The Conversion of the Duke of Gandía - José Moreno Carbonero, 1884
The work represents the conversion of San Francisco de Borja (1510-1572), Marquis of Lombay and later IV Duke of Gandía, after contemplating the rotten corpse of Empress Isabel of Portugal, wife of Emperor Carlos I of Spain. The empress died in Toledo on May 1, 1539, and her body was transferred to Granada, the city where the scene represented in the painting took place. When the duke contemplated that the corpse of the empress, whose beauty had captivated the entire Castilian Court, had decomposed due to the heat of the trip, the nobleman decided to "Never again, never again serve a lord that I may die".
Entering a few years later in the Order of the Jesuits, founded a few years ago by Saint Ignatius of Loyola and of which he would become general.
José Moreno Carbonero / Public domain
