History Madrid

Inside San Sebastián

The architects' chapel, the one belonging to the actors, and somewhere beneath the floor the lost grave of Lope de Vega.

1 min readCalle de Atocha 39

Listen to this story

Narrated audio from our Madrid tour

The interior as it looks after the 1959 rebuilding, with the chapels along the sides.

To the right of the entrance you'll find the architects' chapel, and that's not a nickname. They took it over in the eighteenth century for their own devotion and their own graves. lies here, and so does , the man who also designed the gateway that our other walk through Madrid passes by.

A second chapel belongs to the stage actors, who came together in this parish in 1624 to form a brotherhood around the Virgen de la Novena. So the actors you saw standing out on the street at the start of this walk had their spiritual home right here, with an altar of their own and a burial fund to match.

And somewhere beneath this floor lies , the great playwright buried in 1635 in this parish's small cemetery, though after the bombing and the rebuilding nobody can say exactly where. He's the second writer on this walk whose grave went missing, which tells you something about how Madrid treated its celebrated names.

Back outside, the Calle de Atocha takes you to the Plaza de Jacinto Benavente, where the Calle de la Cruz climbs up towards the Plaza de Santa Ana.

Map showing Calle de Atocha 39, 28012 Madrid
Calle de Atocha 39, 28012 MadridMadrid
Get directions

Sources. Story: Hispanopedia, Iglesia de San Sebastián (Madrid); Ángel Fernández de los Ríos, Guía de Madrid, 1876; Boletín Oficial del Estado, declaration as a monument of 28 October 1969. Photos: Photo of the interior of San Sebastián: Antonio Vélez, CC BY-SA 3.0 ES via Wikimedia Commons.

Hear it where it happened

Madrid is an open-air museum. Walk it with ROODS.

Inside San Sebastián is one stop on our map of Madrid. Open ROODS in your browser, walk to a pin and the story plays.

  • Stories on a map, with narrated audio
  • Walk at your own pace, stop where you like
  • Runs in your browser. An app is optional.

More stories nearby

More from Madrid →

Walk a route in Madrid

See all routes →