Well if you have been reading my blog, for which I thank you; you know my sentimental attachment to Cuenca and many family vacations. I ,also, have, several posts on the city and surrounding areas in Castilla La Mancha autonomous community. However, there was one older post crammed with several churches of great architectural and historical value that I have decided to spin off into individual posts giving them the credit they deserve in my blog. Hope you enjoy each of them as we did!
Walking down Calle Trabuco, you come into the Colegio de los Jesuitas from the 16C (jesuit college), precisely at 30, Calle de San Pedro in Cuenca. The portal of the Jesuit College faces Calle San Pedro street. The Jesuits founded the college in Cuenca in 1554, in a house donated to them by Canon Pedro del Pozo, which was located on Calle de San Pedro. This portal is the last vestige of what was the first Jesuit college in Cuenca. In it, the semicircular arch is shown, between a plastic and linear decoration of a clear Renaissance sign, framed between Ionic pilasters, which rise on very high bases and far exceed the key of the arch. They thus form a space of respectable proportions between it and the cornice; so that, in the Baroque era, a large shield belonging to the order of the Jesuits could be fitted.
The front of the building is the last vestige that is preserved today, of this Jesuit school. The school had its own church known as Church of the Circumcision, of which we know nothing today, it takes its name from the theme represented in the altarpiece and paintings inside, the latter made by Cincinato, a Florentine painter, who worked in the Court of Felipe II. After the expulsion of the Order of the Jesuits from Spanish territory, by the law decreed by Carlos III, the building began to house the Foundation for the Memory of Foundlings of San Julián.
The first news that appears about the founding of the College of Foundlings is from 1664, with the creation of the Memory of Foundlings of “San Julián” of the Cathedral of Cuenca. This pious memory was endowed with farms and rents in towns like Moncalvillo, where orphans between the ages of 8 and 13 were educated. After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the king Carlos III ceded the school to the foundlings, and from that time they were raised and educated in the aforementioned school until approximately 1836, when by order of the Political Government of the Province of Cuenca , they moved to the Casa de Misericordia or Mercy House, losing its ecclesiastical character by remaining under the supervision and control of the Municipal Charity Board of Cuenca.
The current center for the elderly dependent on the Social Services of the province of Cuenca, which began in the summer of 1967, built on the land of the old Casa de Beneficencia or Casa de Misericordia, of which only its façade remained standing, dismantled and set back at No 2 Calle de Colón.
The Ministry of Culture of Spain has more info on the Colegio de Jesuits of Cuenca : http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas20/catalogo/autoridad/19830
There you go folks, a dandy nice Portal of the Colegio Jesuita in in wonderful Cuenca; we love it. There is so much to see in this Unesco World Heritage Site indeed. Hope you enjoy the post as much as I did. And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all!!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 
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