HISTORICAL

As far as we know from the references of the temple, it is believed that it was transferred to its current location on the Nuncio street, in times of Alfonso XI. Instead, it is not clear what its original site was -although it is assumed that it was close to the fountain of Puerta Cerrada- or the reasons that led to its transfer, possibly the commemoration of the reconquest of Algeciras to Muslims, in 1345, when it is already documented that militias from the council Madrid fought.

Today, the church of San Pedro el Viejo is a complex composed of a cluster of houses, of which emerge the temple. In it we can appreciate the various reforms and additions that, throughout history, have given this emblematic monument its current appearance, a sample of the few medieval architecture in Madrid.

Undoubtedly, the oldest part is the Mudejar tower, which can date back to the middle of fourteenth century. Its construction in brick and its simple decoration help highlight the horseshoe arches of the windows of the bell tower, and other smaller ones that are located at different levels and give ligth to the ladder inside the tower. The Renaissance porch, located at the ground floor of the tower, is dated by Tormo back to 1525 and now it is in disuse, because instead of it it’s used a more modern door giving access to the house by a side.

In 1655, it suffered a profound reform, which, although it ends with the remnants of its medieval interior gives the temple coherence and facilitates the role of religion in the house. These reforms left an amalgam of old buildings on the outside of the tower, which, in terms of Texeira, appears crowned by a chapitel, characteristic of the times of the Hapsburgs.

The entrance staircase to the ship of the Epistle from the Nuncio street works as an atrium. In the vessel, at the right side, we find an altar dedicated to the Virgen del Pilar and, along with it, the Chapel of the Lujanes, which retains its vaulted Gothic ribs of the fifteenth century.

The Major Altar, that dates back to 1671, and which is due to Sebastián de Benavente, is presided over by a statue of the Virgin and pictures of Carducho, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

On the other side of the Major Altar, is located the former Capilla del Cristo de las Lluvias (Chapel of Christ of the Rain). From the bell of this church, the city was warned of the danger of thunderstorms with a ring of the largest bell. Over time, it was thought that these warnings had the ownership of scaring rains and save crops. Curiously, the bell could not climb the stairs, so that the ones in charge of transfering it gave up, but the next day it appeared in its place at the tower, perfectly matched, which was attributed to divine intervention.

Jesús el Pobre (Jesus the Poor) is the most characteristic image of this church and one of those with greater popular devotion in Madrid, as set forth in the overflow occurs in the streets on the evening of Holy Thursday. This is an image carved by Juan Astorga, in Seville at the end of the seventeenth century, and donated to the temple in the nineteenth century by the Duchess of Medinaceli from her sevillian palace known as Casa de Pilatos

The image of this Nazarene is known by the nickname of the Poor to distinguish it from another Nazarene, which is in the also Madrilian Temple of Medinaceli, and also of great devotion.

An Ecce Homo attributed to José de Mora complete the imaging of this temple, which also has a board of 1709, signed by Pedro Liborna Echevarría and a box by Domingo de Mendoza, and located in the choir