Convento de Santa Clara de Santiago de Compostela, Convent in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Convento de Santa Clara is a cloistered convent of the Poor Clares on Rúa de San Roque in Santiago de Compostela. Its church, reached through a small garden behind the 1719 curtain façade by Simón Rodríguez, has a Latin-cross plan with a single nave and domes over the crossing. The granite building was largely shaped in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Founded in 1260 outside the northern walls of Santiago de Compostela, Santa Clara was the first Poor Clare convent in Galicia, backed by Violante of Aragon, wife of Alfonso X the Wise, which earned it the title "Royal". Isabel de Granada, granddaughter of Boabdil and abbess here, funded 16th-century works. Pedro Arén, Gabriel Domínguez, Domingo de Andrade and Simón Rodríguez rebuilt it in the 17th and 18th centuries, finishing in 1719.
Thirteen Poor Clare nuns still live in the cloister, supporting themselves by embroidery, ironing and gold-thread work commissioned by churches, individuals and even football teams. A local wedding tradition holds that sending a basket of eggs to a Poor Clare convent keeps rain away on the wedding day.
The church can only be visited before and after Mass, which is held daily at 7 pm, with the rosary at 6:30 pm. The cloistered areas are not open to visitors, so access is limited to the church itself.
The church keeps three remnants of the medieval convent: a granite ogival pulpit, a carving of the Virgin of the Keys and the founders' coats of arms. The 13 cloistered Poor Clares still take commissions, embroidering in gold for churches, individuals and even football teams.
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