Abadía del Sacromonte

The lead books and their aftermath

Between 1588 and 1599, a series of discoveries were made on the hill of Sacromonte that appeared to confirm Granada as a city of foundational Christian importance. First, the Torre Turpiana (a demolished mosque minaret) yielded a casket containing a painted cloth of the Virgin Mary, a feather from the archangel Gabriel, a bone, and a parchment written in Latin, Arabic, and Castilian. Then the caves in Sacromonte yielded leaden discs — the Plomos — inscribed with text in Arabic and a mysterious proto-Arabic script, describing the martyrdom of the apostle Saint Cecilio and his companions in Roman Granada.

The Archbishop of Granada, Pedro de Castro, embraced them immediately. Sacromonte was designated a sacred site. The Real Abadía was founded in 1601 to protect and venerate the relics. Pilgrims came. A collegiate church was built over the cave where Saint Cecilio had supposedly been martyred.

Rome was unconvinced. After decades of theological debate, Pope Innocent XI declared the lead books apocryphal in 1682. The physical discs were confiscated and taken to the Vatican, where they remained until 2000 (they are now in the Capilla Real in Granada, still not on public display).

Modern scholarship has identified the Plomos as almost certainly the work of Morisco intellectuals — the Christianised Muslim population of Granada — who wanted to create a theological bridge between Islam and Christianity in the post-Reconquista city. The texts mixed Islamic ideas about Jesus with Christian doctrine, described Arabic as a holy language used by the apostles, and positioned Granada as a site of shared Abrahamic heritage. It was a sophisticated attempt to find a place for the Moorish community in a city that was rapidly expelling them. The expulsion of the Moriscos came in 1609, ten years after the last lead book was found.

The underground catacombs

The catacombs are the most atmospheric part of the Abadía visit. The guided tour descends into the cave system beneath the church, passing through a series of chambers where the relics were supposedly found. The rock is bare limestone — warm-coloured and uneven — and the chambers are lit by low artificial light that emphasises the geological reality of the space.

The key chamber is the Cueva del Santo Sepulcro, the supposed site of Saint Cecilio's martyrdom. A replica of the lead books is displayed here, along with the kinds of objects that would have been present during the 16th-century discoveries. Whether you accept the martyrdom story or the forgery interpretation, the space itself has an undeniable weight.

The catacombs are entirely underground and accessed only through the guided tour. Photography is permitted. The temperature is noticeably cooler than the exterior — a genuine relief in summer.

The museum collection

The abbey museum occupies rooms around the cloister and includes material accumulated over four centuries of institutional life. Highlights include:

• Flemish paintings: several 16th and 17th-century works, mostly religious subjects, acquired during the period of Spanish Habsburg control of the Low Countries
• Granada silver: a collection of liturgical silverwork from the Granada workshops that dominated Iberian sacred metalwork in the 17th century
• A Goya painting: specifically a portrait of the Canon Felipe de Guevara, the only Goya in any Granada institution — the artist himself had no direct connection to the city, making its presence here an accident of patronage rather than a geographical link
• The ethnographic collection: tools, objects, and documentation relating to Sacromonte's Romani community and their way of life in the cave houses — an element that distinguishes this from a standard ecclesiastical museum
• Replicas of the lead books: displayed in context, with explanatory material about their discovery, reception, and eventual condemnation

Full visiting details — hours, admission prices, transport options, and insider tips — are on the Abadía del Sacromonte museum page.

Flamenco and the abbey

The connection between the Abadía del Sacromonte and the flamenco tradition of the neighbourhood below it is not immediately obvious from the outside. A Baroque Catholic institution and the cave-house culture of the Romani community seem at first glance to occupy separate worlds.

The link is historical. When the abbey designated Sacromonte as a sacred site in the early 17th century, it effectively sanctioned the neighbourhood's existence. The Romani population who settled in the cave houses — already present before the abbey's foundation — gained a kind of institutional legitimacy through proximity to the sacred. The neighbourhood developed its distinctive character in part because the abbey's status protected it from the clearances that eliminated other marginal communities from the city.

The Escuela de Arte Flamenco operates today within the abbey complex, continuing this institutional relationship. The school trains performers in the zambra style — the distinctively Granada form of flamenco that developed specifically in the Sacromonte caves. For visitors interested in the deeper history of the flamenco tradition rather than just seeing a show, the abbey provides context that the cave venues themselves don't offer.

The Granada flamenco guide covers the Sacromonte performance scene, the zambra style, and how to book shows in the cave venues below the abbey.

Planning your visit

Frequently asked questions