Calle de Alburquerque

The name travels in two leaps. It honors José María de la Cueva, fourteenth Duke of Alburquerque, a soldier who distinguished himself in the War of Independence and died in London in 1811 while serving as Spain’s ambassador. He descended from that Beltrán de la Cueva, first duke of the line in the days of Henry IV, whose name became entangled in the doubt over the true father of Joanna “la Beltraneja.” The ducal title, in turn, comes from the town of Alburquerque, in the province of Badajoz, along the Portuguese border. One reading of that place name has been proposed: the Latin alba quercus, “white oak,” in keeping with the woodlands around the town. The Madrid sign, however, did not always say Alburquerque. The street was once dedicated to the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus. Today it crosses the Trafalgar neighborhood between Fuencarral and Garcilaso, with no white oak of its roots in sight.