Calle del Duque de Fernán Núñez

Lavapiés·Embajadores

The name recalls the dukedom of Fernán Núñez, a title created by Ferdinand VII on 23 August 1817 in favour of Carlos Gutiérrez de los Ríos y Sarmiento, 7th count and 1st duke of Fernán Núñez. The dukedom takes its name from the Córdoban town of Fernán Núñez, whose place name comes from the knight Fernán Núñez de Témez, who received that territory in the 1236 division following the conquest of Córdoba by Ferdinand III. Madrid’s City Council approved the name change by municipal agreement on 29 November 1901, the year the street went from being called Calle del Tinte to its current name.

Calle del Tinte (“Dye Street”). That is what this short stretch of Embajadores was called for centuries, and the reason was literal: this was the site of the dye works run by the municipal magistrate Carlos Gutiérrez de la Peña. A place name from a trade, but tied to one specific business and its owner. In 1901 the council changed the sign to honour the consort duke of Fernán Núñez, commissioner of the Retiro during the Restoration. From that post he promoted the opening of the park’s Paseo de Coches in 1874, and paid out of his own pocket 50,000 of the 110,000 pesetas the work cost. The street skirts the family palace, which faces onto Calle de Santa Isabel. Built over the convent’s orchards, in the 19th century it was one of the great salons of Madrid’s aristocracy, with masked balls and Isabella II among the guests. Today it houses the Spanish Railways Foundation.

Its names

  • Calle del TinteAnterior a 1901
  • Calle del Duque de Fernán NúñezDesde 29 de noviembre de 1901
Sources (10)

Crossings