Visual notes from the Tavera Hospital

The central gallery, which leads from the vestibule to the church-pantheon, divides the space into two impressive twin courtyards generating a superb spatial richness, so that, seen from different angles, the juxtaposition of arches and columns, the views and vanishing points multiply in an extraordinary play of perspectives, proportions and symmetries.

Authentic and unique survival of the primitive hospital function, it is the the only room in the complex that retains the same function given to it by Alonso de Covarrubias in its 1540-41 plans and is still equipped with all the instruments of a hospital pharmacy, as if the apothecary had just given up his duties.

With a primary role as sepulchral temple of the founder of the institution, the Cardinal Juan Pardo Taveraafter different projects, Hernán González de Lara y Nicolás de VergaraThey ended up building a church which, in terms of proportions and ornamentation, reflects the renaissance tradition toledana and the contemporary escurialense innovation by Juan de Herrera.

Carved in Carrara marble, this Alonso Berruguete's last work was commissioned, according to a contract in which the funerary monument of Cardinal Cisneros was proposed as a model, in 1552 and completed in 1561, shortly before the author's death in the clock tower of the Hospital itself.

They were commissioned to Greco in 1608 by his friend Pedro Salazar de MendozaHe was the Hospital administrator, in accordance with an iconography that revolved around baptism and penance, with the aim of conveying to the sick the idea of salvation through the sacraments. He only completed the two side panels, the work being continued by his son Jorge Manuel.

Work by Nicolás de Vergara el Mozoto whom also the Church's risings are indebted, in her the echoes of El Escorial can be heard by reducing classical architecture to its essence: sobriety and proportional coherence. Today it exhibits the pictorial and sculptural works by El Greco that the hospital retains.

The transept of the church rests on this crypt with a centralised floor plan, the work of Hernán González de Laraconceived as pantheon of the hospital's patrons, the Marquises of Malagón, nowadays of the House of Medinaceli. The geometric perfection of its vault produces an acoustic reverberation that surprises the visitor.

A wing of the former infirmaries now houses a museum which, in a palatial atmosphere, reconstructs the largest preserved portion of the primitive collection of paintings, furniture and decorative arts of the Dukes of MedinaceliThe Foundation aims to reverse this process, which began to divide and disperse at the beginning of the 20th century.

It houses the documentation relating to the functioning of this hospital institution throughout its almost 400 years of existence. Remarkable not only for its contents, but also for the container, both for the magnificent leather binding decorated with Mudejar motifs and for the room that houses them.

The former accounting office of the Hospital now houses the Archives of the Ducal House of Medinacelian impressive documentary collection whose first document dates back to 854It is therefore the European private archive with the longest time span.