Plaza de la Puerta de Moros

At the south-western edge of the maze of medieval squares in Habsburg Madrid opens the Plaza de la Puerta de Moros. The name comes from a real gate: the southernmost of the four in the Christian wall ordered by Alfonso VII in the 12th century. It stood right where the roads to Toledo and Segovia forked. An uprising tore it down in 1412, it was rebuilt in 1544 and vanished in the 17th century; the empty space inherited its name. The gate served the Old Morería, the quarter organised as an aljama in the 13th century, with its own mosque, baths and cemetery, until the royal decree of 1502 forced the Mudéjars to convert or leave. Once the gate was cleared, the square held a monumental fountain crowned by a marble Endymion, now kept in the Museo de Historia de Madrid. Comic sketches were staged here during the Paloma festivities, and the square itself features in the setting of “La verbena de la Paloma.”