We visited the Capilla when it reopened on Sunday at 3:30, so it wasn’t too crowded. People had dispersed after the Madonna procession that we had so serendipitously stumbled upon. This is the final resting place of the Reconquista monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille whose marital union helped to unite Spain and enabled them to oust the Moors from their last stronghold in Granada. Isabella wanted Granada to be the new capital, and, wishing to be buried in this city, she decided to have this chapel built on the site of a mosque. Both she and Ferdinand had to be buried temporarily in what is now the Parador San Francisco on the Alhambra grounds until this Chapel was finished.

We first entered the sacristy that contains Isabella’s crown and scepter, missal, and chest and Ferdinand’s swords, as well as some of Isabella’s paintings. Apparently, she amassed a significant private painting collection especially of Flemish artists, notably van der Weyden, Bouts and Memling. Bouts’ triptych of the Passion is particularly arresting. Napoleon’s troops looted the chapel, so the visitor sees the best of the remains.

In the Chapel itself are the tombs of carved marble with the monarchs rendered in repose with a lion and lioness respectively lodged at their feet as symbolic tributes.You have to descend to the crypt under these cenotaphs to view through tiny windows the actual lead coffins of the two rulers in the middle, flanked by those of their daughter Juana La Loca and her husband the handsome Hapsburg Philip who unfortunately died young an event that severely unhinged the so in love Juana. Also here are the remains of the rulers’ grandson Michael who died at age two.

Available at the reception desk is an English brochure (six pages) that provides helpful details about the Capilla’s history and the artists and architects that made it a reality. Shortly before her death in November1504, Isabella along with Ferdinand signed the royal decree that authorized creation of this Chapel. Construction began almost immediately after her death and the Chapel was completed in 1517, a year after Ferdinand’s death. This decree is also on display in the sacristy that was full of banners, emblems, paintings – a plethora of memorabilia of the two monarchs who considered the ejection of the Moors from Granada as the supreme accomplishment of their reign and thus wanted to not only be buried here, but to have the Spanish capital be Granada. Alas, they were buried here, but Granada never became the capital.