As on so many other occasions in our beloved Madrid, the church of San José Located at 43 Alcalá Street, it occupies the site where there was previously another building. In this case, the old convent of San Hermenegildo. In the convent church he sang mass in 1614 Felix Lope de Vega.

The convent, of barefoot Carmelite religious, was ordered to be built in 1586 by order of Brother Nicolás de Jesús y María, with the approval of Cardinal Gaspar de Quiroga y Vela. The building was completed in 1605, but was later demolished in the XNUMXth century.

In that space, in 1730 it was entrusted to Pedro de Ribera the construction of a church with the Carmelite convent attached. It is a large work with a very ornate façade, a clear exponent of the Ribera baroque style, a barrel nave and a dome. The works were completed in 1748 by Jose de Arredondo y Fausto Manso.

In 1836 the church became a parish and the convent was demolished to build the famous Apollo theater. Today on these lands there is a building belonging to a bank.

The three access doors have forged railings made by Juan Gil. Above the main entrance we can see the Carmelite cross and in a niche an image of the Virgin of Carmen made by Robert Michael in 1750, Michel is one of the authors of the nearby Cybele fountain.

In 1912 the façade was remodeled, lengthening it on both sides so that it adapted to the adjacent building. The church of San José houses many works of art and also numerous legends, one of them with a tragic ending and which is repeated in many places, boy meets girl, they fall in love and when passing by a place, in this case our church, The girl leaves and the next day she appears dead. We must not forget that we are very close to the House of the Seven Chimneys and the Linac Palace, shelter of numerous legends.

A abrazo.