The Burial of the Count of Orgaz: the miracle El Greco painted

What miracle did El Greco paint?

The story, as it was told: Don Gonzalo had funded the enlargement of the church of Santo Tomé. At his death, as the clergy prepared to bury him, the two saints appeared, and it was they who laid the body to rest. A later version adds a voice from heaven explaining that this is the reward for those who serve God and his saints.

When did it happen? The sources can't even agree on the year he died. The inscription in the chapel, as Sisto Ramón Parro transcribed it in 1857, says 1312; the chronicler Francisco de Pisa says 1323; elsewhere, Parro himself gives 1327. The parish website places the miracle at the moving of the body, in 1327. For a wonder that everyone knew about, that's a lot of dates.

What we can date is the story. In 1584 the parish priest of Santo Tomé, Andrés Núñez, described it in writing as something "well known in this city" and asked for sworn statements from witnesses. He put the event at roughly two and a half centuries earlier. Its written trail goes back much further than that of other Toledo church legends, such as the Cristo de la Luz, which we haven't found in writing before 1845.

Who was the Count of Orgaz?

First surprise: he wasn't a count. Don Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo was lord of Orgaz; it was his descendants who became counts. Calling him "count" is a popular habit that Parro was already pointing out in 1857, and the painting's title has made it unbeatable.

According to the inscription, he was chief notary of Castile, gave gold and silver to the church and, besides paying for the building work, left the parish a yearly rent charged to the people of Orgaz: two sheep, sixteen hens, two skins of wine, two loads of firewood and eight hundred maravedís.

Why was it painted? The lawsuit over the hens

This is where the story comes down to earth. Around 1564, Parro tells us, the town council of Orgaz stopped paying. The inscription doesn't mince its words: the villagers, it says, were counting on the years to bury the parish's claim. The priest, Andrés Núñez, took them to court, and the Chancery of Valladolid ordered them to keep paying (in 1569 or 1570, depending on the source). Parro notes that Orgaz went on paying until a few years before he was writing.

The stone, black with gold lettering, is set beneath the painting, and its Latin text is attributed to Álvar Gómez de Castro. It opens by buttonholing whoever passes: "Though you're in a hurry, stop a moment, traveller." After the miracle, it warns the reader that what follows is "the inconstancy of mortals". An epitaph that doubles as a final demand.

According to Manuel Bartolomé Cossío, it was Núñez, fresh from winning that case, who commissioned first the inscription and then the painting. The archbishop's licence of October 1584 tied him to that memory: the miracle was to be painted "with decency", without going beyond what "the old inscription" in the chapel said, and that's almost certainly this very stone.

When was it commissioned, and what did the contract ask for?

The contract was signed on 18 March 1586 between El Greco, Father Núñez and the parish steward, Juan López de la Quadra. Read today, it leaves little room for improvisation. It asks for the priest and his clergy in procession; the two saints descending to bury the dead man, Augustine supporting him by the head and Stephen by the feet; a crowd of onlookers ("a great many people watching", in the document's words); and, up above, "an open heaven of glory". Under the canvas, on the wall itself, there was to be a tomb painted in fresco.

The painter would bear all the costs, materials included; he'd get a hundred ducats in advance; he had to finish by Christmas 1586; and valuers would fix the final price. Many old guidebooks, incidentally, dated the work to 1584, taking the date of the licence for the date of the painting.

How much was El Greco paid? The row over the fee

The contract didn't set a price, and that's where the second lawsuit began. The first valuers put the work at 1,200 ducats. The parish thought that was an outrage (it "felt aggrieved", the record says) and demanded a second opinion. The second pair of valuers, far from lowering the figure, raised it to 1,600. The parish kept pressing for something more moderate; El Greco kept pressing for his 1,600, even if it meant seizing the church's goods and revenues.

On 30 May 1588 the archbishop's council ruled that the parish should pay 1,200 ducats within nine days and owed nothing more. El Greco took the matter to the highest authority there was: the Pope. Three weeks later, on 20 June, he settled with the parish, giving up the appeal in exchange for the 1,200.

So he didn't win, whatever you may hear. Francisco de Borja de San Román, who published these documents in 1910, summed it up in one indignant line: El Greco's masterpiece had been regateada, haggled over. San Román searched for the court file and never found it; what we know comes from the settlement both parties signed, which San Román was able to read. Another early source, Cossío, gives 1,400 for the second valuation.

Who's in the painting?

The Toledo historian Francisco de Pisa, a contemporary of the painter, wrote that the Burial portrayed "many distinguished men of our time", very true to life. Putting names to them is another matter. Cossío was sure only of the Covarrubias and of Father Núñez, who thus ended up inside the very picture he'd ordered. And the gentleman gazing out at you from the canvas? People have long wanted him to be El Greco himself; it's no more than a guess.

And then there's the boy dressed as a page. San Román thought he might well be Jorge Manuel, the painter's son, born in 1578. Cossío noted that under the signature, written in Greek, that very year appears. A clue, not proof.

Fact or legend.

• Tradition: that the two saints descended from heaven to bury Don Gonzalo. Documented as a "well known" belief in 1584; the event itself can't be claimed.
• Fact: Don Gonzalo was lord of Orgaz, not a count; the rent he left, charged to Orgaz, went unpaid until a court enforced it.
• Fact: the contract of 18 March 1586 described the scene in advance.
• Fact: El Greco was paid 1,200 ducats after a valuation, a revaluation, a ruling, an appeal and an agreement. He didn't win.
• Guess: that the gentleman gazing out at the viewer is the painter. Hypothesis: that the page is his son.
• Unresolved: the year Don Gonzalo died.

Where to hear it

Podtour tells this story in instalments on El Greco's Life in Toledo. Beside the church, the stop "A miracle under contract" covers the commission; "Stop here, traveller", by the south wall of Santo Tomé, the inscription and the dispute with Orgaz; "The price of a miracle", on Calle de Santo Tomé, the row over the fee; and "The family missing from the will", the page boy and the painter's son. The city's free route is Toledo's Gates and San Juan de los Reyes, and our Toledo guide covers the practical side of your trip.

Further reading

• Francisco de Borja de San Román y Fernández, El Greco en Toledo, ó Nuevas investigaciones acerca de la vida y obras de Dominico Theotocópuli, Madrid, Victoriano Suárez, 1910. https://archive.org/details/elgrecoentoledoo00sanr
• Manuel B. Cossío, El Greco ("Art in Spain" series, Hispanic Society of America), translated by Royall Tyler, Barcelona, c. 1910. https://archive.org/details/elgreco00cossuoft
• Sisto Ramón Parro, Toledo en la mano, vol. II, Toledo, 1857, pp. 238–254. https://archive.org/details/toledoenlamanod02parrgoog
• Francisco de Pisa, Descripción de la imperial ciudad de Toledo, Toledo, 1617. https://archive.org/details/descripciondelai00pisa