Calle de las Maldonadas

El Rastro·Embajadores

The name derives from two sisters surnamed Maldonado, Franciscan tertiaries known in the neighborhood for their piety and virtues, credited —⁠together with the venerable Antonia de Cristo⁠— with founding the beaterio of San José on calle de Atocha. The street earlier bore the name of la Pasión, after the Dominican convent of Nuestra Señora de la Pasión that stood between this street and the plazuela de San Millán. The change of name was settled before 1785, the date of Tomás López’s map, which already records the current name.

A street between the plaza de Cascorro and la Cebada, on the edge of the Rastro. Its name was slow to settle: Texeira drew it in 1656 with no label, in 1706 it appears as calle de la Pasión —⁠after the Dominican convent that stood nearby⁠— and only on the 1785 map does it figure as calle de las Maldonadas. Behind the name are two sisters. The Maldonado women were Franciscan tertiaries whom the neighborhood held to be of great virtue; they are credited with founding the beaterio of San José, on calle de Atocha. When they lived, the chronicles do not make clear. From the last third of the 19th century the street gained another, more earthly identity, thanks to the bakery at number 3, run by a master baker who came from the Auvergne. That oven saw the bread fights recur: in May 1920 a line of nearly six hundred people ended in a stone-throwing riot. As late as 1969 it was remembered as one of the last wood-fired ovens in Madrid.

Its names

  • Sin nombre registrado1656
  • Calle de la Pasión1706
  • Calle de las Maldonadas1785 – actualidad
Sources (6)

Crossings