This Sunday we are going to dedicate ourselves to a small church, the Pontifical Basilica of San Miguel, or simply, Basilica of Saint Michael. A very interesting church. The best Italian baroque of the 18th century in Madrid, ordered to be built by the queen Elizabeth of Farnese in the year 1739, when his son Luis Antonio de Borbón was Archbishop of Toledo, while he was still a child. Located next to the Archbishop's Palace in the heart of Madrid of the Austrias.

The building, with a Latin cross plan, is the work of the Italian architect Santiago Bonavía, although it seems that it was commissioned to Theodore Ardemans and was finished by Virgilio Rabaglio. The façade is striking, with a convex shape, topped by two towers with spiers, of oriental influence, and a pediment, also curved.

Various sculptural groups, works of Robert Michael y Nicolas Carisana, adorn the façade: the allegories of Charity, Faith, Hope and Strength. Above the door, a bas-relief, made by Carisana, showing the Martyrdom of Saints Justo and Pastor, the original dedication of the church.

Much of the church is made of stucco imitating marble and bronze. Bonavía arrived in Spain in 1731, coming from Piacenza, Philip V He was called to build the Buen Retiro theater. Bonavía studied the architecture of Guarino Guarini placeholder image in Turin. Two years before starting the Basilica, Bonavía published “Architettura civile”, a compilation of Guarini's writings and projects, a book of great influence on the development of the European Baroque. This fact helps us understand how he resolved the roofs, based on interlocking Arab arches and a complicated sectioning of arches in all directions like those made in Turin by Guarini in the 17th century.

The vaults are frescoed in the 18th century by the brothers Gonzalez Velazquez. He also worked on the altarpieces of that time, Ventura Rodriguez.

The church was renamed San Miguel, Santos Justo y Pastor, in the time of Joseph Bonaparte, when it merged with the parish that was dedicated to San Miguel that occupied the site of the current one. market of that name, destroyed in a fire.

In the 19th century the temple changed its name only to San Miguel.

In 1885, the palace built by the Infante D. Luis next to San Justo, was converted into the residence of the new bishops of Madrid.

A abrazo.