Plaza del Campillo del Mundo Nuevo

El Rastro·Embajadores

The name alludes to an open piece of ground —⁠a campillo⁠— left exposed after a great mound of earth vanished on the calle del Peñón (today Carlos Arniches) around the 16th century. According to the tradition gathered by Répide and other chroniclers, the local children called the resulting space “the New World” in echo of the recent discovery of America. A second theory holds that the name may have come from the popular optical shows called mundinovi or mundonuevo, which set up on the empty lot beside the Puerta de Toledo during the 19th century.

At the southern edge of the Rastro, where the Embajadores district looks out over the Ronda de Toledo, opens a whimsically shaped space that for centuries marked the market’s southern boundary. Through here people left the heart of the neighbourhood toward the Ronda promenade. Galdós showed it no mercy: in the opening pages of Fortunata y Jacinta he called it the most forlorn and ugly place on the globe. The ground holds many layers: a fountain, a 19th-century tannery, the gasworks and the second-hand market that would set into the Rastro. The nearby bazaars were named looking across the Atlantic —⁠Bazar de las Américas⁠— a nod to that “New World” that gives the campillo its name. One of the streets ending here hides its own change: it was called calle del Peñón, after the rock that gave rise to the place-name, until in 1931 it became calle de Carlos Arniches, in honour of the Madrid comic playwright.

Its names

  • Campillo del Mundo Nuevo (primera mención documental)16th century (tradición) / 17th century confirmado cartográficamente
  • Plaza del Campillo del Mundo Nuevo19th century en adelante
  • Plaza del Campillo del Mundo Nuevo (nombre actual oficial)20th century hasta hoy
Sources (8)

Crossings