Calle de la Paloma

La Latina·Palacio

The name comes from the pens that the nuns of the convent of San Juan de la Penitencia in Alcalá de Henares kept near the Puerta de Toledo, where they raised a dove. On 1 February 1627, during the processional transfer of the image of Our Lady of Las Maravillas toward the church on Calle de la Palma, the dove (paloma) took flight from the pens and accompanied the image the whole way. The nuns recognised it as theirs; the bird never returned and named those pens “de la Paloma”. The street opened on that site inherited the place name.

A dove gave its name to this short, narrow street in the Palacio quarter, in Habsburg Madrid. Calle de la Paloma runs between calle de Calatrava and calle de Toledo, closed off to the south by the church of San Pedro el Real, which everyone calls the church of La Paloma. The site belonged to the convent of San Juan de la Penitencia, whose nuns leased pens with a dovecote here. It is said that one of those doves flew alongside the image of the Virgin of Las Maravillas on 1 February 1627 and never came back; the pens it abandoned began to be called “de la Paloma”, and the street inherited the name. The street rose to national fame on 17 February 1894, when the Teatro Apolo premiered the lyric farce La verbena de la Paloma, with music by Tomás Bretón, one of the truest portraits of working-class Madrid. The festival, every 15 August, is still the quarter’s great fiesta.

Its names

  • Calle de la Soledad / Calle de la Virgen de la Soledaddocumentado from 1565
  • Corrales de la Palomafrom 1627
  • Calle de la Paloma / Calle de la Virgen de la Paloma17th century en adelante
  • Calle de la Palomanombre oficial vigente
Sources (10)

Crossings