Santiponce Itálica

Heritage

An immense legacy waiting to be discovered

Chapel of Las Hermanas de la Cruz

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This is one of the buildings constructed thanks to Rosario Ruiz Ramos, who bequeathed her estate for charitable purposes. The design of the chapel was entrusted to Antonio Llanes del Río, at the end of the second decade of the 20th century. 

The convent and chapel have been run by the Hermanas de la Cruz since 1920, when it was founded by Sister Ángela de la Cruz herself in order to help the sick and the needy. For many years, it also housed both a boarding school and day school for poor girls.

The convent's chapel has only one nave, built in Neogothic style, roofed by groin vaults, supported by ribbed arches, joined by graceful ribs ending in beautiful keystones. The entire structure rests on ribbed pilasters resting on carved bases. The main doorway is made of limestone, supported by an ogee arch with floral motifs.

The Virgen del Corazón de María can be found in a neo-Gothic temple with elements reminiscent of Gaudí's Sagrada Familia.

The sisters possess a precious jewel box with relics from the various visits of Sister Angela de la Cruz to the house in Montellano. In the small waiting room of the convent visitors can see a showcase where the sisters keep personal belongings of Sister Angela such as a sackcloth shawl and an awl that she used when she was a shoemaker, two panels of the mother superior's headboard, a jar of dried flowers that were "on the dead body of Sister Angela", pieces of letters, clothes, wooden cutlery, etc.; the legacy of a saint who lived a life of poverty among the poor.

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