Calle de San Carlos

Lavapiés·Embajadores

The street owes its name to Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), cardinal and archbishop of Milan, canonised in 1610. The Princess of Rebech, wife of Charles of Montmorency, displayed a painting bearing the archbishop’s likeness in one of the houses on this street; the neighbours' devotion or curiosity before the image was enough for the name to take hold in local speech. Capmany is the main source for this account; Peñasco-Cambronero and Répide do not include this street in their works.

A short, straight street wedged between calle de Lavapiés and calle del Ave María, in the heart of the old Ministriles and Lavapiés quarters. On Espinosa’s 1769 map it already appears as San Carlos, but only in its upper stretch; the lower part still bore another name, Campillo de Manuela. The district oozed devotion in the 17th century. A few steps away stood the oratory of the Cristo del Olivar, seat of a brotherhood to which Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Quevedo and Calderón belonged —⁠four pens of the Golden Age praying under one roof. Number 1 holds a jewel easy to overlook: an ashlar doorway of 1737, with its lowered arch of five voussoirs. Little by little the street plan closed up and the old Campillo de Manuela was absorbed under the name San Carlos. The Campillo place name did not wholly surrender: in 1985 the council revived it for the open space where Lavapiés meets Jesús y María.

Its names

  • Campillo de Manuelaantes de 1769 (documentado en el plano de Espinosa)
  • Calle de San Carlos17th century (aparece consolidado en el plano de Espinosa, 1769)
Sources (8)

Crossings