Plaza de Antón Martín
Recalls Antón Martín (c. 1500 – 1553), a lay brother of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God and founder around 1552 of the Hospital of Our Lady of the Love of God, known as the Antón Martín Hospital, devoted to treating “bubas”, syphilis. The hospital, on Calle de Atocha, gave its name to the square and the surrounding area; it was demolished in the mid-nineteenth century.
Antón Martín Hernández learned to care for the sick alongside St. John of God in Granada. When the founder died, he took up his work and moved it to Madrid, where he built the Hospital of Our Lady of the Love of God, a house meant to treat those suffering from “bubas”.
The hospital took up a generous plot on Calle de Atocha and for three centuries was one of the town’s leading infirmaries. The disentailment and the reforms of the nineteenth century brought it down around 1850, but the founder’s name stayed fixed to the place.
Today the square organises the junction of Atocha with Santa Isabel and Magdalena, on the border between the Barrio de las Letras and Lavapiés. From there it passed to the metro station and the neighbouring market, so that the disciple of St. John of God still names one of the busiest corners of the centre.