Founded in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella in the town of Santa Fe, the monastery was subsequently moved to an area of Arab orchards in Granada called Dar Aben Murdi. It became a focal point for the city's urban development after the Christian conquest when Emperor Charles V granted the High Chapel of the church to the Duchess of Sessa, the wife of the Great Captain Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, as a family mausoleum in exchange for financing the building work. The duchess and her entourage of friends and relatives established their residences near the monastery, forming the new district of La Duquesa. This was to prove crucial in the evolution of the construction project, initially begun in the Gothic style, towards the Renaissance model with which it was concluded in 1543. The church, designed on a basilica plan by Jacobo Florentino and Diego de Siloé, has a richly ornamented interior. Especially outstanding are the High Chapel, with its magnificent Romanist altarpiece, and the choir stalls. On the exterior, the octagonal chancel with its heavy buttresses is decorated with reliefs alluding to the exploits of the legendary warrior. The monastery's two cloisters combine Mudejar and Gothic decorative elements with others in the Roman style. The larger of them contains portals leading into seven funerary chapels for great Granadine families, whose decorative programme was completed by Siloé, one of the foremost artists of the Spanish Renaissance.