Hospital de San Pablo y San Lázaro

The Mindonian hospital tradition goes back to ancient times and in addition to a hospital for lepers, in 1275 the first news about a "alberguería" (Hospital de San Pablo), a hospital for pilgrims and a residence for the elderly and sick located in the Plaza de la Catedral, is documented. Located towards the street "da Rigueira" and the river Sixto. Today this construction has disappeared. In the eighteenth century, Bishop Sarmiento de Sotomayor intended to build a new hospital that would meet the appropriate conditions to perform its function. He managed to merge the old hospitals into a new building that would bear the names of San Pablo and San Lázaro, as he managed to get the aldermen of Mondoñedo to cede the patronage and administration of both in 1750. The hospital was built between 1750 and 1775 in the upper part of the city, in the Alameda de los Remedios, next to the jail that had been built earlier and that today is no longer standing, as the P.A.C. was built in its place. This building has a square floor plan with a baroque façade and a central patriotic façade. On the main façade it has the coat of arms of Bishop Sarmiento and Mondoñedo, forming a singular ensemble. In the interior it has a chapel that houses a baroque altarpiece of two bodies of the XVIII century with a Christ of epoch.