Ávila - Monasterio de Santo Tomás

There are three cloisters. The simplest is the Claustro del Noviciado (Cloister of the Novices), which leads into the Claustro del Silencio (Cloister of Silence), from which a flight of steps leads into the choir. On the first floor is a doorway leading to the high altar, with Berruguete's retablo. Opening off the two-story Claustro de los Reyes (Royal Cloister) are a number of rooms housing a museum of Eastern art.

The interior of the church is dark. A striking feature is that the high altar and choir are opposite each other on two galleries accessible only from the cloisters: that is, only for the monks, who looked down from the high altar on the choir with its richly carved stalls. The tribunals of the Inquisition met in the choir, and from the choir the Catholic Monarchs followed the mass. The retablo of the high altar, the masterpiece of Pedro de Berruguete (c. 1499), depicts scenes from the life of St Thomas Aquinas. Under the dome over the crossing is the magnificent tomb of the Infante Don Juan, only son of the Catholic Monarchs, who died in 1497; the recumbent alabaster figure of the young prince and the scene of his burial were the work of the Florentine sculptor Domenico Fancelli (1510- 13). In one of the side chapels are the tombs, by Vasco de la Zarza, of Núñez Arnalte, treasurer to the Catholic Monarchs, and his wife.