Monastery of San Jerónimo

A short distance from the town, on the plain of the Tormes River, Alfonso VII founded the Monastery of San Leonardo for the Premonstratensian monks in the 12th century. After abandoning it in the 15th century (1447) at the request of Don Gutierre Álvarez de Toledo—Archbishop of Toledo and lord of the town of Alba de Tormes—it passed to the Jerónimos order.

The monastery was acquired by private individuals during the 19th-century confiscation of church property until 1962, when the religious community of the Congregation of the Heart of Jesus (PP Reparadores) settled there. After a magnificent restoration, it was transformed into a seminary and today houses the Father Ignacio María Belda Museum of Prehistory. The remains of the former monastic complex were declared a historic-artistic monument in 1931.

Today, it also serves as a secondary school and minor seminary.

The layout of the buildings does not follow the standard followed during the Middle Ages in most monasteries: the cloister is shifted to the east and the outbuildings are placed forward of the church chevet, possibly in keeping with the work of the Premonstratensians. The Gothic church, erected in 1472 by Don García Álvarez de Toledo, consists of a single nave, divided into four regular bays with chapels between the buttresses, and a main chapel enclosed by three walls forming a polygonal apse. The exterior presents a severe appearance except for the gable portal.

Linked to the House of Alba, which was in charge of donations and alms, it acted as its protector since 1430 when Don Gutierre ceded the monastery to the Order of the Jerónimos, obtaining, by papal bull, the transfer of the Premonstratensians who occupied it to Ciudad Rodrigo. From that moment on, it would become another center of light and culture for the town, with historical figures such as Hernando de Talavera and Fray Juan de Ortega residing there.

Don Gutierre, Doña María de Pimentel, and her husband, the 2nd Duke Don Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, were buried in the main chapel. The bishop’s remains were moved to the Church of Santiago due to the destruction suffered by the monastery at the hands of French soldiers during the War of Independence.