The story
The Hospital de Tavera, just outside the old walls of Toledo, was built to be two things at once. Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera, archbishop of Toledo, founded it in 1541 as a hospital for the city's poor and as his own mausoleum. His marble tomb, carved by the sculptor Alonso Berruguete, still stands in the church, and Berruguete died in the building in 1561, shortly after finishing it.
The paintings belong to the same foundation. In 1608 the hospital commissioned El Greco, the Cretan-born painter who had made Toledo his home, to paint the church's three altarpieces, the largest commission of his career. He died in 1614 with the work unfinished, and his son Jorge Manuel saw it through. The Baptism of Christ, probably meant for the main altar, is one result, completed by the workshop. El Greco also painted the founder, a posthumous portrait made more than 60 years after the cardinal's death in 1545.
Today the complex is cared for by the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli, a ducal family foundation. The visit passes through rooms furnished as a noble residence, with El Greco's Holy Family and his Tears of Saint Peter, and takes in the hospital's old pharmacy.
