San Nicolás de Bari, Burgos

[1] Inside the temple presides one of the most monumental altarpieces of the Castilian Renaissance art, designed and produced in the fifteenth century by Simón de Colonia and his son Francisco de Colonia The altarpiece dedicated to St. Nicholas is an imposing retable that is unique among its contemporaries in terms of its size and its materials.

It is both the largest lay commissioned carved retable from late medieval Burgos and the only altarpiece made from stone that survives from the city's late medieval period This main altarpiece was financed by the Burgos merchant Don Gonzalo Lopez de Polanco prior to his death in 1505.

The work measures 15.55 by 9.04 meters and is made of a porous limestone from Hontoria de Cantera, a small town in the province of Burgos.

This type of stone was often used in the construction of buildings, including the Cathedral of Burgos and the Monasteries of San Pablo but was seldom used for altarpieces.

The Church of San Nicolas de Bari in Burgos was declared a National Monument in Spain on January 26, 1917.