Real Monasterio de Agustinas Recoletas de la Visitación de Santa Isabel

The monastery, located in Lavapiés and founded by Phillip II on the site where his secretary Antonio Perez had a country house, is also known as the Royal Monastery of Santa Isabel. Originally, it housed a girls' school, daughters of servants to the Royal Household, and a convent of Augustinian Recollect Nuns.

The architect Juan Gómez de Mora was commissioned to refurbish the building as a convent and he designed the church, on which construction began in 1640 by Jerónimo Lázaro Goiti. In 1732, it underwent major remodelling, and after it was sacked by French troops and threatened with destruction in the 19th century, as well as suffering a major fire during the Civil War, which destroyed the works of art housed in the church (although not those that were in the closed convent, where there are important paintings and sculptures from the 16th and 17th centuries), it was rebuilt between 1941 and 1946 by Diego Ménde and José Yarnoz Larrosa. Partial renovations and reconstructions were carried out in 1964.

The church has a Latin cross floor plan on a small scale. It comprises three perfectly integrated areas: the nave, a large octagonal-shaped crossing, and a flat-roofed apse. The crossing is covered with a large dome on pendentives and large bevelled buttresses, and in the corners there are niches with altars.

In 1995, it was declared a BIC cultural heritage site. The monastery is now owned by Spain’s National Heritage organisation.