The overlooked corners inside

• Velázquez Gate

  Facing the museum's west side, flanked by a bronze statue, this is the Prado's main entrance and its enduring symbol. The Velázquez statue was cast by Aniceto Marinas in 1899; above the doorway a carved frieze shows Ferdinand VII — patron of the arts and sciences — surrounded by Athena, Apollo, and other figures from antiquity. The gate is named for Diego Velázquez, the seventeenth-century Sevillian painter and court artist to Philip IV, whose works — Las Meninas, The Spinners, and a long series of royal portraits — are now among the Prado's centerpieces.

  Sources: es.wikipedia.org

• Real Iglesia de San Jerónimo el Real

  Pressed up against the Prado's newer wing, this Gothic church — known informally as Los Jerónimos — was once one of Madrid's most important monasteries, run by the Order of Saint Jerome (Orden de San Jerónimo). Its history is tightly bound to the Spanish Crown: royal funerals, the swearing-in of heirs, weddings, and accession ceremonies were regularly held here, most recently the enthronement of King Juan Carlos I. Of the original monastery, only the church and one Renaissance cloister survive today, the latter designed by the friar Lorenzo de San Nicolás following the Escorial style.

  Sources: es.wikipedia.org

• Italian Painting Galleries

  The Italian galleries bring together the Prado's Italian holdings from the early Renaissance through eighteenth-century Baroque. Fra Angelico's Annunciation, Antonello da Messina's Dead Christ Supported by an Angel, and Sandro Botticelli's three-panel Story of Nastagio degli Onesti are all here. Rafael's Cardinal, The Holy Family with a Lamb, and La Madonna del Pez (The Madonna of the Fish), along with Titian's Emperor Charles V on Horseback, The Bacchanal of the Andrians, Danaë, Venus and Adonis, and his self-portrait, form the heart of the collection.

  Sources: ca.wikipedia.org

• Flemish Painting Galleries

  The Flemish galleries are among the Prado's most celebrated, with a concentration of works that few museums anywhere can match. Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Adoration of the Magi, The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, and The Hay Wain are all gathered here; Joachim Patinir's The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Saint Jerome in a Rocky Landscape, and Charon Crossing the Styx, along with Rogier van der Weyden's The Descent from the Cross and Madonna and Child, represent the essentials of early Flemish painting. The Prado holds roughly eighty works by Peter Paul Rubens — including The Garden of Love, The Village Dance, The Three Graces, The Duke of Lerma on Horseback, The Last Judgement (The Judgement of Paris), and The Adoration of the Magi — making it one of the world's largest Rubens collections.

  Sources: ca.wikipedia.org

• French Painting Galleries

  Smaller than the Italian or Flemish sections, the French galleries nonetheless hold several outstanding works. Nicolas Poussin's Parnassus and David's Victory, and Claude Lorrain's Saint Paula Embarking at Ostia and Landscape with the Finding of Moses, are the two pillars of the collection. Georges de La Tour's Blind Man Playing the Hurdy-Gurdy and Saint Jerome Reading, along with Simon Vouet's Time Overcome by Hope, Love, and Beauty, round out a varied picture of seventeenth-century French painting.

  Sources: ca.wikipedia.org

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