The Royal Monastery of Santa Isabel is located in Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain, in a block close to Atocha Street, on the Calle Santa Isabel.
The monastery gave its name to the old Santa Isabel Tapestry Factory, represented by Velázquez in Las hilanderas, which was located nearby.
History
The monastery of Santa Isabel brings together two foundations, a girls’ school, called Casa del Recogimiento de Santa Isabel, founded in Alcalá de Henares by Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of Philip II of Spain, in 1595, and a cloistered convent of Augustinian Recollect nuns founded in 1589 by the Augustinian saint friar Alonso de Orozco, reformer of the order, with nuns from the convent of Nuestra Señora de Gracia in Ávila.
The monastery was first located on Calle del Príncipe, in the properties of a wealthy widow, Prudencia Grillo, the driving force behind the foundation after a legendary love affair that brought her before the Inquisition.
Its final location on Calle de Atocha, far from the inconvenience caused by its proximity to the corral de Comedias del Príncipe, is due to the intervention of Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III of Spain, who created the Royal Patronage in 1610, giving the nuns the so-called Casilla, an estate and country palace belonging to Philip II’s secretary, Antonio Pérez, a building that partially survives in the current cloister.
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