Charles III wanted a Franciscan convent in Aranjuez dedicated to Saint Paschal Baylon and had it built between 1765 and 1770. Its classicist façade is framed by two towers in the Italian Baroque taste; inside is a single-nave Latin cross with side chapels. Sources credit the design to Francesco Sabatini or to Marcelo Fontón.
The Tiepolo story
The most ambitious commission was the painting. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, the great Venetian painter then working for the court in Madrid, painted seven canvases for the church around 1767. Charles III had them taken down and replaced with works by Bayeu and Maella, which were lost in the Civil War. Of the Tiepolos, the survivors are almost all in the Prado Museum. Mengs’s high-altar painting is still here.
Afterwards
Isabella II gave the convent to the Conceptionist nuns, who have lived here since 1858. After the Civil War it was used as a concentration camp and then as a women’s prison, a lesser-known chapter of the building’s history. It has been a protected heritage site since 1999.
It’s a short walk from the Plaza de San Antonio and the church of Alpajés.
What few people tell you
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painted seven canvases for this church around 1767. Charles III had them removed, and almost all that survive are now in the Prado Museum.
- The high-altar painting, by Anton Raphael Mengs, shows Saint Paschal Baylon adoring the Eucharist.
- The works by Bayeu and Maella that replaced the Tiepolos were lost in the Civil War.
- It's a working church: go in quietly and avoid mass times if you're only there to look.
Sources and official links
- Wikipedia, Convento de San Pascual (Aranjuez)
- spain.info, Royal Convent of San Pascual
- Hispanopedia, Convento de San Pascual (Aranjuez)
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