San Clemente Monastery

The Holy King decided that the monastic order of the female Cistercian order should occupy this new monastery, probably because at that time this was the order that appeared to be most closely linked to the royal family. The first abbess of which there is evidence was a lady named Doña Gontrueda Ruiz de León, with whom the life of this female monastery possibly began.

This convent of sufficient importance and relevance, always linked to the Crown and the archbishopric, will receive in its cloister the most important ladies of Sevillian society of the medieval centuries. The monastery ended up being chosen as a royal pantheon by various members of royalty. In the late sixteenth century an expansion was made in the monastery, as it was necessary to make a new church more consistent and sufficient in size for the number of nuns, so that it could meet their needs.

This remodeling is the first time that the monastery was remodeled.

This remodeling is indicative of the importance of the monastery, which is not only relevant in the medieval centuries, but also remains so during the later centuries. Architecturally it is a heterogeneous set of buildings, built in different periods and styles, from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. In the monastery are described two distinguishable facts, the exhibition halls and the church.