Calle de Santiago

Los Austrias·Palacio

The name comes from the parish church of Santiago, one of the oldest in Madrid, documented already in the town charter of 1202 and in deeds of 1257. The dedication to the apostle Saint James reached the neighbourhood with the knights of the Order of Santiago who came with Alfonso VI in the conquest of the town (c. 1083) and settled beside the Moorish fortress. The street took the parish’s name as it became a way of its own within the medieval road network.

Calle de Santiago joins Calle Mayor with Plaza de Ramales, in the heart of Habsburg Madrid, steps from the Royal Palace. It has always been the shortcut between the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza de Oriente. The layout is ancient: it was the southern branch of a medieval road, and took the name of the church of Santiago when that church came inside the Christian wall in the twelfth century. In 1525 Charles I ordered a stretch widened so Empress Isabella of Portugal could enter the fortress in state, and the street filled with booksellers, silversmiths, and painters. Between numbers 11 and 22 stood the palace of the Count of Lemos, the patron who supported Cervantes. The church seen today is not the medieval one. In 1810 Joseph Bonaparte tore down the two parishes flanking the fortress to clear the Royal Palace; the neoclassical building that merged them is the work of Juan Antonio Cuervo. Velázquez’s tomb was lost in the demolition. Larra’s funeral was held here in 1837. Since 1997 the door of this church marks the official start of the Camino de Santiago in Madrid: a fitting place to begin walking down a street that bears the name of the goal.

Its names

  • Bifurcación de la vía regis (sin nombre propio)Siglos 11th-12th
  • Calle de SantiagoDocumentado al menos from the 13th century
Sources (10)

Crossings