Madrid History Museum

This guide to the Madrid History Museum follows a penniless boy who arrived in Madrid with his mother after losing both his father and the uncle who might have taken them in, and the ornate stone portal, carved in the 1720s by architect Pedro de Ribera, through which he found shelter at the Royal Hospice of Saint Ferdinand. It traces the printing press the hospice ran and the trade the boy, Pablo Iglesias, learned there as a child before leaving at twelve to work as a printer. Look closely at the carved saint above the doorway, handing over the keys to the city, on your way in.