Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Regla

The church of Nuestra Señora de la Regla presides over the centre of Pájara, opposite the town hall, and holds the most discussed stone portal in the archipelago. Cut from coppery dressed stone in the second half of the seventeenth century, it carries a dense pattern of geometric figures, serpents, suns and a moon, human heads with feathered headdresses, birds, lions and hearts with keys. That repertoire has traditionally been read as Aztec, though other scholars see Christian allegory drawn from European iconology. The building began as a hermitage, became a parish in 1708 and was consecrated in 1711; by 1735 the second nave was going up. Inside there are two naves separated by drum columns of dressed stone and round arches, each with its own sacristy, under a four-sided tiled roof.

The interior keeps the altarpieces of the Virgen de la Regla and the Dolorosa, oil paintings, a carved baptismal font, a gilded wooden pulpit and liturgical silver; the whole ensemble is protected as a listed monument under Decree 88/2006. You reach Pájara through the middle of the island along the FV-605 and the FV-30, on the circuit of inland villages, and there is street parking nearby. This is a working parish, so visits are made quietly and services deserve respect. The portal photographs best in side light, when the relief gains depth, and it rewards slow looking: each section is telling something different.