Plaza Italia

A few steps from the old Slaughterhouse, in the Legazpi area, a small square opens up bearing the name of Italy, one of the European states with which Madrid keeps a long cultural relationship. What the municipal records don’t show is the exact reason: no trace survives of the agreement that linked this corner of Arganzuela to the Italian nation, nor the date the name was fixed. The square belongs to the Madrid that grew southward with the Manzanares and the railway, where the paseo de las Delicias and the paseo de la Chopera ordered an area of workshops, slaughterhouses and rail lines. Today anyone heading for the Matadero passes through almost without noticing: the name is still on the corner, brief, naming a whole country from a modest square in the south.