Museum
Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales
48 locals recommend,
Tips from locals
Mariola
January 27, 2019
You will not believe you are in the middle of Madrid!
Ludmila
March 27, 2016
The grim plateresque walls of the Convento de las Descalzas Reales offer no hint that behind the facade lies a sumptuous stronghold of the faith. The compulsory guided tour (in Spanish) leads you up a gaudily frescoed Renaissance stairway to the upper level of the cloister. The vault was painted by Claudio Coello, one of the most important artists of the Madrid School of the 17th century and whose works adorn San Lorenzo de El Escorial. You then pass several of the convent's 33 chapels – a maximum of 33 Franciscan nuns is allowed to live here (perhaps because Christ is said to have been 33 when he died) as part of a closed order. These nuns follow in the tradition of the Descalzas Reales (Barefooted Royals), a group of illustrious women who cloistered themselves when the convent was founded in the 16th century. The first of these chapels contains a remarkable carved figure of a dead, reclining Christ, which is paraded in a Good Friday procession each year. At the end of the passage is the antechoir, then the choir stalls themselves. Buried here is Doña Juana, Carlos I's widowed daughter who, in a typical piece of 16th-century collusion between royalty and the Catholic Church, commandeered the palace and had it converted into a convent. A Virgen la Dolorosa by Pedro de la Mena is seated in one of the 33 oak stalls. In the former sleeping quarters of the nuns are some of the most extraordinary tapestries you're ever likely to see. Woven in the 17th century in Brussels, they include four based on drawings by Rubens. To produce works of this quality, four or five artisans could take up to a year to weave just 1 sq metre of tapestry...
The grim plateresque walls of the Convento de las Descalzas Reales offer no hint that behind the facade lies a sumptuous stronghold of the faith. The compulsory guided tour (in Spanish) leads you up a gaudily frescoed Renaissance stairway to the upper level of the cloister. The vault was painted by…
Miguel
September 11, 2015
The Monastery of Barefoot Royals (Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales in Spanish) is a franciscan convent, also known as Monasterio de Nuestra Señora la Consolación.
Myrko
October 29, 2014
16 th. Century Palace as a Clausure Convent.
Adrian
April 27, 2017
Building was started by Antonio Sillero and later continued by Juan Bautista de Toledo between 1559 and 1564 for the Monasterio de las Clarisas. This Monastery occupies the ancient palace of Carlos I and Isabel of Portugal. In 1535, their daughter Juana, who later founded the Convent, was born there. She herself is buried in one of the chapels, with a praying funerary sculpture by Pompeyo Leoni. Regarding its architecture, the Plateresque façade and the magnificent Renaissance stairway are the most interesting original elements. The interior was completely refurbished in the 18th century by Diego de Villanueva. The structure and many decorative elements from the Plateresque remain.
Building was started by Antonio Sillero and later continued by Juan Bautista de Toledo between 1559 and 1564 for the Monasterio de las Clarisas. This Monastery occupies the ancient palace of Carlos I and Isabel of Portugal. In 1535, their daughter Juana, who later founded the Convent, was born there…
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Location
3 Plaza de las Descalzas
Madrid, MD