Calle de Castelló
The Madrid city council approved the name on 14 June 1880 in honour of Pedro Castelló Ginesta (Guisona, 1770 – Madrid, 1850), first court physician to Ferdinand VII and professor at the Royal College of Surgery of San Carlos. The street was laid out over the grounds of the Campos Elíseos, the pleasure garden demolished during the construction of the Salamanca district.
Where calle de Castelló now begins, climbing north from calle de Alcalá, there was once a pleasure garden. It was called the Campos Elíseos and opened its doors in 1864. The Ensanche gradually swallowed the park until it was erased from the map, and on its plot this street remained, named by the city council in 1880 in recognition of Pedro Castelló Ginesta, one of the most influential physicians in Spain in the first half of the 19th century.
Whoever walks the street today may imagine the name evokes the Valencian province of Castellón. It has nothing to do with it. Castelló was born in Guisona in 1770, studied surgery in Barcelona and in 1801 came to Madrid, where he ended up as first court physician to Ferdinand VII.
His career took an unexpected turn thanks to politics and gout. His liberal sympathies landed him in jail, but in January 1825 an acute attack of gout left the king with no one able to relieve him. He was taken out of prison to treat the monarch, and the cure worked. Restored to royal favour, Castelló used that closeness to win pardons for persecuted colleagues. He died in Madrid in 1850.