Collegiate Church of Santa María La Mayor (Salas)

The church stands imposingly in the centre of the town of Salas, in the heart of the old quarter. It dates back to the 16th century, although other elements were added later, such as the bell tower, the chapels and the portico. The bell tower, located at the foot of the church, has a square floor plan with two buttresses at the corners and a semicircular body attached to it, with a quarter sphere vault.

On the left side of the church, a rectangular projecting body, added in the first half of the 16th century, contains the doorway under a sheltered arch. The doorway, under a pointed arch with a fluted archivolt with rosettes and surrounded by voussoirs, is framed by a Gothic alfiz in the centre of which is a coat of arms.

Inside, the nave is divided into two bays covered with star-shaped vaults, simpler than the one that covers the apse, and the choir or tribune, located at the foot, is raised on a ribbed vault with a carpanel arch.

All the snowfalls start from undecorated corbels, leaving the walls plain. Illumination is provided by long, narrow semicircular openings with double overhangs.

The main chapel conserves a magnificent Baroque altarpiece by the Asturian sculptor Luis Fernández de la Vega, on both sides, there are niches with the praying figures of the parents of the archbishop D. Fernando Valdés Salas, on the north wall is the Renaissance mausoleum of the illustrious founder of the University of Oviedo, from the end of the 16th century, made in marble by the Italian sculptor Pompeio Leoni (1576-1582).