Plaza de San Ildefonso (Madrid)

The Plaza de San Ildefonso is a public space in the Universidad of the city of Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain, located in the so-called Malasaña area. The two main streets, Baja to the south and Alta to the north, and the five streets of Don Felipe, San Joaquín, Santa Bárbara, Colón and el Barco, meet there.

The church of San Ildefonso presides over the square. In this traditional setting, which Galdós portrayed in his novel Fortunata y Jacinta, the San Ildefonso market was installed between 1835 and 1970, one of the first covered markets in the city.

History

The growth of the Madrid population meant that part of the parishioners of San Martín were included in what would become San Plácido. The original church was built in 1629 and was destroyed in the time of Joseph I. It was rebuilt in 1810 with the name of San Ildefonso, which gives its name to the square. In one of the houses surrounding the square, the precursor of the National Lottery was created in 1763, called “beneficiata” because it was dedicated to public charity, with its first draw on December 10 of that year. Although there is documentation of a pharmacy in the Plaza de San Ildefonso at the beginning of the 16th century, the date of foundation of the “Farmacia Puerto” is given as 1798, being the time when the architect Manuel Bradi carried out a reform in the surrounding buildings of the square, and the pharmacy was installed in its place.

In order to relocate a good part of the street vendors who were in the vicinity of the neighborhood to the square, the San Ildefonso market was installed in the period from 1835 until it was dismantled in 1970, occupying a large part of the surface of the square. It was the work of the Spanish architect Lucio Olavieta, and is considered one of the first covered markets in Madrid. The market was finally demolished in the 1970s to make way for a tree-lined garden.