Plaza de la Provincia

Plaza de la Provincia takes its name from a trade that lived behind these walls. In the Palace of Santa Cruz worked the Escribanías de Provincia, the court tribunal’s notaries, and from that body of officials an administrative label stayed etched on the street map. The building that dominates the space was raised by Juan Gómez de Mora between 1629 and 1636 as the Royal Court Prison, a Herrerian work of brick, granite and slate that marks the eastern flank of the Plaza Mayor. It later housed several ministries; today it holds the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The detail people remember stands at the centre. From 1618 there was a fountain of Orpheus here, demolished in 1869, whose white marble sculpture survives in the National Archaeological Museum. In 1998 a reproduction was placed in the square, assembled from fragments of 19th-century fountains, an echo built from loose pieces.