Calle de San Millán

El Rastro·Embajadores

The name comes from the hermitage dedicated to Saint Emilian (San Millán) the Abbot that stood here from before the court settled in Madrid. The hermitage faced the Hospital de la Latina, on land that had belonged to Francisco Ramírez “the Artilleryman”, husband of Beatriz Galindo. The suburb that grew up around the calle de Toledo took the saint’s name, and the street beside the church inherited it. Saint Emilian (Berdejo, c. 473 - monastery of Suso, 574) was a hermit from La Rioja whose cult took strong hold in Castile from the 10th century, which explains his presence as a dedication in a suburb outside the walls of medieval Madrid.

Barely ninety metres separate the calle de Toledo from the plaza de Cascorro, and along that stretch runs the calle de San Millán, in the Embajadores quarter. Its course traces the edge of what was the San Millán suburb, the last cluster of houses outside the walls before Madrid awoke as capital in 1561. The hermitage that named the street already appears in 15th-century records. Everything burned on 14 March 1720 from careless lamps at the tabernacle; Teodoro Ardemans rebuilt it on a Latin-cross plan. Its fame came from the Cristo de las Injurias, with a chilling story: in 1676 a brotherhood founded by an Inquisition secretary placed an image holding within it the ashes of a crucifix that a group of converts had been accused of burning. With that figure the Holy Office presided over the autos-da-fé in the Plaza Mayor. In 1869 the building was demolished to widen the Plaza de la Cebada, and the parish moved to San Cayetano. Nearby the quarter had its gathering spot, the café de San Millán, with Pío Baroja, Antonio Machado and Unamuno among its patrons, until it closed in 1956.

Its names

  • Postigo y arrabal de San Millán13th-15th centuries
  • Iglesia aneja de San Justo1591
  • Incendio y reconstrucción de Ardemans1720-1722
  • Parroquia independiente de San Millán1805
  • Demolición; traslado a San Cayetano1869
Sources (10)

Crossings