Calle de los Donados

Sol

The street takes its name from the Hospital of Santa Catalina de los Donados, founded in 1460 by Pedro Fernández de Lorca, treasurer to John II and secretary to Henry IV, on the houses and vineyards he owned in the district of San Ginés. Those taken in were called donados because of their dress: brown cloth habit and blue capes, typical of those living attached to a religious order without having taken vows.

Calle de los Donados runs down a short slope from plaza de Santa Catalina de los Donados to calle del Arenal, in the Sol neighbourhood. The name comes from a hospital that took in twelve honourable men, in Mesonero Romanos’s words, old men whom age had left too weak to earn a living. In exchange for shelter and food, the donados said thirty-three prayers each day for the founder’s soul. When Philip II ordered in 1566 that the number of Madrid’s hospitals be cut, this one survived thanks to a clause in the founder’s will that protected it. The original building was demolished in 1893. On the plot rose, in 1917, the neo-Gothic oratory of the Santo Niño del Remedio, still standing at number 6.

Its names

  • Calle de Santa Catalina de los Donadoshasta 1835 (documentada en planos de Texeira 1656 y Espinosa 1769)
  • Calle de los Donados1835 hasta la actualidad
Sources (7)

Crossings