The Ermita de San Pelayo y San Isidoro (English: Hermitage of Saint Pelagius and Saint Isidore) is a ruined Romanesque church, originally in the city of Ávila, Spain. It was built outside the city walls, in front to the Gate of Malaventura in the south side of the Walls. In Ávila, there remains an area known as the Atrium of San Isidro. After the Spanish confiscation, it was moved to Madrid, where it had different locations. Its remains finally found accommodation in the Buen Retiro Park in central Madrid.[1]
Its first patronage was to the Córdoban child martyr, Pelagius, and thus is cited in a document of the year 1250, in which it says that the church was exempt of tax. Moreover, there is a text of consecration carved on a tombstone dated to the year 1270.Historians who have studied this tombstone assume that this might refer to a second consecration of the church, when the dedication of Saint Pelagius was changed to Saint Isidore. After this, there have not come to light more documents that would inform the development and evolution of the small temple until 19th century, thanks to the book of the Cofraternity of San Isidro which was discovered in the sacristy of the church of San Nicolás in Ávila.
Also is cited that before the patronage that this hermitage had inside the Saint Isidore's saint's relics before being transferred to León in 1062.
Also are known through the documents of the Archives of Ávila, the Academy of Fine Arts and the General Archive of the Administration of Alcalá de Henares, the circumstances of its transfer to Madrid after the Spanish Confiscation.
The hermitage was made in rectangular ashlars of limestone. It was a temple of unique nave with wood cover. The head was semicircular with semi-dome, and straight section with barrel vault in turn divided into two parts. Both the architectural structure of the head as the decorative motifs that can be seen in the drawings of Van den Wyngaerde, Repullés and Francisco Aznar link this building with San Vicente, San Pedro and San Andrés of Ávila, so the date of construction can approach that of those temples, the mid-12th century.
In the unique nave it opened two doors, one to south and one to the west (puerta de los pies); still the remains of one of the two in which it can see the three midpoint archivolts that support in the abacuses united to impost. Although almost not noted, this impost is carved with roses of four petals inscribed in circles. The same rosettes formed the decoration carved of the archivolts; yet it can guess its trace. The capitals had a zoomorphic and vegetal decoration. Despite the deterioration it can still see the acanthus leaves.
In the apse it opened three semicircular windows with archivolt and chambrana. Remain two as witness and in its it can distinguish the deep flare ending in narrow arrowslit. The archivolts rest on abacuses and capitals that were decorated with leaves and birds with the beak between the legs, like those that can be seen in the Iglesia de San Andrés of Ávila. According to the preserved drawings, in the straight section had blind arches of a single arch whose capitals were decorated with plant motifs, lions and birds. The study of this decoration has suggested in the workshops that carved San Pedro and San Vicente and the covers of San Andrés.