HISTORICAL

At the church of St. Vincent Ferrer -in Ibiza street, that close to the Gregorio Marañón Hospital that sometimes it is confused with its chapel-, is located the image of Our Lady of Madrid. This sculpture of the sixteenth century of quiet appearance, very well treated by time, has had an eventful life that we’ll try to narrate.

It was moved here from the General Hospital. That huge building joined all medical disciplines and served for many years as a medical school. The hospital was located at the bottom of Calle Santa Isabel, near estación del Mediodía (Atocha train Station), where now it is placed the Museum of Modern Art Reina Sofia.

The image, that belongs to the Community of Madrid government, is a polychrome wooden carving of a bust with articulated arms accommodated on a wooden frame, on which are also fixed clothing and mantle. From inside the frame, the figure can be manipulated to perform some simple movements.

At the height of the lap, rests a Jesus Child of the same antiquity, giving the impression that it is supported in the hands of the Virgin. The set has, at present, an estimated height of one hundred fifty centimeters, but with a larger frame the sculpture might have a greater height.

In the church, they spread prints, with a prayer of the eighteenth century, where it is refered its arduous trip to reach the twenty-first century.

The incredible story of this Virgin begins when, in the second half of the sixteenth century -being Madrid already a court by the express wish of Felipe II-, it was stolen from a chapel of Toledo and moved to the big brothel that provided its services on Carmen street.

The sculpture, with other headliners, of course, was used as mobile claim on the facade of the club moved by a man on its inside to get a motion to call the attention of people walking.

Father Bernardino -originator of the modern nursing- suspected that merchandising object was not a mere puppet and tried several times to convince the traffickers that owned the place to sell him the gadget. Without achieving this and given his impetuous character, he denounced the fact to the Inquisition, who investigated the case and stipulated a punishment for the procurers, whose pupils escaped. The Church picked up the image, enshrined it again and gave it a more dignified representation.

The image was venerated at the outset in the Convalescent Hospital. Also there received burial Father Bernardino in 1598 and, during his wake, he had to be changed twice habit, as the parishioners uprooted chunks of it as a relic.

In 1621 they are moved both the body of the Venerable and the image, to the General Hospital. The event is chaired by Felipe IV himself, and since that date, Our Lady of Madrid chaired the chapel of the hospital, being a good intercessor between the pain of the sick, the prayers of their relatives and the Most High, as well as an immutable witness of countless weddings of doctors and the rest of employees of the hospital, from the chapels that hosted the sculpture after its rescue from the humiliating work in the brothel at Carmen street.