Plaza de Cristino Martos

Plaza de Cristino Martos, on the boundary between Universidad and Argüelles, forms an irregular outline where five streets meet. That crooked shape tells an urban story: to the north survives the layout of the old Afligidos suburb; to the south came the later opening of Calle de la Princesa, and the two fabrics collide here. The old name, Plazuela de los Afligidos, came from a Premonstratensian convent where an image of Our Lady of the Afflicted was venerated; the devotion named the whole area. Damaged in the Peninsular War, the convent was demolished piecemeal through the nineteenth century. The change in level that organises the square today came from the post-war Bidagor Plan: the double Baroque staircase joining the two levels, finished in 1949, was modelled on the Golden Staircase of Burgos Cathedral. Cristino Martos, a lawyer and orator from Granada, was a minister under Prim and presided over Congress as many as six times. His contemporaries compared his eloquence to that of Castelar, a close friend and fellow prisoner.