Calle del Doctor Mariani

The sign recalls a doctor surnamed Mariani. Who this physician was, where he practiced and what merit earned him a street in Madrid is not documented. The calle del Doctor Mariani belongs to Berruguete, in the Tetuán district, one of the areas that grew north of Madrid from the camp the army raised after the African War of 1860. From that temporary settlement, first peopled by rag-pickers and day-laborers, came the name Tetuán de las Victorias. The neighborhood was built up slowly, with streets that took on the names of doctors, soldiers and local figures. The surname echoes, outside Madrid, through Angelo Mariani, the Corsican who in 1863 mixed Bordeaux wine with coca leaf and created the tonic that preceded Coca-Cola. There is no basis for linking him to this street, barely a hundred meters of asphalt dedicated to a physician whose identity has not reached us.