Puerta del Hospital de Santa Cruz en Toledo

Puerta del Hospital de Santa Cruz en Toledo 

Félix Benoist after Genaro Pérez Villaamil, 1844 

Lithograph 

The Hospital of Santa Cruz was founded by Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, in 1494, but he did not live to see it built. He died the following January, leaving the entirety of his estate for the establishment of an orphanage in Toledo. His executors, who included Queen Isabel I, Cardinal Cisneros and his nephew Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, ensured that his wishes were carried out. 

They appointed Enrique Egas (1455-1534), born in Toledo but of Netherlandish extraction, as architect. The design was based on the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan: a Greek cross with four courtyards, two of which were never built. Construction of the first phase took ten years from 1504 to 1514, when it was inaugurated, but development continued well into the 1530s and even then the hospital was left substantially unfinished. It now houses the Santa Cruz Museum. 

The two principal architectural features are the magnificent marble staircase, which Villaamil also included in the first volume of España artística y monumental (plate 31), and this façade, both designed by Alonso de Covarrubias. The façade is generally recognised as one of the masterpieces of the Spanish Renaissance. The semi-circular tympanum features Cardinal Mendoza, kneeling, and St. Helen, St. Peter and St. Paul accompanied by two pages, also kneeling. 

Villaamil chose a slightly oblique angle from which to illustrate this handsome building. This allows him to show, in the foreground, the daily life of the local people going about their business, hanging out their washing and even urinating against the hospital wall. It also enables him to set the building in context: the ruins of a neighbouring church, one of the twelve steep hills on which Toledo is built, and the rolling countryside in the distance. 

Title: Puerta del Hospital de Santa Cruz en Toledo | Porte de l’Hôpital de Ste Croix à Tolède. 

Author/Artist: Félix Benoist (1818-1896, lithographer) after Genaro Pérez Villaamil (1807-1854, artist). 

Technique and Material: Lithograph on paper. 

Dimensions: 305 x 425 mm (image), 525 x 375 mm (page). 

Published: Plate 83 from Genaro Pérez Villaamil and Patricio de la Escosura. España artística y monumental. Three volumes. Paris: A Hauser, 1842-50. Volume 2.  

Date: 1844. 

Marks and Inscriptions: lower edge, left ‘G.P. Villa Amil dibujó’ / ‘Paris, chez A. Hauser, Boul. des Italiens, 11.’; centre: title as above; right: ‘Benoist Lith.’ / ’Imprimé par Lemercier à Paris’. 

Institution: Barry Ife Collection.