Plaza de la Beata María Ana de Jesús

The square recalls María Ana de Jesús Navarro, born in Madrid in the late 16th century, daughter of a leather dresser in the court’s service. Linked to the Order of Mercy, in 1613 she took the habit of a Mercedarian tertiary and lived near the old Santa Bárbara gate, devoted to prayer and to caring for the sick and needy. She died in April 1624, and popular devotion led the city council to declare her co-patron of the town alongside San Isidro Labrador. Pope Pius VI beatified her in 1783, and her remains are kept incorrupt in a Mercedarian convent in the city. The name had an episode in the street register. A street dedicated to the beata already existed between Bravo Murillo and the Paseo de la Castellana, but in 1875 it was renamed Cristóbal Bordiú. The beata regained her place in this corner of Delicias, beside the parish that bears her name.