The Convento de la Purísima Concepción, also called Convento de Capuchinas, is a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

located in the city of Toledo, in Castile-La Mancha,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. The buildings are late 17th century although the institution developed from an earlier

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

community. The

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

was completed by 1671, the year in which it was consecrated; and by 1677, the year when the convent's patron Cardinal Don Pascual de Aragón died, the works of the conventual dependencies were practically finished.

Description of church

Although the

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

of the church's crossing, protrudes somewhat laterally, the layout cannot be described as a

Latin cross A Latin cross or ''crux immissa'' is a type of cross in which the vertical beam sticks above the crossbeam, with the three upper arms either equally long or with the vertical topmost arm shorter than the two horizontal arms, and always with a mu ...

. It is essentially rectangular, with a single

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

divided in three sections: the crossing, the greater chapel and the choir, high, at the feet, on a wide lowered arch. The nave and the main chapel have half barrel vault ceilings and lunettes; in the transept is a dome on (

pendentive In architecture, a pendentive is a constructional device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or of an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to point ...

s), without drum and with blind lantern. On a base of ashlar masonry there is a limpid and undeveloped interior elevation, articulated by Tuscan pilasters that, extended on the smooth

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

, reach the capitals located directly under the cornices. Four pillars support the dome in the crossing. In comparison, the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

is raised in a lighter style with pilasters subtly defining the spaces. At the end of the church is the main altarpiece; on the side of the epistle there is a

grille Grill or grille may refer to: Food * Barbecue grill, a device or surface used for cooking food, usually fuelled by gas or charcoal, or the part of a cooker that performs this function * Flattop grill, a cooking device often used in restaurants, ...

on the other side of which is the low choir of the nuns - wide rectangular stay and of low height, whose low ceiling is materially occupied by an enormous shield, frescoed by

Francisco Rizi Francisco Rizi, or Francisco Ricci de Guevara (9 April 1614 – 2 August 1685) was a Spanish painter of Italian ancestry. Biography He was born in Madrid. His father, Antonio Ricci, was an Italian painter, originally from Ancona, who had co ...

, of the Cardinal Pascual de Aragón, and on the

gospel side Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

, the chapel of the Christ. Fine simplicity and marked lack of ornamentation are the criteria handled throughout the interior. The counterpart is in the nobility of materials - marble, jaspers and bronzes - used for altarpieces, picture frames and plaques with inscriptions. Each of the details that configure this architectural space is executed with a weighting, exquisiteness and a final finish that surprises; fruit, all of it, of a measured proportion and balance. The exterior is, in general, of brick seen with rafters of stone, of cubic volumes and rectilinear profiles, as is customary in the 17th-century architecture of Toledo.

Other buildings

Among the conventual dependences is the small

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

, which acts as a distributing element of rooms, formed by two floors of four galleries each, which, through arches of half a point, open to a courtyard.

Paintings

The walls of the nave are decorated with paintings, one by Simón de León Leal, which represents Ferdinand III the Saint before Saint Hermenegild (1670), and another by Carlo Francesco Nuvolone (before 1646) represents the " Assumption of the Virgin". Giovanni Peruzzini, , and Giacinto Giminiani, ''Apparition of the Child to Santa Rosa de Lima'', both signed in 1670. Úbeda de los Cobos, Andrés, ''The Assumption of the Virgin'' by Carlo Francesco Nuvolone restored in the Prado Museum, ''Bulletin of the Museo del Prado'', t. XXII, nº 40 (2004), pp. 22-25.

References

External links

Convento de la Purísima Concepción in toledo-turismo.com
{{coord, 39.8598, N, 4.0270, W, source:wikidata, display=title Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in the City of Toledo Convents in Spain Roman Catholic churches in Toledo, Spain Roman Catholic churches completed in 1677 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Spain