Pasaje de San Martín de Valdeiglesias

The Pasaje de San Martín de Valdeiglesias takes its name from a town in Madrid’s western sierra, and through it reaches the figure at its origin: Saint Martin of Tours. That Martin, a Roman soldier put into the army against his will, played out on a winter night at the gates of Amiens the scene that would make him recognizable for centuries: a beggar was shivering with cold and he, instead of passing by, cut his cloak in two and gave him half. That night, tradition says, he saw Christ in a dream wrapped in the piece of the mantle. He laid down his arms and ended up bishop of Tours around 371. The town’s name gathers two layers: the valley strewn with hermitages became the valley of the churches, Valdeiglesias, and the devotion to the saint of the split cloak added the patron’s name. Today that name, come from the vineyards of Gredos, heads a short alley in Prosperidad.