Calle de Francisco de Rojas

Trafalgar

Recalls Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, a Toledan playwright of the Golden Age whose comedies premiered at the court of Philip IV.

Before there were cobblestones here, this stretch of Chamberí was open ground: they called it the Campo del tío Mereje, on the northern edge of nineteenth-century Madrid. On 21 July 1880, when the street was laid out between Sagasta and Luchana, it took the name of the Toledan playwright Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla. Born in 1607, he found favor at the palace, and many of his comedies premiered as entertainment for Philip IV and his court. Those still staged today, Del rey abajo, ninguno and Entre bobos anda el juego, show his gift for wit and mistaken identity. His theater echoed beyond Spain: several French playwrights reworked his plays for the Paris stage. He died in Madrid in 1648.