Convento de Santa Clara de la Columna

In 1476 Elvira de Zúñiga founded the building as a monastery for men. After she died in 1483 her daughters Leonor and Isabel turned it into a female convent.

It is one of the main convents in the province of Córdoba, and fortunately it has remained almost intact over the centuries, keeping its old Catholic-Monarch Gothic buildings.

The convent is very large and has many patios and rooms with a complex distribution. The church is inside the building, with one single nave and ribbed vaults, and a star vault in the presbytery, where there are mutilated stone statues of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Saint Clare. These statues are important works of art in the Hispanic-Flemish sculpture in Córdoba.

The cloister is as important as the church, with two floors with open-plan galleries. The ground floor has basket-handle arches and the second one has jack arches on bases, with beautiful and exquisite Gothic parapets. Above these galleries there is a flat coffered ceiling, which is worth seeing because of its magnificent ornamental bows and painted decoration. The refectory and the staircase also have interesting coffering.