afternoon of June 24, the Holy Patron walks through the streets of the village until he reaches the bullring, the double-handed bar, to turn the wheel as a blessing and welcome of the popular acts prepared in his honor
