Los Laureles

Ruins of the Convent of Santo Domingo

Located outside the walls of the town, the foundation of the Convent of Santo Domingo or of the Dominics dates from 1371. It was sent to be build by Don Hernando Alvarez de Toledo and his wife Doña Leonor de Ayala, second Lords Valdecorneja, with the previous permission from Pope Gregoio XI. Among the main benefactors of the convent stands out the son of the founder, Don García Álvarez de Toledo and his wife Doña Constanza Sarmiento stands, all of them buried at his death in the main chapel of the convent where even today we can see a memorial headstone on the floor.

Due to the influence and power of its founders everything point out to the fact that the construction of the original convent was top quality, in fact, once it was completed, it was considered one of the largest in the province and it is known that in it liberal arts and theology studies were taught (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry...). Among the friars who lived in this building stands out Fray Gaspar Fandiño who gathered in the eighteenth century, four books of Piedrahita containing the genealogy of the Lords Valdecorneja and an extract of the Ancient Ordinances of the Village.

It is known that in 1657 the monastery suffered a terrible fire and although it was quickly rebuilt it was not possible to restore the studies that were taught there until 1671. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Convent of Santo Domingo suffers from the French invasion and the subsequent Independence War: Napoleon's troops expelled the monks and razed art objects and the monastic dependences however, it overcame to these facts and in 1816 its re-building began. Finally his monastic life ends in 1842 when its confiscation occurred. From that moment began its use as a municipal cemetery, where one can find the remains, among others, of Joseph Somoza.

• LUNAS ALMEIDA, Jesús, "Historia del Señorío de Valdecorneja en la parte referente a Piedrahíta", Ávila, 1930.

• MORENO BLANCO, Raimundo, "Libro Fandiño: Libro Nuevo de Becerro de la Villa de Piedrahíta", Ayuntamiento de Piedrahíta, Madrid, 2005.

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