Calle de Recoletos

Where calle de Recoletos now runs, the orchards of a convent once grew. The Augustinian Recollects raised it in 1592 on land of the Prado Viejo that was granted to them. Madrileños who strolled by knew it by another name: the Convento de Copacabana, after an image of the Virgin that reached its walls in 1662 and stole its official title in popular speech. The orchard was enormous and marked the eastern edge of the city, the point where built-up Madrid gave way to open country. It all came down with the disentailment: the convent was dissolved in 1837 and put up for public auction, and the one who took it was Mendizábal himself, who tore it down soon after. On that empty plot the street was laid out in 1850 and the land shared among major works: the palace of the Marquis of Salamanca took the strip beside the Paseo de Recoletos, and on the ground behind it the National Library and the National Archaeological Museum would eventually rise. The street runs west to east, from the Paseo de Recoletos to calle de Serrano.