Iglesia de la Concepción

You will find the Iglesia de la Concepción on Calle Nueva, in the historic centre of Málaga. This Catholic church dates to 1710 and occupies the site of an older hermitage. A convent and a school once completed the complex around it.

The building keeps a box-shaped plan, and an elliptical dome rises above the altar. Frescoes fill the dome's spandrels, and they are attributed to Diego de la Cerda, a Málaga painter of the first half of the eighteenth century. Outside, the stone façade pairs a semicircular arch with Tuscan columns. Above it, a split pediment crowned with pyramids and spheres frames a niche that holds an image of the Immaculate Conception. Antonio Ramos drew the original main altar, and a classical altarpiece has since taken its place. The replacement keeps the proportions of his design.

Two brotherhoods, Vera Cruz and Ánimas de Ciegos, made their home here in the church's early days. In 1891 they merged with the Cristo de Ánimas de Ciego, now based at San Juan Bautista within the Reales Cofradías Fusionadas. Today the church serves as the chapel of the Colegio Sagrado Corazón Las Esclavas. That school still stands a few metres away, on Calle Liborio García.