Calle de Jesús del Valle

Before 1600, the stretch between calle del Pez and today’s calle del Espíritu Santo was open country dotted with walled plots. One belonged to Juan López de Lezárraga, secretary to the Catholic Monarchs, denounced to the Holy Office for supposed converso ancestry. He was cleared, and became convinced he had been saved by an image of the Christ Child he venerated at home. In thanks he raised a small chapel at his gate, and neighbours began calling it “Jesús del Valle”. The image later moved to an altarpiece on the façade of the Valle de la Cerda mansion, on the corner, tying the name to that family. The street already appears labelled on Texeira’s 1656 map. Two centuries later, Mesonero Romanos admitted he had no idea where the name came from: the story had faded from the neighbourhood’s memory. At number 6, between 1846 and 1849, Manuel Rivadeneyra set up the press that produced the first volumes of the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles. The street also keeps the old palace of the Count of Murillo, an 18th-century mansion that goes almost unnoticed.