Calle de la Encarnación

One of the oldest streets inside the walls of Madrid, older even than the convent that would name it. When Texeira drew his map in 1656, Calle de la Encarnación already governed the northern approach to the monastery and the fortress. Today it runs through the Palacio district, between Calle de la Bola and Plaza de la Marina Española. The convent was born of a promise. Queen Margaret of Austria took a religious vow after the 1609 decree expelling the Moriscos, and summoned four Recollect Augustinian nuns to found it. She died that same October of 1611, a year into the work, without ever seeing the austere Herrerian building. The king poured money into the foundation and had an elevated passage built from the fortress to the monastery, so the royal family could enter the church without setting foot on the street. In 1712 that passage held the Royal Library, seed of today’s National Library, and later housed the Royal Academy of History; it was demolished in 1809 when the Plaza de Oriente was opened. The museum opened in 1965 and holds works by Luca Giordano, Pedro de Mena and Gregorio Fernández, along with seven hundred reliquaries.