This 16th-century monastery suffered grievously from an earthquake and Napoleonic sacking in the early 19th century. The main point of interest is the roofless Capilla de Benavides at the northeast end of its church – one of Andrés de Vandelvira’s masterpieces, built in the 1540s as the funerary chapel of Baeza's powerful Benavides family. An arrangement of curved girders, erected during a semirestoration in the 1980s, traces the outline of the chapel's majestic dome.
Some fine Renaissance carvings remain in the open space beneath the frame of girders. You can look into the chapel through the gate on Pasaje San Francisco even when the monastery is closed.
