Calle de la Encomienda

Before the street there was a coat of arms. In the late thirteenth century, Pedro Núñez, master of the Order of Santiago, built a country house south of Madrid and had the Santiago emblem carved above the door. That stone was enough for neighbours to christen the place “the house of the Encomienda.” When Núñez died, the property passed to one of the Order’s commanderies. Then came Álvaro de Luna, the all-powerful constable of John II, who was beheaded in 1453; the crown confiscated his goods and the house fell empty. The coat of arms, stubborn, stayed on the façade while everything else collapsed. The plot was bought by the brothers Rodrigo and García Abad, who give their name to the neighbouring Calle de los Abades. The street laid out before the old entrance inherited the name, and already appears on Texeira’s 1656 map. At number 19, a café opened in 1882 and by around 1892 had become a song-and-dance venue; the guitarist Ramón Montoya performed on its stage and eventually became its owner. Pío Baroja set it down in his pages.