Dos de Mayo to Movida

San Antonio de los Alemanes

A 17th-century Baroque church with an elliptical plan and walls entirely covered in frescoes by Luca Giordano, Francisco Rizi, and Carreño de Miranda. The 'Sistine Chapel of Madrid.'

You are standing outside a church that hides one of the most surprising interiors in Madrid. From the street it looks unremarkable: plain brick, a modest portal on the corner of Calle de la Puebla and Corredera Baja de San Pablo. Step inside and the walls vanish under a single continuous fresco that climbs from the floor to the dome.

This is the only church in Madrid with an elliptical floor plan, built between 1624 and 1633 to a design by the Jesuit architect Pedro Sánchez. It is also the only church in the city whose interior is completely covered with frescoes. The artists who painted it include Luca Giordano, the Neapolitan court painter to Charles II whom the Spanish court nicknamed Luca fa presto, meaning Luca gets it done fast, and Francisco Rizi, who laid out the trompe l'oeil composition of the dome.

The church was first built for Portuguese immigrants, then given to the German Catholic community after Portugal broke from Spain in 1640. That is how San Antonio de los Portugueses became San Antonio de los Alemanes.

When you go inside, look up. Saint Anthony of Padua kneels on a cloud at the center of the dome, receiving the Christ child from the Virgin. Around him, painted across the upper walls, are the miracles of his life. The frescoes were commissioned by Philip IV around 1660. The building was declared a National Monument in 1973.

Before you leave, find the sacristy door. Behind it hangs the church's first altarpiece, a reminder that every layer of paint in this building was laid down over centuries, by hands that kept returning to the same walls.

Plaza del Dos de Mayo

The square built on the site of the Monteleón barracks, where Daoíz and Velarde led the Dos de Mayo uprising of 1808. The original barrack arch and their marble monument stand at its center. Later, the epicenter of the movida madrileña.

You are standing in the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, the heart of Malasaña and the ground where Madrid's rebellion against Napoleon began.

The stone arch in front of you is the original entrance to the Monteleón artillery barracks. It was built in 1690 as the gateway to a palace, later converted into a munitions depot. On the morning of May 2, 1808, captains Luis Daoíz and Pedro Velarde disobeyed orders to stay in their quarters. They opened the armory, distributed weapons to civilians, and mounted a defense that killed more than thirty French soldiers before the barracks fell. Velarde was shot at the gate. Daoíz died of his wounds that night.

Under the arch stands a marble sculpture carved by Antonio Solá in 1830. It shows the two captains side by side. Look closely at the hands. The sword Daoíz held has been broken off and replaced so many times over the years that locals now joke it is a moving sculpture: sometimes a sword, sometimes a beer can, sometimes a bouquet.

After 1868, the ruined barracks were demolished and this square was laid out to honor the uprising. The streets that radiate from it bear the names of the fallen: Daoíz, Velarde, Ruiz, Malasaña.

A hundred and sixty-seven years later, this plaza became the living room of the movida madrileña. Bands played their first gigs in the bars around you. Pedro Almodóvar shot scenes here. Young people gathered on these benches at all hours because, after four decades of dictatorship, simply being out in public at night felt like a political act.

The square still belongs to the people who use it. Sit on a bench for a few minutes. Watch the children chase footballs around the arch, the teenagers sharing bottles on the steps, the old men arguing at the café tables. The Dos de Mayo uprising was a military defeat that became a national myth. The movida was a cultural insurrection that became a way of life. Both started here.