Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca

When José de Salamanca y Mayol signed the licence to raise fourteen blocks in the first stretch of Madrid’s Ensanche, in 1864, the whole neighbourhood ended up carrying his title. But the Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca holds the story of a man who bet everything and lost almost everything. He had studied law in Granada and at twenty-two was already chief magistrate of Monóvar. He was a member of parliament, finance minister in 1847 and a life senator; Isabella II granted him the marquessate in 1863. His Ensanche neighbourhood was a rarity for its time: he gave it running water and central heating, and in 1871 he opened Madrid’s first tram, drawn by horses. Ambition finally devoured him. He paid the full cost of the development out of his own pocket, and the crisis of the 1870s ruined him. In 1876 he had to sell his palace to the Banco Hipotecario, and he died in 1883 laden with debt. The statue that now recalls him was modelled by Jerónimo Suñol; at first it stood at the crossing of Velázquez and Lista, today’s Ortega y Gasset, and only moved to the square once it had taken shape.