[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, SANTIAGO]
The work began in good earnest in the year 1501, and the building was ready to receive the first inmates within ten years from that date. At the time of its completion the _Hospital Real_ was the finest establishment of its kind in the world, and it is still regarded as an important example of the Renaissance style of architecture.
Molina, writing in 1550, said, “I believe that the hospital is so well known in every part of the world, that all I can say about it will be readily credited. In the three large wards there are few days when there are less than two hundred sick people, especially in Jubilee years, and every patient is treated with as much care as if the hospital had only been erected for his particular benefit. This hospital is one of the great things of the earth. Apart from its sumptuousness and the regal grandeur of its architecture, it is a marvellous thing to feel its size, the multitude of its officials, their diligence, the zeal of the attendants, the cleanliness of the linen, the care taken about the cooking, the perfect order of the routine ... the assiduity of the doctors--in short, one may with reason regard it as a crowning glory of Christendom.”
The _Hospital Real_ is, after the cathedral, the most interesting edifice in Santiago. Its front forms the northern side of the chief square of the town, the _Plaza de Alfonso XII_. The iconographic decoration of its principal entrance at once attracts the eye of every stranger who enters the square. Between the rectangular window and the two rows of statues over the entrance are inscribed the following words: “_Magnus Fernandus et grandis Helisabeth: peregrinis: divi Jacobi construi: jussere: anno salutis: M: D: I: opus: inchoaturn: decennio: absolutum_.” This entrance is an example of the most perfect style of the Renaissance in Spain. In the triangles formed by the principal arch are the busts, in bas-relief, of Ferdinand and Isabella, and in two straight rows above the arch are the twelve apostles, each distinguishable by his dress and other characteristic traits. On either side of the window above them are nude statues of Adam and Eve, with St. Catherine and St. John the Baptist to the left, and St. Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and Salomé, the mother of St. James the Greater, to the right. In the tympanum of the window are the arms of the hospital--the cross beneath a crown, and with a lion on either side. The other statues represent the Virgin and Child, St. John and St. Paul in the niches to the left, and Christ, St. James in pilgrim garb, and St. Peter to the right. Six winged angels hover above with various musical instruments. Two eagles, resting on the graceful Ionic columns on either side of the window, support the escutcheon with their claws. The four pillars which adorn this entrance and the multitude of little statues all blend together with such exquisite proportion that the effect is extremely beautiful, even at a considerable distance. In the wall on either side are the arms of Castille and the Imperial Eagles, which carry our thoughts back to the days of Greater Spain.