Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes

Ferdinand and Isabella founded this Franciscan house in Toledo in 1477, to mark the birth of their son John and their victory at Toro the year before, and intended it as their own burial place. Juan Guas designed it, and it became the defining monument of the Isabelline Gothic: a single soaring nave some fifty metres long and thirty high, eagles bearing royal coats of arms, a cloister roofed in painted larch with the monarchs' motto worked into the heraldry. On the outer granite wall hang the manacles of Christian captives freed at Granada, fixed there by Isabella's order in 1494.

The conquest of Granada in 1492 changed the plan: the monarchs chose to be buried there instead, and the church was left as a votive monument rather than a mausoleum. Napoleon's troops damaged it badly in 1809; the community was dispersed in 1835; restoration ran, on and off, from 1883 to 1967, with the Franciscans returning in 1954.

The acoustic of that tall stone nave has made it a natural setting for sacred and classical programmes, and concerts are now part of its regular use.