Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca: The Bankrupt Founder
Why is it significant?
Here in the middle of the square stands the man himself, in bronze, on a tall pedestal, coat buttoned, gazing over the traffic. José de Salamanca, Marquis of Salamanca and Count of los Llanos, looking every inch the founder of a city. He was not shy about titles.
Key Facts
| Place | Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca: The Bankrupt Founder |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca, 28006 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.43010, -3.68020 |
| Part of Walk | The Marquis Who Built a City: Madrid's Salamanca District & the Castellana |
| Generated | Generated |
Here in the middle of the square stands the man himself, in bronze, on a tall pedestal, coat buttoned, gazing over the traffic. José de Salamanca, Marquis of Salamanca and Count of los Llanos, looking every inch the founder of a city.
He was not shy about titles. He was made a marquis in 1863 and a count soon after. But the honours came alongside a pile of debts. Building a whole district on credit, in a city that had not yet decided to move east, was a trap that tightened year by year. He sold land, borrowed again, sold houses below cost, and borrowed once more. Friends said he lived as if he were still rich, long after the money had gone... and perhaps that was the only way to keep the creditors believing in him.
By the end of his life the great financier was close to ruin. He had sold his palace on Recoletos, much of his art collection had gone, and he died in 1883 at his country estate of Vista Alegre, in Carabanchel, south of the city. One of the richest men in Spain left behind little more than his name on the map.
And yet the bet came good... just not for him. Within a generation of his death, the Salamanca district had become the most fashionable address in Madrid, the place where aristocrats, bankers and professionals built their homes. Look at the façades around this square: iron balconies, carved stone, bay windows called miradores that let the light pour in. This is exactly the comfortable bourgeois city he had imagined, a few decades too early.
There is a lesson Madrid likes to tell about him: he was right about everything except the timing. His statue was put up here around twenty years after his death, by a city that had finally caught up with his vision. From the square, walk west along Calle de José Ortega y Gasset, back towards Serrano, onto what Madrid calls its Golden Mile.