Calle del Duque de Nájera

With the Palace of Cañete at its end, the street begins on Calle Mayor and ends on Calle del Sacramento, pressed against the palace’s eastern side. It is a short, narrow stretch in the heart of the Palacio quarter. The palace explains the name, by a roundabout route. It was built by the Marquises of Cañete, but in 1654 the marquis was found dead of a sword thrust in a case never fully solved. The widow refused to go on living within those walls and sold to the Duke of Nájera, whose title the adjoining street inherited. The dukedom came from far back: Isabella the Catholic granted it in 1482, and in the service of the second duke, until 1521, was a young man named Íñigo de Loyola, future founder of the Jesuits. The building turned official: Civil Government from 1849, and today it gathers under one roof the Sefarad-Israel Centre, Casa Asia and the Japan Foundation. In 2025 the City Council named the adjoining space Plaza de los Cronistas de la Villa, a nod to the official chroniclers who have narrated the city since Mesonero Romanos.