The racy roof of Tarazona Cathedral

"I am not setting foot here again," said the bishop when he laid eyes on the nude figures. And, according to the chroniclers of the era, he didn't. These events took place in the mid-16th century, when Juan de Munébrega stepped into the cathedral of Tarazona, in Zaragoza province, and looked up at the dome, discovering the offending artwork by Alonso González. The prelate left, ordering that the bare skin be immediately covered up.

Three and a half centuries after the episcopal walkout, and after being shut down for repair work for nearly three decades, the cathedral of Santa María de la Huerta, in Tarazona, has reopened again. The locals are celebrating the recovery of a temple whose dome, cloister (still undergoing restoration) and tower are considered some of the best surviving examples of Mudéjar art.

Yet few will forget the years of anxiety that began in 1979, when the pillars of the transept began to show cracks. By 1984, the cracks were of such magnitude that the cathedral had to be closed down to reinforce its structure. As its name indicates, Santa María de la Huerta had been built on the town's agricultural land, outside the city walls, a well-irrigated spot that was better suited to growing vegetables than to erecting cathedrals.

The root of these structural problems was an oversight. At one point, the Mudéjar cloister was cemented into rock, which entailed channeling several springs through a canal that was eventually forgotten and abandoned. Over the years, seepage damaged the building.

The controversial artwork has its origins in a 1546 commission for the newly completed dome of the temple. Alonso González, who had just arrived from Italy, designed a fully classicist decoration that included scallop shells, evangelists, painted alabaster, plaster sculptures of eight disciples and paintings using the grisaille technique (shades of grey imitating the reliefs of sculptures).

It was the latter that the bishop had covered up, and they are a unique case in Europe of a cathedral decoration inspired on neo-Platonism. The characters depicted included some from the Bible, but also from the classical world, such as Apollo, Venus, Bacchus or Hercules. He also painted famous couples, like Caesar and Cleopatra, Helen and Paris, and Ulysses and Penelope.

Not far from here lies the episcopal palace, where visitors will be surprised to learn that Munébrega himself asked Alonso González to decorate the central staircase. The artist portrayed the bishop standing next to the emperor and his son Felipe, amid feminine sculptures representing the loves of Jupiter. These females certainly did not prevent the prelate from setting foot in the palace again.