Calle del Molino de Viento

Calle del Molino de Viento owes its name to a literal fact: at the top of it the sails of a windmill really did turn. It was written down in the chronicles of old Madrid, and a 17th-century map still draws it in place, on the highest stretch. Around 1600 the windmill’s land belonged to Luis Valle de la Cerda, a jurist who divided his life between law, the accounts of the Holy Crusade and spying in the service of the Habsburgs. His daughter founded the convent of San Plácido next door. That windmill did not grind grain alone: it was the scene of pilgrimage and revelry, and it worked its way so far into the life of the neighborhood that Calderón de la Barca and Francisco de Avellaneda put it on the stage. No one had to explain to the audience which windmill was meant. By the 19th century it was already a street of artisans and humble neighbors. Here the Modernist poet Francisco Villaespesa scraped by until the success of El alcázar de las perlas, in 1911, finally let him leave.