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The tower of the cathedral still bears the title of Almudena, a reminder of the muédhdhin who once summoned Muslims to prayer from its summit. Here, too, are sundry remnants of Moorish masonry, and some ancient matmôrahs.
No foundations are of course at hand for such fabulous inventions, and if the effigy really were found in the almudena, it must have been placed there by the Moors themselves, who most likely had taken it as their booty when sacking a church or convent to the north. The patron saint of Madrid is one Isidro, not to be confounded with San Isidoro of Leon.
"Tell me where she is, Pepe. Take me. I want to see her." He implored with the eagerness of remorse; he wanted to see her once, as soon as possible, like a sinner who fears death and cries for absolution. Cotoner acceded to this immediate trip. She was in the Almudena cemetery, which had been closed for some time. Only those who had long standing titles to a lot went there now.
On the slopes of the last hill, descending to the Manzanares, and beside the present royal palace, the Christian conquerors of the Arab fortress in the twelfth century discovered an effigy of the Virgin, in an almudena or storehouse.
With his eyes narrowed to a slit he could make out the arches of the Almudena church just above a wall; beyond rose the Royal Palace, a glittering white, the sandy clearings of the Principe Pio with its long red barracks, and the row of houses on the Paseo de Rosales, their panes aglow with the sunlight.
This new building, the cathedral properly speaking, is to be a tenth wonder; it is to be constructed in granite, and its foundations stand beside the royal palace in the very spot where the Virgin de la Almudena was found, and where, until 1869, a church enclosed the sacred effigy; the new building is to be dedicated to the same deity.
Being a farmer, his voice called forth water from the parched land, and angels helped his oxen to plough the fields. Save the effigy of the Virgin de la Almudena, and the life of San Isidro, Madrid has no ecclesiastical history, the Virgin de la Atocha has been forgotten, but she is only a duplicate of her sister virgin.
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