Calle de Santa Ana

Calle de Santa Ana curves through the heart of the Rastro, between Calle de la Ruda and Calle del Bastero, beside Plaza de la Vara del Rey. Barely 212 metres. The name came with an image. The Herrera family kept in their house a carving of Saint Anne, patron and advocate of the town. The local Roma held her in special devotion as mother of the Virgin. When the Herreras moved the image to the church of Santa María and built her a chapel, the pilgrimage stayed tied to that temple: every 26 July, the Roma danced at its door. Cervantes recorded the custom in La gitanilla: Preciosa enters Madrid on Saint Anne’s day with a dance of eight Roma women and plays her tambourine before the saint’s image. The street keeps, unknown to the passer-by, the setting of that page. At old number 20 stood, until 1851, the House of the Five Tiles, held to be the smallest dwelling in Madrid: its façade was so narrow that five tiles were enough to roof it.