Ermita de San Pelayo y San Isidoro facts for kids
The Ermita de San Pelayo y San Isidoro (which means Hermitage of Saint Pelagius and Saint Isidore) is a very old, ruined church. It was built in the Romanesque style. This church was first located in the city of Ávila, Spain. It stood outside the city walls, near a gate called Malaventura. Today, in Ávila, there is still an area known as the Atrium of San Isidro.
Later, the church was moved to Madrid. It had several different homes before its remains finally found a place in the beautiful Buen Retiro Park in central Madrid.
Contents
The Church's Journey: History
Early Days in Ávila
The church was first dedicated to a young saint from Córdoba named Saint Pelagius. A document from 1250 mentions this, saying the church did not have to pay taxes. There is also a special stone with writing on it from 1270. This stone talks about the church being made sacred.
Historians believe this stone might mean the church was made sacred a second time. This was possibly when its dedication changed from Saint Pelagius to Saint Isidore. After this, we don't have many records about the church until the 1800s. Information was found in a book from a group called the Cofraternity of San Isidro. This book was discovered in the church of San Nicolás in Ávila.
It is also known that this hermitage once held holy items (relics) belonging to Saint Isidore. These relics were later moved to León in 1062.
Moving to Madrid
In the 1800s, the church belonged to a group of farm workers. It was probably around this time that its dedication changed to Saint Isidore. By 1854, the building was in bad shape. The city council told the farm workers' group to tear it down. The group offered the church to the city, but the city did not want it. So, they got ready to demolish it.
However, years passed, and nothing happened. Then, in 1876, the government took control of many church properties. This was part of a process called the Spanish Confiscation. In 1877, the church was finally torn down. Its stones were sold to different people. A local person in Ávila bought most of the stones. But an engineer and businessman from Madrid, Emiliano Rotondo Nicolau, bought the remaining large stones and other parts.
After trying to sell the ruins to the city of San Sebastian without success, Rotondo Nicolau sold them to the Real Academia de la Historia in 1893. The plan was to put the church in the gardens of the Museo Arqueológico. It would be shown as an old Romanesque relic. It was also meant to be used as a chapel for special church services.
New Home in Retiro Park
But this plan did not happen right away. In 1897, a politician named Cánovas del Castillo became interested in the monument. The museum gave the church to the City Hall of Madrid. They ordered it to be moved to the Buen Retiro Park. An architect named Ricardo Velázquez Bosco oversaw this project.
The chosen spot in Retiro Park is very pleasant. It is surrounded by green trees, near the Montaña Artificial (an artificial mountain). It could have been a beautiful ruin, but the building was forgotten and left alone again. Finally, in the early 2000s, the City Council of Madrid decided to tidy up the area. They gathered the stones, capitals (tops of columns), shafts (main parts of columns), and other pieces that were scattered around.
What the Building Looked Like
The hermitage was built using rectangular blocks of limestone. It had one main room (a single nave) with a wooden roof. The front part of the church, called the apse, was shaped like a half-circle with a rounded ceiling. The straight part before the apse had a curved ceiling called a barrel vault.
The way the apse was built and the decorations seen in old drawings connect this church to other famous churches in Ávila. These include San Vicente, San Pedro, and San Andrés. This suggests the hermitage was built around the mid-1100s.
The main room had two doors. One was on the south side, and the other was on the west side. We can still see parts of one door. It had three rounded arches (called archivolts) that rested on flat stone pieces (called abacuses and imposts). Even though it's hard to see now, these flat stones were carved with four-petal roses inside circles. The arches themselves also had these rose decorations. The tops of the columns (capitals) were decorated with animals and plants. Despite being old and worn, you can still see carvings of acanthus leaves.
The apse had three rounded windows with arches and decorative frames (chambranas). Two of these windows remain. You can see how they are deeply set into the wall, ending in narrow openings (arrowslits). The arches of these windows rest on flat stones and capitals. These were decorated with leaves and birds holding their beaks between their legs. Similar designs can be seen in the Iglesia de San Andrés of Ávila.
According to old drawings, the straight part of the apse had decorative arches that were not open (blind arches). Their capitals were decorated with plants, lions, and birds. Studying these decorations suggests that the same artists who worked on San Pedro and San Vicente churches might have also worked on this hermitage.
See also
In Spanish: Ermita de San Pelayo y San Isidoro para niños
- Romanesque architecture in Spain
Images for kids
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Romanesque door
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Exterior of the apse
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Inside part of the door; at background the Casa del Pescador
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Ruins everywhere
