Calle de Santa Catalina

Barrio de las Letras·Cortes

Named after the convent of Santa Catalina de Sena, a Dominican community that settled in 1610 on the block between the Carrera de San Jerónimo, Calle del Prado and this street. Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) was a mystic and Doctor of the Church.

The name of Calle de Santa Catalina preserves the memory of a convent that no longer exists. It was built by women who lived very close to power: in 1510 Catalina Téllez, lady-in-waiting to Isabella the Catholic, founded a house of retreat, and the women who took refuge there ended up taking Dominican vows. The French occupation sealed its fate. The convent was demolished in 1824 and the nuns had to move from one roof to another. Today anyone searching for the stone of that convent will come away empty-handed. Not a single wall survives. Only the street name remains, still evoking the saint to whom those Dominicans prayed for more than two centuries.

Its names

  • Calle de Santa Catalinah.1610
Sources (8)

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