Plaza de las Descalzas

The square keeps in its name the nuns who have lived there for nearly five centuries. But before the Poor Clares, in the 13th century this ground marked the centre of the San Martín suburb, the first settlement to grow outside the walls. The convent came by the will of an infanta: in 1555 Joan of Austria bought the Renaissance palace where she herself had been born and turned it into a Poor Clare monastery, opened in 1559. During the 17th century the square looked like a stage, with a platform from which several kings were proclaimed, so whoever crosses it today treads the very spot where Madrid cried out the names of its monarchs. In 1713 Philip V handed over houses here to found the Monte de Piedad, the city’s first popular credit institution. The space changed shape in 1808, when Joseph Bonaparte demolished the church of San Martín and opened the flank that today forms the Plaza de San Martín. The monastery, by contrast, stayed enclosed, keeping its Flemish tapestries, until in 1960 National Heritage opened its halls to the public.