Plaza de Alonso Martínez

Five streets meet here at a junction that long sat on the northern edge of walled Madrid. The square was called Glorieta de Santa Bárbara, after the gate that stood in its central space until the mid-19th century. In January 1891 it took the name of Manuel Alonso Martínez, in thanks for his efforts to push through the Canal de Isabel II. Born in Burgos in 1827, Alonso Martínez served as minister of development, of finance and of justice, and presided over the Congress of Deputies. His name became tied above all to the codification of civil law: he took a close part in the process that led to the Civil Code, approved in 1888. The square holds a shuffle of monuments. In early 1902 a statue of Quevedo was unveiled here; decades later the writer moved to the roundabout that now bears his surname. The monument to the jurist that occupies the square today, in bronze and wearing a robe, shows him standing and reading a book.