San Antonio de los Alemanes: Madrid's Painted Oval
Why is it significant?
Step from the plain brick street into an oval of colour: every wall and every inch of the dome painted with saints, angels, kings and false architecture that seems to rise forever. Madrileños sometimes call this church their own Sistine Chapel, and from the first second you can see why.
Key Facts
| Place | San Antonio de los Alemanes: Madrid's Painted Oval |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle de la Puebla 22, 28004 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.42240, -3.70370 |
| Part of Walk | From the Dos de Mayo to La Movida: Malasaña & Chueca, Madrid's Rebel Quarters |
| Generated | Generated |
Step from the plain brick street into an oval of colour: every wall and every inch of the dome painted with saints, angels, kings and false architecture that seems to rise forever. Madrileños sometimes call this church their own Sistine Chapel, and from the first second you can see why.
The name is a riddle. Saint Anthony of the Germans, in the middle of Madrid? In the early 1600s Spain and Portugal shared one king, and Philip the Third founded a hospital here for poor Portuguese, with a church dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua, who was born in Lisbon. When Portugal broke away in 1640, a Portuguese hospital in Madrid became awkward. A few decades later, Queen Mariana of Austria handed it to the Catholics of the German lands, and the strange name stuck.
The oval church went up in the 1620s and 1630s, and the painting came later in the century. Francisco Rizi and Juan Carreño de Miranda covered the dome, and the walls were finished by the Neapolitan Luca Giordano, a painter so fast that Italians nicknamed him Luca fa presto, Luca does it quickly. The miracles of Saint Anthony unfold above your head, while painted saintly kings and queens of Europe watch from below.
Since the early eighteenth century the church has belonged to the Hermandad del Refugio, a charitable brotherhood with a remarkable tradition. For centuries its members went out at night through the dark streets with lanterns, picking up the sick, the homeless and the abandoned, and handing out bread and a boiled egg. Madrid called it the ronda de pan y huevo, the round of bread and egg, and the brotherhood still runs its charity from here.
Remember this quiet before you go, because the streets just north of here are the loudest in Madrid. This walk follows two revolutions: one fought with cannons in 1808, the other with electric guitars around 1980. Head north into the grid of Malasaña to the corner of Calle de San Andrés and Calle de San Vicente Ferrer, and keep your eyes on the walls.