Calle de San Isidro Labrador

La Latina·Palacio

The name comes from an image of Saint Isidore the Farmer that stood in the Humilladero del Ángel, a small shrine on the calle del Ángel at the western edge of the Vistillas quarter. When that shrine was demolished, the carving passed into the keeping of the Venerable Franciscan Third Order, and the street kept the saint’s dedication. In the early 19th century Madrid had four streets named “San Isidro”; the 1835 reorganisation of street names, which removed duplicates, left this one as the only one to keep the full name “San Isidro Labrador”.

On the slope running down from Las Vistillas toward the Manzanares lies the calle de San Isidro Labrador, barely 216 metres that hold the story of Madrid’s most famous farmer. Saint Isidore took centuries to reach the altars: Gregory XV canonised him in 1622, in the same ceremony that raised Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila and Philip Neri. Madrid celebrated one of its own in such company by filling the town with chapels, hermitages and images on street corners. Here stood the Humilladero del Ángel, one of those shrines built at crossroads so the traveller might stop to pray. It held an image of the Farmer Saint, and from it the street took its name even before the shrine was pulled down. The curious detail came in 1835: the other Madrid streets bearing the saint’s name were renamed, and this one kept it.

Its names

  • Calle de San Isidro (presumiblemente, sin el apellido ‘Labrador’)Anterior a 1835
  • Calle de San Isidro Labrador1835 – actualidad
Sources (8)

Crossings