Calle de Ambrosio Vallejo

The name points to a person, Ambrosio Vallejo, but no record survives of who he was or why Madrid dedicated the street to him. There is no documentation that he was a resident, a benefactor of the old outskirts or a figure tied to the growth of Tetuán. The street is in Berruguete, one of the district’s six neighbourhoods. The neighbourhood takes its name from the dynasty of Castilian artists: the painter Pedro Berruguete and his son, the sculptor Alonso. That tribute does not extend, however, to any explanation of the name Ambrosio Vallejo. The district grew on the northern heights of Madrid from the mid-nineteenth century. Tradition ties it to the troops returning from the war in Africa around 1860, who gave the place the name Tetuán de las Victorias. On that ground was laid the street plan that today bears, without any surviving explanation, the name of Ambrosio Vallejo.