Description

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Located in the street Ollerías, near the Chapel of the Virgen de la Cabeza. Don Antonio Terrones tells us about him: "The Fathers of San Juan de Dios have the Hospital de la Caridad, with a building and house dedicated to their profession, they are imitators of their founder and this is the name of the dedication, because they exercise it, healing the poor with remarkable advantage and service of God, enjoy the rents left by Dr. Matienzo, Prior who was of St. Mary. (1)

 

The arrival of the first brothers of San Juan de Dios could take place in the year 1603, fruit of the conversations held between the city council and the hospital order of San Juan de Dios. His first establishment, the hospital of Jesus, was located in the last houses on Arroyo Street to care for the sick and convalescent of the plague of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

 

In 1618, the brothers of San Juan de Dios left this first establishment to run the Hospital de la Caridad, located in Calle Ollerias and whose existence dated back to 1563. Its current temple dates back to the end of the 17th century, and was inaugurated in 1698, day of San Juan de Dios, with solemn procession for the transfer of the Santísimo to the new church with the presence of the members of the city council.

 

In the summer of 1808, General Dupont qualified him as a "hospital of blood" while he remained in Andújar. With the disentailment, the building became the property of the City Council (decree of April 15, 1836) that was integrated into the Charity Board although without any function in the first years. In 1838 part of the building was given to Don Gerónimo de la Cal Palomares so that he could establish in it a College of Spanish, Latin and French Grammar, where were studied in addition to the study of the mentioned languages, those of Philosophy, Botany, Religion and Urbanity. Some of its dependencies would also be used as a municipal archive and it was the seat of one of the polling stations of the city.

 

In 1885 the City Council ceded it to the Mothers of the Helpless and St. José de la Montaña to house the elderly in need. Its founder was Mother Petra of St. Jose, beatified on October 16, 1994. At the present time it continues with this same function. The Mothers of the Helpless also run what was once the Asylum of incurable of St. Luis, that the Countess of Real Grace created in the area between the street of Juego Pelotas and Ibáñez Marín.

 

The well-known and now disappeared Mother Marta belonged to the order, who with determination and good deed kicked the city in search of alms with which to contribute to the maintenance of her institution in the difficult years of the sixties and following. Well persisted in her endeavor that tiny woman, much admired in the city, to the point that she owes a popular saying of the town: "YOU ASK MORE THAN MOTHER MARTA" and to which the city of Andújar paid tribute to put its name to one of its streets.

 

In the final years of the eighties, a modern building was built for the residence of old people behind the old convent of San Juan de Dios. This was built on the aforementioned Asylum of incurable of St. Luís and some existing premises on Ibáñez Marín Street, where they were, in the twenties, the barber's shop of Juanito y Bautista and the colonial trade of Francisco A. Colodrero. As a historical curiosity of it, we remember that in the aforementioned barbershop, there was a photograph of Pablo Iglesias because the barbers were socialists, like Francisco A. Colodrero, who, years before, had organized the trade union branch of "shop assistants", getting the Sunday rest for the employees of the branch.

 

The church and the convent atrium are still in good condition and this is because the aforementioned Mothers during the Civil War remained caring for the elderly, but without their habits and because the beds of the elderly were transferred to the church to reserve it from any type of aggression.

 

Its temple is in the line of the conventual churches of the locality and Spanish Baroque. Rectangular plan, somewhat broken by the obliquity of the facade, of a single nave and covered with a barrel vault, articulated with transverse arches that rest on bent pilasters. The section of the head, of smaller width and higher than the others. Behind him, the sacristy that is under the shrine of the altarpiece. The immediate section covered with vault of half orange on pendentives and with altars in both walls. In the last section, of irregular form, the choir on high.

 

Its main altarpiece is of Baroque style. In its central body the dressing room, rectangular, covered with elliptical vault decorated with rich polychrome plasterwork. In it, the image of the Virgen de las Angustias, probably from the beginning of the 18th century. The composition is serene and balanced. The inert body of Christ, anatomy very well achieved. Mary contains her deep pain with sincere grief. In the right street of the altarpiece the polychrome carving of San Juan de Dios. On the left street, the archangel St Michael.

 

The cover of the temple, of great simplicity, characteristic this one that is repeated in the other conventual examples of the city. The door, with a round arch, is decorated with the shields of the order and niche. The horizontality of the facade is interrupted by the belfry of two bodies of beautiful proportion.

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Association of Friends of the Patrimony of Andujar