It's a Bloody Mystery

Royal Monastery of the Incarnation / Real Monasterio de la Encarnación
05/11/12 – Plaza de la Encarnación

The Royal Monastery of the Incarnation was established in 1611, a few years after the Monastery of the Barefoot Noblewomen.  In olden times, a passageway from the nearby Royal Palace allowed the royal family to visit and worship at their convenience. The monastery conducts 1-hour guided visits in Spanish. 

  

Royal Monastery of the Incarnation

The guide told us that 10 nuns still live in the cloister today, hidden from view.  A revolving wooden counter set in an interior wall--identical to the “torno” for convent sweets at the Convent of Corpus Christi--functions as their portal of communication with the outside world.  How I would like to interview one of those nuns, or at least send a list of written questions through the wall!  

What's it like to never leave?

As the guide whisked us from room to room, she pointed out religious figures in time-darkened paintings; statues of the virgin wearing real outfits of embroidered silk; and the royal visages of Spain’s pallid, pursed-lipped Austrian monarchs.  At one point the guide chastised a hapless man who strayed several meters from the group.  Perhaps he too was trying to get a glimpse of a living being amongst the Stations of the Cross.  The windows onto the courtyard, it turns out, have opaque glass.  

 

The paintings and sculptures are not as impressive as those in the Monastery of the Barefoot Royals, and the rooms are not as lavish. My favorite painting showed a nun laid out in her coffin, covered in flowers; the guide said it was a rare illustration of the convent’s funerary tradition.  A huge painting of a biblical wedding scene shows a banquet table laden with empanadas. A life-sized 17^th century sculpture by Gregorio Fernandez, of the reclining Christ covered in blood, is all too realistic.  The final station for our group, a room chock full of saintly relics, might be worth the price of admission (7 euros).  

St. Pantalemon, usually portrayed as a mop-top

From floor to ceiling, the walls are lined with artfully displayed bone chips, the arms of eight martyrs, and the leg of St. Margaret.  A reliquary with a glass orb contains the solidified blood of St. Pantalemon, a Christian healer from the early fourth century.  According to legend, he was tortured mercilessly and then beheaded for performing miracles on sick people instead of treating them in the normal way—normal for Greek doctors in the year 303 CE, that is.  

Every year on July 27, the day of St. Pantalemon’s death, the reliquary is carried to the Baroque church next door and displayed to the public, as well as broadcasted on closed-circuit TV monitors.  On that day only, the blood in the orb is said to turn from a solid to a liquid before your eyes.  As luck would have it, we leave Madrid for home on July 27, and will not be here to see it.

Royal Armor and the View of Kings

The Royal Palace / Palacio Real
09/30/11 – Calle Bailén

1561 view of Madrid

When you emerge from the obligatory route through the gift shop into the vast, sun-drenched courtyard of the Royal Palace, you begin to realize the role of geography in the making of Madrid.  The eye is drawn to a wall of arches across the way, framing a landscape of distant trees.  At closer inspection, you can see how steeply the gardens descend down the slope, the perfect vantage for a fortress and walled city.  Remnants of the Moor’s ancient wall can be seen in various places around Madrid, but the fortress they built in the ninth century is long gone, as is the Spanish fortress that arose around it (pictured, in a 1561 drawing by Anton Van der Wyngaerde).  

The Palacio Real

The Spanish Royal Palace stands on the same overlook, in its 1755 incarnation of cool marble.  An earlier palace built with wood burned to the ground in 1734.  A King no longer lives in the Palace, and its richly-decorated rooms are open to visitors.  I’ve seen so much faux Rococo (Real Housewives of New Jersey?) that when faced with the original, it still feels fake.  But even the blasé will go bug-eyed in the dressing-room of King Carlos III (reigned 1759-88).  Decorated by the Italian Matteo Gasparini, the ceiling is three-dimensional, and fairly drips with Chinoiserie.  The walls are embroidered! Another Italian, the architect Francesco Sabatini, tried to bring a modicum of restraint to his neoclassical rooms.  You decide which pleases more. 

In addition to the royal chambers, there is the chapel, royal pharmacy, and a room that displays not one but five musical instruments crafted by Antonio Stradivari: violín chico, violÍn grande, two violinchelos, and a violo contralto. 

Though not known for my love of weaponry, the highlight of this visit was the Royal Armory.  Housed in a separate building at the west end of the courtyard, the Armory fills two floors.  The collection of medieval armor for horses, men, and even small children, is superb.  It is beautifully displayed.  See the set of armor with the stylish bell skirt—designed to deflect lance-blows below the belt, but intriguingly feminine to a modern viewer.  A nearby set of torso armor, shown from the back, is custom fitted to some knight-errant’s taut buttocks. A sensation of claustrophobia and pain accompanies the Armory experience, but it’s not unpleasant.  The 10 Euro price of admission to the Royal Palace feels like a bargain.