Calle del Conde de Lemos

Los Austrias·Palacio

The street takes its name from Pedro Fernández de Castro, Andrade y Portugal (Monforte de Lemos, 1576 – Madrid, 1622), 7th Count of Lemos, who kept his residence along this stretch during the reign of Philip III. The street did not exist as such in 17th- or 18th-century maps; it was opened to traffic in 1803 with the mistaken sign “del Conde de Lemus”, a variant that lasted well into the 20th century and was only corrected before October 1971.

Conde de Lemos is a short stretch, about 84 metres, between Calle del Espejo and Plaza de Santiago, in the Palacio quarter. It recalls a Galician noble remembered less for his power than for the people he supported. Pedro Fernández de Castro, Count of Lemos, was one of the most influential figures of Philip III’s reign: viceroy of Naples, president of the Council of the Indies at just twenty-seven. But his true empire was another. The greatest names of the Golden Age passed through his service or protection. Lope de Vega was his secretary; Quevedo, Góngora and the Argensola brothers relied on his patronage. And Cervantes, old and penniless, dedicated to him almost everything he wrote at the end, including the second part of Don Quixote and, on his deathbed, Persiles. He died in 1622 in his palace on Plaza de Santiago itself. One detail for those looking at the sign: for nearly two centuries the plaque read “Conde de Lemus”, with a u, and the mistaken spelling survived on the street sign until around 1971.

Its names

  • Calle del Conde de Lemus1803 – c. 1971
  • Calle del Conde de Lemosc. 1971 – actualidad
Sources (7)

Crossings