Description
Former City Hall headquarters, it is a magnificent example of Renaissance civil architecture. In the gallery on the upper floor there are two niches, one with the image of San Miguel Arcángel, patron saint of the city, and another of San Juan de la Cruz. Today it houses the “María de Molina” Conservatory of Music.In this place, the return of San Juan de la Cruz's body to Úbeda was unsuccessfully managed. His mortal remains were stealthily stolen two years after his death, during midnight, before the city noticed the theft and he was taken to Segovia. Although the furtive operation was observed by a neighbor on the street, the bricklayer Salvador Quesada, who, out of fear or for any other reason, did not give notice until the next day. It is also interesting to know that Cervantes lived for a time in Úbeda, so he must have known the news, since he later immortalized it in chapter XIX of the first part of Don Quixote, where the famous hidalgo engages in one of his adventures against “up to twenty encamisados”, who carry a coffin to Segovia, although they indicate that they come from Úbeda. In any case, the city of Úbeda did not resign itself to the plunder and filed a lawsuit with Segovia. From the old town hall houses, in February 1596, the request for the return of the venerated body of the Saint to Pope Clement VIII was approved, who issued his Apostolic Brief “Expositum nobis fuit” in which he recognized the rights of Úbeda and ordered the restitution of the body to where it was first buried. As is known, Segovia did not provide the body and Úbeda, after the long and noisy lawsuit, in 1607 managed to recover part of the relics of the Carmelite reformer, a finger and a tibia, which were found in the Museo de San Juan de la Cruz.
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