Cuesta de las Descargas

La Latina·Palacio

The name alludes to the discharges of gunpowder —⁠cannon or musket salutes⁠— fired here during official ceremonies and military funeral honours. Pedro de Répide records it as the best-documented explanation. Peñasco and Cambronero (1889), who call it “cuesta de la Descarga” in the singular, admit they do not know the tradition behind the name. Federico Bravo Morata adds a second concrete hypothesis: during the reign of Charles III, residents of Madrid protesting the paving ordered by the monarch were dispersed on this slope by musket fire from the Guardia de Corps, half a mile from the Royal Palace. A third, minority version attributes the name to the use of the slope for unloading vegetable carts. The first two hypotheses are compatible and may refer to different episodes.

Cuesta de las Descargas drops from calle del Rosario to the Ronda de Segovia, at the southern edge of the Parque de la Cornisa. It is a short, steep ramp bridging the step between the plateau of the old town and the Manzanares meadows. Alongside it survives one of the few remaining stretches of the wall Philip IV had built around Madrid in 1625. That wall never served to defend the city: it watched who came in and taxed the goods. Today it is the parapet of the Parque de la Cornisa. The street is old, though it took time to gain a name: it appears mute on the maps of Teixeira (1656) and Espinosa (1769). It also left a literary trace. Galdós wrote in Los duendes de la camarilla of the “turns, bends and precipices of la Mona and Descargas,” his way of portraying the ruggedness of this corner overlooking the river.

Its names

  • Sin denominación conocidaAnterior a 18th century
  • Cuesta de la Descarga (singular)Documentado en 1889
  • Cuesta de las Descargas (plural, nombre actual)Siglo 20th – presente
Sources (6)

Crossings