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Orce's parish church, known as the church of Santa María, is an 18th-century building: the main chapel was begun in 1749 and finished in 1760, and the body of the church was completed around 1775, under the master builder Joaquín Dámaso de la Cruz. Only the tower survives from the earlier church, built of ashlar with an octagonal brick section added on top.
It has a single open nave with side chapels opening through tall arches, a crossing with a dome and a shallow main chapel. Its works of art were lost during the Spanish Civil War. The art historian José Manuel Gómez-Moreno Calera considers it the finest church built in the 18th century in the diocese of Guadix.
Source: Gómez-Moreno Calera (1990), Cuadernos de Arte de la Universidad de Granada XXI.
