The Carmelites officially established themselves in Córdoba, Spain, on October 12, 1542, “the year that St. John of the Cross was born” according to the Rodríquez Carretero, according to the terms given by the then-bishop of Córdoba, Leopold of Austria, uncle of the Emperor Charles V. Very little is known about the earliest foundation of the Carmelites in the city. A primitive hermitage of the True Cross, “situated along the road out of the city, headed towards Madrid, opposite that of St. Sebastian,” is spoken about by the aforementioned Carretero. Ramírez de Arellano places the early monastery with more detail saying that it was situated “farther along the Arroyo of the Rocks, or that would be behind the Hospital of St. Lazarez. The unsanitary nature of this location resulted in its being relocated to the exit of the Gate of Alcolea, serving the church principally as a hermitage with the name ‘Our Lady de la Cabeza,’ that existed with its confraternity,” which took the name and title of the Carmelite monastery.

Due to the location and insufficient size of the building, it was decided to send a request to King Philip II asking him to grant a portion of an already unusable public pigsty. On December 4, 1583, and in front of the mayor, Pedro Muñoz, a fair division of the land was made: two-thirds for the expansion of the monastery and one-third for a road and public park. On top of that small hill a cross was erected and the area was blessed on February 7, 1590. “It was four in the afternoon,” details this very interesting document which is conserved in the Municipal Archives of Córdoba.

From that point the construction of a great church for cult to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Carmelites, began. In 1594 the provincial chapter was celebrated in that poor monastery in Córdoba, which determined, among other things, “that all the good that our religion allows to a religious ad usum, following their deaths will be applied to the work of the church of our monastery in Córdoba.” In the visit of the Prior General Chizzola in 1595, the theologates in the houses of Córdoba and Osuna were erected. The prior provincial, Fr. Albert de Párraga, “seeing how the work on the church was progressing and that it will be appropriate to have a beautiful monastery and church in such an illustrious city,” ordered in 1596 that each of the monasteries of the province give assistance to the work. 

“The church has a single and grandiose nave of the Renaissance without any adornment. It is covered by a magnificent Mudejar artist, the best there is in Córdoba and that gives witness to the form of roofs that are conserved in Andalusia long after the Renaissance came to destroy the ogival and mudéjar architectural style. It is worth visiting, not only for the artistry (today finished off), but also for the principal altarpiece, painted in 1658 by Juan de Valdés Leal. And after a brief description of the mammoth project, the author of the Artistic Guide ends with “With this art is the finest there is in Córdoba and, according to many, the most worthy to be seen.”

The patron of the project was Pedro Gómez de Cárdenes, “Comendador of the treasury of the Order of Calatrava and Señor de Villanueva del Rey, neighbor and 24 year old of Córdoba,” according to what appears in the contract for the altarpiece with the master carpenter. It would be the patron of the major chapel of Carmen who would have the right to burial in the place. The red bird or a species of papagayo that Valdés Leal placed above a dry branch of his great center painting alludes to the name of the donor, Cárdenas.

The altarpiece was created in gilted and polychromatic wood. It stands 11.43 meters (37.5 feet) high and 9.15 meters (30 feet) wide, and consists of an attic, a principal body divided into three sections, and the bench; the central section finishes in the attic with the great painting La Virgen de los Carmelitas (The Virgin of the Carmelites) while in the side panels the paintings of the Córdoban martyrs, St. Acisclo and St. Victoria can be found, both flanked by the shields of their patrons.

The architectural part of the altarpiece was ordered in 1639 from a master joiner Pedro Freila Guevara, committing him to a contract to execute in the space of a year and a half for the value of 7,000 reales. The contract stipulated that the altarpiece had to have a “Corinthian” design. It is further specified that the architectural structure must allow that the paintings be superimposed above the Corinthian columns of the lateral “streets” and that the spaces, the rectangular boxes reserved for the other painting must show the complete collection within the suitable frame of the projected altarpiece. Valdés Leal signed the contracts of his two different projects in 1655 and 1658.

The composition of the altarpiece is somewhat unusual. Due to the domination that the central image holds, which is equal in size to the remaining paintings, the architectural divisions that the contract specified could not be realized. The final project ended up combining the architecture of a triumphal arch, permitting the primary focus on the arched central space, and the so-called “capuchin” that makes the other series of complementary pictures secondary to the central image, a solution not very satisfactory to the tastes of purists. Above the base of the altarpiece rest two pairs of Corinthian columns in the pure Adosados style, as do the same two paintings of Elijah and the Priests of Baal and Elijah Consoled by the Angel, at the left and the right respectively. Between the capitals of the columns and accommodated under the frieze, are found the paintings entitled The Head of St. John the Baptist and The Head of St. Paul, both decapitated. Above the same friezes are the pictures of the St. Raphael the Archangel, patron of the city, and St. Michael the Archangel, both paintings reaching the limits of the upper part of the altarpiece, capped with the previously discussed attic.

The entire altarpiece of the Carmen in Córdoba, without a doubt, is one of the monumental works of art; it is, in a way, a lesson in Elian-Marian spirituality, the base and foundation of the spirituality of the sons and daughters of Carmel. Its message is clear and evident.