Iglesia de Santo Tomé Church

》Iglesia de Santo Tomé Church

Church with a Mudéjar tower dating from the 14th century. It houses El Greco's famous painting "The Burial of Count Orgaz".

The church dates from the 12th century, although it was completely rebuilt at the beginning of the 14th century by order of the Lord of Orgaz. The tower is one of the best examples of the Mudéjar art characteristic of Toledo. The two upper sections are made of brick, with two groups of two and three windows with pointed horseshoe arches scalloped with other lobed arches. The interior houses one of El Greco's most famous paintings, "The Burial of Count Orgaz", which is exhibited in a special room.

The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (Spanish: El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz) is a 1586 painting by El Greco, a prominent Renaissance painter, sculptor, and architect of Greek origin. Widely considered among his finest works, it illustrates a popular local legend of his time. An exceptionally large painting, it is divided into two sections, heavenly above and terrestrial below, but it gives little impression of duality, since the upper and lower sections are brought together compositionally. The painting has been lauded by art scholars, characterized, inter alia, as "one of the most truthful pages in the history of Spain", as a masterpiece of Western art and of late Mannerism, and as the epitome of Greco's artistic style.Read more