Calle de Montesa
The street takes its name from the Order of Santa María de Montesa, founded by papal bull on 10 June 1317 at the request of James II of Aragon. It belongs to a themed naming scheme in Castro’s Ensanche: Alcántara, Calatrava, Santiago and Montesa are parallel axes in the Lista neighbourhood.
In the Lista neighbourhood, Calle de Montesa drops from Calle de Alcalá to Francisco Silvela, in the heart of the Ensanche that Carlos María de Castro laid out from 1860. The council dedicated four parallel streets to the great military orders, and here the four stand together: Alcántara, Calatrava, Santiago and this Montesa.
The name comes from an order born of another’s shipwreck. When the papacy dissolved the Templars, James II of Aragon opposed their assets in the kingdom of Valencia passing to the Order of the Hospital and negotiated with Rome for a Valencian order of his own. John XXII signed the founding bull on 10 June 1317, and the institution was seated at the castle of Montesa.
The fortress’s end has an exact date: the earthquake of 23 March 1748 toppled the castle that gave the order its name. The stone fell, but the place name survived and centuries later reached a street in the Madrid Ensanche.