Calle de los Tudescos

Calle de los Tudescos runs down from Gran Vía to plaza de Santa María de Soledad Torres Acosta. It once reached much farther, near Santo Domingo, but the Gran Vía works begun in 1910 amputated its northern end. In the 16th and 17th centuries Madrid’s German community settled here, worshipping at the church that in time came to be called San Antonio de los Alemanes. The origin of the name faded quickly from memory: by the mid-19th century Mesonero Romanos was describing it as a very narrow street named “de los Tudescos” without anyone knowing why. The street always kept an underworld reputation. The Traganiños tavern passed for a thieves' refuge and a school for pickpockets; at number 5 lived the bandit Luis Candelas, who posed as a prosperous Peruvian merchant to slip into high-society salons.

On 24 August 1635, Lope de Vega attended an academic ceremony of Philosophy and Medicine held at the Seminary of the English. During the ceremony he was seized by the attack that three days later, on 27 August, took him to his death in his house on Calle de Francos.