El retablo de San Ignacio de Loyola en la iglesia del hospital de Antezana en Alcalá de Henares, de Diego González de Vega, y algunas noticias sobre el artista (1669)

Abstract

On 18 October 1483, and as a testamentary wish, Juan de Antezana and his wife, Isabel de Guzmán, founded a hospital in Alcalá de Henares to provide free care to the sick without resources. To do so, they conceded their own houses, located on the main street of the town, where the hospital still  stands. The future Saint Ignatius of Loyola resided at the hospital between 1526 and 1527, taking care of the sick people there. However, his time in  Alcalá de Henares was not easy, as he was pursued by the Spanish Inquisition and even imprisoned. In 1527, the Jesuit saint left Alcalá de Henares to move  to Salamanca and Paris. In 1622, Pope Gregory XV canonised Ignatius of Loyola, along with Philip Neri, Teresa of Ávila and Isidore the Farmer. In the mid-seventeenth century, and to commemorate the canonisation, the directors  of the Antezana Hospital decided to convert the room that the saint occupied during his stay into a chapel in his honour, commissioning an  elegant gilded wooden altarpiece, in the middle of which Diego González de Vega made a  magnificent portrait of the saint in 1669