The Monastery has been catalogued as Cultural Heritage, also obtaining the distinction of a European Museum in 1987. The Franciscan Clarist religious community that inhabits it arrived in 1559, and they are popularly known as the Descalzas Reales (the Royal Barefoot Sisters), a name owing to the fact that they wear simple sandals all year round.

The building, which Joanna of Austria was unable to see completed due to her early death, has the characteristics of a Castilian plateresque palace, with Genoese marble columns in the courtyards and halls decorated with tiles and plasterwork in the Moorish tradition, but already with forms from the Renaissance. The sober façade of the Monastery contrasts sharply with the richness of the interior of the building, filled of wall paintings, pictures, nativity scenes, reliquaries and tapestries, amongst many works of art, which make up its fascinating history. The main staircase of the original palace-house is one of the most important pieces, decorated with mural paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Moreover, Princesses used to spend seasons in the so-called "Royal Quarters", where Empress Maria lived and died and where Isabel Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), daughter of Philip II, was educated. She later gave the convent Rubens' famous series of tapestries on the Eucharist to furnish the church and the priests' cloisters, which included the Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, chapel master of this house and of the Empress Maria.

A visit to the Monastery allows us to immerse ourselves in significant aspects of the history of Spain and Europe, and to enjoy an exceptional space, due to its strong link with the House of Austria

Príncipe don Carlos de Austria

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