Calle del Duque de Alba

The street runs downhill between Plaza de Tirso de Molina and Calle de los Estudios, in Embajadores, over some 170 metres. Its name is among the most stable in the street map: it already appears fixed on the Texeira plan of 1656. The title comes from the 3rd Duke of Alba, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the so-called Great Duke, who bought an old Castilian mansion here, and the house next to it, in the late 17th century. The ducal family lived in the palace into the 18th century, when they moved to the Palacio de Buenavista and later to Liria. The building, at number 10, was entirely rebuilt in 1861 in an Isabelline classicist style. On the even-numbered side, where the street widens into the Plaza del Duque de Alba, stood the Casa de las Temporalidades, a former outbuilding of the Jesuits' Imperial College, which in the late 18th century was home to Manuel Godoy and his wife, the Duchess of Sueca, painted by Goya. At number 4 is the former headquarters of the newspaper El Imparcial, from 1913, with full heritage protection.