First built during the 1300s under the reign of King Pedro I by his advisor Shmuel Ha-Levi (hence the synagogue's other name, Shmuel ha-Levi Synagogue), the Sinagoga del Transito was once the grandest of all the synagogues in Castile. It was constructed in the Mudejar style, which fused Christian, Islamic, and Jewish art. Hebrew and Arabic inscriptions are included throughout the temple. In 1360, Shmuel was tortured to death by his employer, who took control of the synagogue but continued to allow worship. After the Alhambra Decree was issued by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492, the Jewish population of Spain was exiled and the synagogue was converted into a church and later, military barracks- then it spent more time as a church in the 18th century under the name San Benito, or 'El Tránsito' (because the painting El Tránsito de la Virgen, The Death of the Virgin by Juan Correa de Vivar hung on its walls) until it until the interior was converted into the National Museum of Hispano-Jewish Art in the 1970s, which focuses on Spain's Sephardic legacy.