Calle de la Paz

Sol

The name derives from the image of the Virgin of Peace that presided over the chapel of the Hospital de San Ricardo, a home for consumptives at the corner of this street with the one now named after the saint. Elisabeth of Valois, third wife of Philip II and popularly called “Isabel de la Paz” after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) that arranged her marriage, donated the image to the hospital, which became the Hospital de la Paz; the street took the same dedication.

The peace that names this Madrid street came not from a signed truce but from a ward of the sick. Calle de la Paz runs from the plaza del Marqués Viudo de Pontejos to calle de San Ricardo, behind the Royal Post House. The Hospital de San Ricardo, one of the oldest in the town, cared for consumptives. When Elisabeth of Valois donated an image of the Virgin, it became the Hospital de la Paz, and the name passed to the street, which already appears thus on Texeira’s 1656 map. Its grandest site held the Royal Printing House, and in its place the Teatro Albéniz opened in 1945. From the nineteenth century the stretch filled with religious goods shops, such as the veteran Santarrufina; at number 8 Guitarras Ramírez still stands, the oldest Spanish guitar house in existence.

Its names

  • Hospital de San Ricardo / calle sin nombre fijoSiglos 12th–16th
  • Hospital de la Paz / calle de la Paz (uso en formación)Segunda mitad del 16th century
  • Calle de la PazSiglo 17th – actualidad
Sources (8)

Crossings