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(1) Gil de Morlanes (i) [el viejo]
(b Saragossa, c. 1450; d Saragossa, c. 1515). He was well known and successful, and he was assisted by his son, (2) Gil de Morlanes el joven. His work was executed at the time of the transition in Spain from Late Gothic to Renaissance art. He was particularly noted for his retables, into which in his later work he incorporated Renaissance elements, as is seen in the reliefs for the retable of Montearagón (1506; Huesca Cathedral). He also specialized in the carving of funerary monuments for leading families. The royal tombs that he carved for the Cistercian monastery of S Maria de Poblet, Tarragona, include those for Ferdinand I (d 1416), John II (d 1479), Juana Enriquez and the Infanta Dona Marina, all of which have been badly damaged and heavily restored. His most important work, however, is the façade for the Hieronymite monastery of S Engracia in Saragossa, on which he was engaged from 1512 to 1515. The work was continued from 1515 until 1519 by his son. The early Renaissance façade, partly destroyed in the Peninsular War (from 1808) and over-restored in 1891–8, has fine balustered columns on the lower tier and a pediment with pilasters, all covered with fine and abundant decoration. The Plateresque portal shows the kneeling figures of the founders, Ferdinand II of Aragón and Isabella I of Castile and León, praying to the Virgin and flanked by St Jerome and St Paula. Morlanes the elder’s splendid mansion in Saragossa, the Casa de los Morlanes, was completed c. 1515.
Part of the Morlanes family
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