Shrine of Nuestra Señora de La Soledad

Sanctuary dedicated to the Virgen de la Soledad, Patron Saint Apud Deum and Perpetual Mayoress of Cantillana, this temple also houses the Patron Saint of the town, San Sebastián.  It is a neoclassical artistic ensemble erected between 1765 and 1792 on the site of an earlier building, the medieval chapel of San Sebastián, which was damaged after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. 

It has a Latin cross floor plan and consists of a spacious nave covered with a barrel vault with lunettes and a transept with a beautiful dome decorated with plasterwork and relief images of the four Evangelists with the sequence of the Stabat Mater on the pendentives. Its interior was decorated in 1793 with an important set of altarpieces and images in neoclassical style with baroque reminiscences, works by José Mayorga and Manuel Caetano da Cruz and images by Juan Bautista Patrone. 

The main altarpiece stands out, with the central images of the Christ of the Sepulchre and the Virgin of Solitude (1583) in her dressing room; a sumptuous room decorated with paintings, carvings and reliefs with the symbols of the Passion that cover the whole space, it has a rear window and is covered by a groined vault, accessed by two staircases with 18th century Triana tiles.  In the main chapel, two altarpieces dedicated to San Sebastián and Santa Rita give access to the sacristy and the treasure room respectively, with a large collection of votive offerings hanging on the walls. 

In the transept are the altarpieces of Santa María Magdalena and San Juan, and next to the latter, the altarpiece of the tabernacle with the Cristo de la Agonía, a curious Mexican crucifix made of corn paste from around 1560.  The brotherhood of La Soledad (Solitude) takes part in the procession on Good Friday and preserves among its rites the celebration of the Descent from the Cross and the Holy Burial.  It treasures a valuable set of canopy and mantle embroidered in gold by Juan Manuel Rodríguez Ojeda in 1898.