Chapel of the Tabernacle of the Cathedral of Malaga

The Puerta del Perdón is the only jewel of the Isabelline Gothic style that the people of Malaga have

It was the first cathedral in Malaga, when it was still a mosque. In 1487 the Catholic Monarchs took the city and six months later the Mosque-Aljama was consecrated with the dedication of Santa María de la Encarnación. Its small size led the bishops Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa and César Riario to build a larger one, of which the door on the north wall of the Tabernacle remains, called the Puerta del Perdón, in late Gothic style and corresponding to the 16th century. The rest of the building is Islamic and Mudejar, although it underwent a deep reform in the 17th century, once the first phase of the current Cathedral of Malaga was completed.

The door of the Tabernacle stands out from the rest of the façade. Framed between pinnacles, it is essentially iconographic and narrative, loaded with altarpieces and clothing of the period. The Virgin can be seen on the right, and the archangel Saint Gabriel on the left. This is when the Word becomes flesh and is very symbolic. The name that the Catholic Monarchs gave to the cathedrals after the Reconquest, of the Annunciation or Incarnation, is a differentiating element from Islam.

The precursors of the Church are located in the four archivolts and above the keystone of the arch is God the Father omnipresent with a sceptre and a globe in his hand. To the left is the coat of arms of Cardinal César Riario and to the right the cardinal's seal or stamp.

On the upper part, figures from the Reconquest were sculpted, such as Cardinal Mendoza with an angel, on the left; and on the right, the first bishop of Malaga, Pedro de Toledo y Ovalle, who was canon of the Cathedral of Seville and almoner of the Catholic Monarchs, who appears assisted by the apostle and standard-bearer of the Reconquest, Santiago. Above the arch, a stone can be seen that was a Virgin of the O, a Virgin in a state of good hope.

The work was halted because they realised that they were building the cathedral from North to South, when all monotheistic temples are oriented from East to West; in addition, the style was already out of date, since the Renaissance reigned in the rest of Europe. Thus, what was to be the Cathedral of Santa María de la Encarnación became the church of Santa María, and later the first parish in the centre, until the centre was depopulated and the church of Santiago was added, where the Chapter was even moved when the works of the second phase of the cathedral made it uninhabitable.

On the other side of the Puerta del Perdón, in the gardens of the Sagrario, which was formerly the courtyard of ablutions, the sgraffito façade shows Marian signs that have sometimes been misinterpreted. A solitary stone represents another Annunciation and near the entrance door for regular use is the first sundial of the cathedral.

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