The Hospital de Tavera is an important Building of Renaissance style in Toledo. It was built between 1541 and 1603 by order of the Cardinal Tavera. This hospital is dedicated to John the Baptist and also served as pantheon for its patron, Cardinal Tavera. Initially it began to be constructed under the supervision of Alonso de Covarrubias, being succeeded by other architects and finishing the work Bartolomé Bustamante.
Currently the building remains the property of the House of Medinaceli and inside it is the Museo Fundación Lerma, which houses part of the artistic collections of this lineage, as well as the Section of the Nobility of the National Historic Archive.
The appearance of the building is that of a Florencian Renaissance palace, except for the portal, that was constructed in the 18th century, between the years 1760 and 1762. It is a regular building with an Italian-style façade, with equidistant and rectangular windows on the lower floor and semicircular on the upper, being the opposite of the extreme. The ensemble is joined by two columned twinned courtyards, separated and joined together by a double arcade that crosses them towards the church.
In the museum there is a large archive of documents and numerous works of art of great value are preserved: paintings by El Greco, Ribera, Tintoretto, Luca Giordano , Titian, Snyders and Jacopo Bassano, among others. One of the few portraits painted by Zurbarán, and a copy of Tiziano's Equestrian Portrait of Charles V, painted by Sánchez Coello. Equally exceptional is the sculpture of the Resurrected Christ, by El Greco. In addition, it lodges in its dependencies the building of the old pharmacy of the hospital and the Section of the Nobility of the National Historic Archive.
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