Plaza de Santo Domingo

Two Dominican friars reached Madrid in 1217 and asked the council for land to settle on. They were given it outside the walls, beside the Valnadú gate, and the next year Dominic of Guzmán himself came to see the spot and raised it to the first convent of Dominican nuns in Spain. From that convent comes the name of the plaza de Santo Domingo. The convent swelled to cover an enormous area reaching the present plaza de Isabel II. In its cloister rested the remains of Peter I of Castile and, for a time, those of Prince Charles, son of Philip II. It escaped the confiscation because it was a nunnery, but the Revolution of 1868 fell on it without mercy: the nuns were expelled and in 1869 it was pulled down. When the calle de Campomanes was then opened, the old little square grew into a broad square with a garden. A remodelling in 2006-2007 gave the pedestrian square of today, which, according to Répide, is made of two squares joined at a right angle.