Cuesta de Santo Domingo

Ópera·Palacio

It takes its name from the Convent of Santo Domingo el Real, founded in 1218 by Dominic of Guzmán himself on the site now occupied by the square of the same name. The convent, the first of Dominican nuns in Spain, occupied the even-numbered side of the slope for more than six centuries, until its demolition in 1869. The slope had been known as the Ascent or Descent of Santo Domingo since the 13th century; the City standardised the current name in 1835.

Cuesta de Santo Domingo starts beside the Teatro Real, on calle de Arrieta, and climbs to plaza de Santo Domingo. Its course traces the gradient of the promontory on which the Habsburgs raised the Alcázar. The convent that crowned the height was born in the summer of 1218, when Dominic of Guzmán turned a men’s monastery into an enclosure for nuns, the first of Dominican sisters in Spain. Being a step from the Alcázar had its rewards: Ferdinand III granted lands, Alfonso X paid for building work, and Henry III ordered a Gothic main chapel meant as a pantheon of the House of Castile. Mayor Nicolás Rivero ordered it demolished in 1869. On the odd-numbered side stands the mansion the 6th Duke of Granada y Ega raised in 1851, with an eye on the Palazzo della Cancelleria; since 2016 it has operated as the Gran Meliá Palacio de los Duques hotel.

Its names

  • Subida / Bajada de Santo Domingo13th century – 1835
  • Cuesta de Santo Domingo1835 – actualidad
Sources (10)

Crossings