Travesía del Nuncio

The Travesía del Nuncio is a stepped alley, three flights bridging the drop between the calle del Nuncio and the calle de Segovia, hugging the rear wall of the church of San Pedro el Viejo, in a quarter already inhabited in Andalusi times. The name comes from the palace of the Nunciature, residence of the pope’s ambassador. Earlier it had grand owners: it belonged to Francisco de Vargas, counsellor to the Catholic Monarchs, and then to Rodrigo Calderón, Marquis of Siete Iglesias, until he fell from favour and Philip III set the houses aside, in 1618, as the nuncio’s residence. Two of the nuncios who lived here went on to become popes, among them Innocent X, of Velázquez’s famous portrait. That scene of stairs among railings and balconies explains its rich film life: since 1923 the alley has stood in for Habsburg Madrid with no disguise needed. It did not always have a good name: in 1671 the nuncio asked leave to close it off, tired of the wrongdoers who haunted it.