San Juan de la Cruz, the greatest exponent of Spanish mystical literature, arrived at the Carmelite Convent of San Miguel in 1591 to try to recover, according to his words, “from some hot flashes” that ended his life on a cold early morning in December of that same year.

One night, two years later, his body was secretly transferred to Segovia. This fact inspired Cervantes, who was living at that time as a tax collector in Úbeda, in the passage “adventure of the dead body” in chapter XIX of the first part of Don Quixote.

Faced with fierce protests from the town of Úbeda, litigation began for the custody of the remains of San Juan, which was not settled until 1607, with the return to Úbeda of part of the body.

To house the tomb of the saint, an oratory, or prayer room, attached to the convent was built in 1627, which became the first temple in the world built in his honor.
The convent also houses an interesting museum where you can see objects related to the life and work of the author of ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, such as the two manuscripts on the saint’s beatification and canonization processes, begun in this same town beginning of the 17th century.

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