Calle de Juan de la Hoz

Calle de Juan de la Hoz, in the heart of the Guindalera, bears the name of a Madrid playwright who came late to the theatre and still left his mark. Juan Claudio de la Hoz y Mota was born in Madrid in 1622, and his life seemed bound for administration rather than the stage: alderman of Burgos, Paymaster General of the Navy, knight of Santiago. He began to write late in life. The first record of his literary side appears in a 1691 contest, and in 1708 he was appointed censor of Madrid’s theatres, deciding which plays could be staged. Much of his talent lay in reworkings, those rewrites of earlier authors that he handled with a skill already recognised at the time. His best-remembered pieces, El Montañés Juan Pascual and El castigo de la miseria, ended up in the Library of Spanish Authors. Tradition credits him with some thirty comedies, though today catalogues confirm only nine. The street was recorded in 1889, opened as the Guindalera was being developed.