The church with the two towers on the Calle de Toledo was built in the seventeenth century for the ' , the school where the sons of the nobility were educated, and it has changed owner and purpose three times since.
The first time was in 1767, when expelled the Jesuits from all of Spain and had their property seized, and this building passed to the city. The second came in 1885, when Madrid finally got a diocese of its own and this church served for the time being as its cathedral, a role it would keep for more than a century because the construction of dragged on and on. The third was in , when the interior went up in flames and everything it held in statues and altars was lost.
Inside rest the remains of , the city's patron saint, and those of his wife. That a farmer and his spouse became the protectors of a capital says a lot about how Madrid has come to think of itself.
We follow the Calle de Toledo south, until a large open square with a market hall opens up on the right.
Sources. Story: Hispanopedia, Colegiata de San Isidro and Colegio Imperial de Madrid; Ayuntamiento de Madrid, esMadrid; Archidiócesis de Madrid, history of the cathedral function. Photos: Photo of the Colegiata de San Isidro: J.L. De Diego, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
