Description of the attraction
The Cathedral of Madrid, located next to the Royal Palace, opposite the Plaza of Arms, is called the Cathedral of Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena and is dedicated to Our Lady of Almudena.
This is a fairly young cathedral - the first stone of its foundation was laid by King Alfonso XII on April 4, 1884. The king planned to bury his first wife Maria de Las Mercedes, who died of tuberculosis, in the cathedral.
The construction of the cathedral was started by the project of the Marquis Francisco de Cubas. As conceived by the author, the building of the cathedral was to be erected in the neo-Gothic style and have the shape of a Latin cross in plan. A neo-Romanesque tomb was added to the cathedral, and opened in 1911, where it was supposed to store the crypt of Queen Maria de Las Mercedes. The main nave of the tomb is crossed by a transept, the left wing of which is decorated with an extraordinary painting "Immaculate with fleur de lis", executed on plaster and dating back to the 16th century.
In 1944, certain changes were made to the original design of the cathedral, proposed by the architects Carl Sidro and Fernando Chueca-Goitia.
The interior of the cathedral, also created in the neo-gothic style, is filled with light. The building of the cathedral has three naves, the central of which is 99 meters long and is crossed by a transept 65 meters long. The magnificent main altar, made of green marble, is crowned with a crucifix by the Baroque artist Juan de Mesa.
The interior of the cathedral is decorated with figures of John the Baptist from the 18th century, the Virgin of Almudena from the 16th century, a retablo from the beginning of the 16th century, as well as magnificent paintings by Juan de Avalos and Giacomo Colombo, dedicated to fragments of the life of Christ.
