Calle de Doña Bárbara de Braganza

Las Salesas·Justicia

The street takes its name from Barbara of Braganza (1711-1758), queen consort of Spain as wife of Ferdinand VI and founder of the Salesas Reales convent, whose main façade faces this street. The change of name took place in 1884, when the City of Madrid honoured the queen in the naming of the street that runs alongside the building she herself had built.

Short and straight, calle de Doña Bárbara de Braganza drops from plaza de las Salesas to the paseo de Recoletos. It serves as the vestibule of the ensemble that gives it meaning: the church of Santa Bárbara and the former convent, today the Supreme Court. Barbara, daughter of John V of Portugal, married in 1729 the prince who would reign as Ferdinand VI. The marriage was childless, and a threat hung over the queen: if widowed, Elisabeth Farnese would return to power. So in 1748 she raised beside Recoletos the monastery of the Visitation for the Salesian nuns. She died in 1758, with barely time to enjoy it; she rests beside Ferdinand VI in the convent church. The price of the whim became a joke: the people of Madrid dedicated a ditty to her that played on her name — “Barbarous queen, barbarous taste, barbarous work, barbarous cost.”

Its names

  • Calle de San José (calle de san Joseph)Anterior a 1835 (documentada en plano Texeira, 1656)
  • Costanilla de la Veterinaria1835 – c. 1884
  • Calle de Bárbara de Braganza / Calle de Doña Bárbara de Braganza1884 – actualidad
Sources (8)

Crossings