Anunciación church

On 4 October 1582 he died, in the convent of "La Anunciación de Ntra. Sra. del Carmen" by Alba de Tormes which she had founded in 1571, Saint Teresa of Jesus.

In his convent Albense will spend his last intense 15 days of life. Called to accompany the young Duchess in the birth of her child, she arrived at sunset on 20 September (the day before the Duchess had given birth) and had to go to bed immediately. On October 4, she died as the clock struck nine bells (year after year, her daughters remember the anniversary by giving those nine bells every October 9). His body was deposited in the temple, and the next day, which was already 15 October by the implementation of the Gregorian reform of the calendar, his funeral was held at 10 in the morning in the newly concluded church, to which those who attended the day before the christening of the new offspring of the Dukes went, which prolonged Teresa’s fame for holiness (in 1614 she was beatified and in 1622 canonized). In the last century, in 1922 she was named Doctor Honoris causa by the University of Salamanca and in 1970 Doctor of the Universal Church. 

In Alba her body has been until today, except for the short period that she was in Ávila: from November 25, 1585 to August 23, 1586. With that, this eighth foundation became a fundamental Teresian landmark in which Teresa is especially present. 

The founders were Francisco Vázquez and Teresa de Laíz, a woman of character who, having no children, pushed the accountant and his own family to found this convent. An Albense tradition places Teresa in Alba in January 1571, overseeing the conventual works.

The temple consists of two clearly differentiated parts:

• The primitive, made between 1571 and 1582, reaches the pulpit and includes nave and previous main chapel.
• Sacristy, transept, dome and presbytery, with their corresponding altarpieces, product of a baroque extension made between 1670 and 1680, called the Royal Work

The facade of the church has a large semicircular door. At the top, the medallions of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The upper body is divided into two floors. The first is a relief of the Annunciation, with an urban landscape in the background. With year 1570 that does not fit with the known of the Foundation and that will be later, an eardrum was arranged with the figure of God the Father among clouds. It finishes the cross on the feigned parchment with the foundation poster, between figures lying on rollers and others standing at the ends. 

The original church, built from 1571 to 1576, had exclusively the first rectangular section of the current church, the nave with a wooden roof, and a main chapel. 

Inside there are two coats of arms of the patrons of the convent. As the burial of the Velázquez/Laíz. In front of the entrance and under the choir of the organ, there is the tomb that houses Juan de Ovalle Godínez (†1596), his wife Juana de Ahumada, sister of Saint Teresa, (†1587) and the son of both Gonzalo de Ovalle (†1585).

At the center of the high altar is the tomb of Saint Teresa, along with her relics: the arm and the heart.