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Plaza de la Paja Review

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Plaza de la Paja

Address: Plaza de la Paja, La Latina, Madrid | Map It

Category: Squares
Location: Old Madrid

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Fodor's Review:

At the top of the hill, on Costanilla San Andrés, the Plaza de la Paja was the most important square in medieval Madrid. The plaza's jewel is the Capilla del Obispo (Bishop's Chapel), built between 1520 and 1530; this was where peasants deposited their tithes, called diezmas—literally, one-tenth of their crop. The stacks of wheat on the chapel's ceramic tiles refer to this tradition. Architecturally, the chapel marks a transition from the blockish Gothic period, which gave the structure its basic shape, to the Renaissance, the source of the decorations. It houses an intricately carved polychrome altarpiece by Francisco Giralta, with scenes from the life of Christ. The chapel has been under renovations for almost 11 years and is expected to reopen by the end of 2008. It's part of the complex of the domed church of San Andrés, one of Madrid's oldest, which for centuries held the remains of Madrid's male patron saint, San Isidro Labrador (they are now with his wife's, at the Real Colegiata de San Isidro, on nearby Calle Toledo). The church was severely damaged during the civil war. St. Isidore the Laborer was a peasant who worked fields belonging to the Vargas family. The 16th-century Vargas Palace forms the eastern side of the Plaza de la Paja. According to legend, St. Isidro worked little but had the best-tended fields thanks to many hours of prayer. When Señor Vargas came out to investigate the phenomenon, Isidro made a spring of sweet water spurt from the ground to quench his master's thirst. A hermitage (Ermita de San Isidro), now on Paseo de la Ermita del Santo, west of the Manzanares River, was built next to the spring in 1528. Every May 15 there's a procession followed by festivities in the meadow next to the hermitage. (In olden days, his remains were traditionally paraded through the city in times of drought.)

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