Guadalupe - Monasterio

Behind the Capilla Mayor, approached by a flight of red jasper steps, is the Rococo Camarín, which houses the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It contains nine pictures by Luca Giordano and statues of female figures from the Bible. On the wall facing the Capilla Mayor is the modern throne (1953), decorated with enamels, of the Black Virgin; it can be rotated so that the image faces into the church. The statue itself is of oak and is clad in a magnificent brocade robe. On feast days it is decked in a crown covered with precious stone, which can be seen, together with other precious garments, liturgical utensils and relics, in the octagonal reliquary chamber adjoining the Camarín. Other valuable objects are displayed in the Treasury (Joyel).

On the altar of the Capilla de San Jerónimo is one of Zurbarán's finest works, "The Apotheosis of St Jerome", and the chapel also contains a trophy from the battle of Lepanto (1571) in the form of a lamp from the Turkish flagship.

On the west side of the cloister is the former Refectory, now housing the Museo de Bordados, with beautiful embroidered vestments and altar-cloths of the 14th-18th Centuries, mostly made in convents.

Adjoining the Mudéjar Cloister is the Gothic Cloister, with three galleries (14th-16th C.).

The Monastery Church in Guadalupe, which is entered through two bronze doors with scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin, was originally built in the 14th century and was rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries. The sculptural decoration of the Baroque retablo was the work of Giraldo de Merló and the paintings are by Vicente Carducho and Eugenio Caxès. The aisles are separated from the nave by finely wrought grilles; the richly carved choir-stalls and the two organs by Churriguera are Baroque. Among the numerous tombs are those of Henry IV of Castile and his mother María of Aragon.

To the right of the Capilla Mayor in the church in Guadalupe is the Sacristy, sumptuously decorated in Baroque style, with ceiling paintings and eight portraits (1638-47) by Francisco de Zurbarán of leading members of the Hieronymite order.

Beyond the church is the two-story Mudéjar Cloister (14th C.), with fine horseshoe arches. In the center is a fountain-house in the form of a temple (by Juan de Sevilla, 1405).

In the former Chapterhouse (in the wing to the left of the monastery façade) is the Museo de Libros Miniado, which displays 86 illuminated books of hours and missals produced in the monastery, a Flemish triptych of the Three Kings, a picture by Juan de Flandes and a number of small pictures by Zurbarán.