Isabel the Catholic Route. Soul of a queen, wife and mother

Presentation

This itinerary invites us to discover the personality and soul of Isabella I of Castile, one of the most relevant and influential women in history. We will approach her to know, not only her history and her reign, but her most personal and human aspect. We will do it hand in hand with great Spanish historians and researchers such as Luís Suárez Fernández, Vidal González Sánchez or Antonio Gallego Burín and foreigners such as Voltaire or Jean Dumont, among others.

A beautiful and suggestive tour of the streets of Granada will take us back to past times that will make us relive some of the most remarkable and decisive moments of our protagonist Isabel.

Woman, wife and mother

Relatives as important as his mother, Isabel de Avís; his maternal grandmother, Isabel de Barcelòs; his brother Alfonso or his half-brother Enrique IV of Castile... they will shape his personality from his earliest childhood. On the other hand, his youth will be enriched by the influence of such important people as the Augustinian priest Martín de Córdoba, his personal confessor Fray Hernando de Talavera or the Franciscan Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros.

Being still a princess, with only seventeen years, she will reject an endless number of suitors and choose Ferdinand of Aragon, for which, she will have to marry in secret. His children Elizabeth, John, Joan, Mary and Catherine, will determine his personal, family and political life.

Queen's Soul

As a woman of the fifteenth century, Isabel will show a strength and a conviction in her actions out of the ordinary. At the age of twenty-four she will proclaim herself Queen of Castile and, together with her husband Fernando, will address the most delicate and thorny issues of her reign: the Capture of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews and the evangelization of America.

Such prominent figures as Cid Hiaya, who will play a decisive role in the development of the Grenada War; Tomás de Torquemada, as the most significant representative of the New Inquisition or Admiral Christopher Columbus, who will star in one of the most transcendental discoveries in history; they will help us to understand the main lines of politics and thought of the Catholic Monarchs.

"I want to be buried in Granada"

Thus says in his Testament the desire to rest in the city that housed all his longings, achievements and hopes. Gaspar de Grizio, as a royal notary, reflected this in the vellum flats at the dictate of the Queen.

Where did Isabel la Católica really die? What disease ended her life and who were the doctors who treated her? Íñigo López de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla and Marquis of Mondéjar, was commissioned by King Ferdinand to prepare what would be the first burial of Queen Isabel in the convent of San Francisco in the Alhambra.

Finally, the Royal Chapel, built by her husband Fernando and embellished by his grandson Carlos V, would be her definitive burial. This space combines art, history and spirituality, offering us the beauty of the soul of a woman who was ahead of her time: Isabella The Catholic.

Languages available for the route: Spanish and French.