Plaza de Puerta Cerrada

Here stood the second most important gate of Madrid’s Christian wall, behind only the Puerta de Guadalajara. It was called the Serpent Gate after a figure of a serpent carved above its arch, and it guarded one of the accesses to the suburbs that Alfonso VI repopulated after taking the town in 1083. The passage had a trick: it entered straight, turned in two bends and straightened again, so that whoever left never saw who was coming in. That shadowy bend became a den of criminals, until the council walled it up. When they reopened it, it kept the nickname Cerrada, and the contradiction of an open gate still called closed delighted Quevedo and Lope de Vega. The stone dragon even slipped into Madrid’s coat of arms, where it held on until 1970. The gate was demolished in 1569 for the entry of Elisabeth of Valois, Philip II’s third wife. The present square, where nine streets meet, was born in the 19th century; their names⁠—⁠Tintoreros, Latoneros, Cuchilleros⁠—⁠keep the memory of the guilds who set up their workshops here. On the walls, Alberto Corazón painted trompe-l’œil murals in 1983 with the town’s old motto: “Built upon water, my walls are of fire.”