14^th-18^th Centuries

During the 14^th century, the Vega Baja acquired a new role when the Mesta farmers’ association turned it into a resting place for animals being driven and a control point in the network of livestock routes. The city council itself purchased various properties to set up a cooperative scheme giving pasturage for the animals that would supply the needs of the city’s population. At the start of the 16^th century, the St Francis Minim convent was founded on the site of the former chapel of St Bartholomew. (Architects involved in the new construction included Alonso de Covarrubias, Nicolás Vergara el Mozo, Juan Bautista Monegro and Bartolomé Zúmbigo.) In 1515 the St Susanna convent was built near the Casa de la Monja, the centre of a district that was later abandoned in the 18^th century.

At the left hand side of Palomeque’s map is drawn the chapel of the Cristo de la Vega, since destroyed by French troops. It shows a single nave and a high façade crowned by a belfry, with a small construction at the far end and another large one at the side with a large courtyard enclosed at its back edge. Next to the chapel and basilica of the Cristo de la Vega is the chapel of St Ildephonsus, and a small cemetery behind that.

Towards the end of the 18^th century, and with the arrival of Charles III’s enlightened government, the Royal Factories scheme provided the impetus for the development of an industrial complex in Toledo. Not only was this important to the city at the time but it would be of singular value in the later shaping of Toledo as an industrial city. Sabatini designed and built the first building of the Arms Factory complex. Over the 19^th and 20^th centuries, a cluster of buildings typical of the period gradually developed. Excellent examples of Spanish industrial architecture and today restored, they make up the technology campus of the University of Castile-La Mancha.