Before the finishing touches had been put to San Juan de los Reyes, the last important Gothic work of Toledo, the erection of one of the two earliest examples of the Renaissance style in Spain had been begun. The hospital of Santa Cruz was built between the years 1494 and 1514 by Enrique de Egas, of Brussels, some ten years after he had completed the college of the same name at Valladolid. The hospital was designed by the founder, the mighty Cardinal Mendoza, as an asylum for foundlings. He died in 1495, and left 75,000 ducats to the queen for the completion of the work. Isabel it was who chose the site overlooking the bridge of Alcantara, where formerly the palace of the legendary King Galafre is fabled to have stood. Among other stories connected with the spot is that of a Leonese princess wedded against her will to a Moorish prince, her union with whom was prevented by the intervention of an angel. As in all the early specimens of Spanish Renaissance architecture, the groundwork of the building approximates to the Gothic, the new ideas manifesting themselves in the decoration and carving. The portal is superb. The reliefs represent the Adoration of the Cross by St. Helena, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the founder, Cardinal Mendoza, two pages also appearing, bearing mitre and helmet. Other reliefs, exquisitely chiselled, have for subjects the espousals of St. Joachim and St. Anne, and Charity. The four cardinal virtues are shown, and everywhere, amidst a maze of ornamentation, occur Mendoza’s arms and device. The plateresque windows, with their rejas in the local style, are deserving of admiration. Entering, we find a vast _patio_, enclosed by a double arcaded gallery of marble, and, crossing it, ascend a grand staircase with a fine ceiling of the _artesonado_ kind. The chapel, in the form of a Maltese cross, has also a fine ceiling, and Gothic pillars, beautifully carved, that attest the splendid appearance once presented by this dismantled building. Some of the columns adorning Santa Cruz were brought from the Visigothic church of Santa Leocadia.