Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, Madrid
The chapel before you is Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, a Neoclassical building celebrated for Francisco Goya’s frescoes and for holding his burial place. Felipe Fontana designed the present chapel for Carlos IV, and its construction ran from 1792 to 1798. Goya completed the painted decoration in 1798, working over six months with his assistant Asensio Juliá.
The dome presents a miracle of Saint Anthony of Padua: a dead man rises, allowing the saint to clear his father’s name after a false accusation. Goya sets this dramatic scene not in medieval Lisbon, but in the Madrid of his own time. That choice brings the sacred story into the world around you.
Goya’s remains arrived here in 1919 from Bordeaux, where he had died in 1828, but the burial had an extraordinary problem: his skull was missing. The response sent from Madrid was to transport Goya regardless. In 1928, a matching chapel was built alongside this one so the original could become a museum, and the remains were moved again.
Every June 13, young unmarried women come here in pilgrimage to pray to Saint Anthony for a partner. The chapel’s painted dome and Goya’s unusual final resting place give this quiet building its remarkable character.
