Plaza de las Salesas

Las Salesas·Justicia

The name comes from the Convent of the Visitation of Our Lady, popularly known as the Salesas Reales, founded in 1748 by Queen Barbara of Braganza on the land beside the Puerta de Recoletos. “Salesas” derives from the surname of the order’s co-founder, Saint Francis de Sales, born in the Alpine village of Sales (Savoy). The square took shape in front of the convent’s main facade after it was built, has carried this name since the second half of the 18th century, and does not appear on Teixeira’s map of 1656, so the space postdates that year; it does already appear on Espinosa’s map (c. 1769).

In 1747 a group of nuns of the Order of the Visitation crossed half of Europe from Annecy, in the Upper Savoy, to found a convent in Madrid. Queen Barbara of Braganza granted them the plot, and on it Francisco Moradillo raised the church, consecrated in 1757. The queen died the following year and Ferdinand VI a few months later; both rest inside the church, in tombs by Francesco Sabatini. In October 1870 a decree evicted the nuns within twenty-four hours and the convent became the Palace of Justice; the Supreme Court settled there for good. A fire devoured the building in 1915, taking with it the Christ attributed to Alonso Cano and the life of the clerk who plunged into the flames to save documents. Rebuilt, it remains the seat of the Supreme Court, with the church still open for worship as the parish of Santa Bárbara. On the corner of the square the Café de las Salesas opened in 1878, a gathering place for magistrates and court reporters. There, in 1933, Alfonso photographed Antonio Machado, in an image the press published cropped to erase from the frame the woman beside him.

Its names

  • Sin denominación / campo intramurosAnterior a 1748
  • Plaza del Convento de las Salesasc. 1758–19th century
  • Plaza de las Salesas19th century–actualidad
Sources (9)

Crossings