The chapel that occupies the house in which he was born, the parish where his remains rest, the museum dedicated to his figure and the curb of a well where he worked a miracle. These are some of the enclaves included in the illustrated cultural map designed by the Madrid City Council to commemorate the fourth centenary of the canonization of San Isidro. The plan, recreated by the illustrator and cartoonist Juan Berrio, marks the 17 points of the city that were key in the life of the capital’s patron saint.
The route, presented this Saturday by the Department of Culture directed by councilor Andrea Levy (PP), begins in the chapel of San Isidro, in the neighborhood of La Latina, where according to tradition the farmer was born and which opens on the 4th of every month in his honor.
It continues in the museum of San Isidro, which reviews the origins of the saint and continues in the Gothic chapel of the Bishop, the place that was originally going to receive the mortal remains of the patron saint.
La Cuadra, a chapel in which Isidro is believed to have kept the cart with which the oxen plowed the land alone; the Iván de Vargas library, one of the houses of the patron saints (los Vargas) of the farmer; the Collegiate Church of San Isidro, where the incorrupt saint rests next to his wife, Santa María de la Cabeza; the Almudena Cathedral, shelter of the Ark of San Isidro dating from the 13th century, and the cemetery that bears his name are other emblematic places stamped on the map.
The copy, entitled ‘El Madrid de San Isidro’, is one of the ten cultural maps published to date by the consistory, in collaboration with the Business Forum for Madrid through the Madrid Partnership and Brand Office of the Economy Area. It starts with a presentation text by the director of the San Isidro museum, Eduardo Salas: “Few cities identify as much with the figure of their patron saint as Madrid.” The city, 850 years after his death, has kept its devotion to the saint intact, adapting its most popular traditions to the rhythm of the capital’s own evolution.
The San Isidro meadow, the venue for the festivities that started this weekend with the proclamation by Antonio Resines, could not be missing from the map. For centuries, the traditional pilgrimage of the saint has been held there every May 15, which attracts locals and visitors dressed as chulapos and chulapas, in a day of music, lemonade and the typical knees of the saint. The final point of the 17-stop walk is the hermitage of Santa María la Antigua and the Basilica of Atocha. The map is free and is distributed at municipal facilities, although it can also be downloaded here in digital version.
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