Calle del Duque de Osuna

This street’s name traveled. The palace that gave it its name stood at the upper end of the old calle de Leganitos, and for nearly two centuries it housed the largest private library in eighteenth-century Madrid, with 60,000 volumes by around 1834. When calle de la Princesa was laid out, its first stretch absorbed the route that ran past the ducal palace. The name was left stranded and ended up attached to a leftover piece of old Leganitos, cut off and on a different level. Anyone walking today along calle del Duque de Osuna, between calle de la Princesa and plaza de Cristino Martos, is on a street that inherited the name, not the one that first bore it.

The library of the Leganitos palace, assembled by the 9th duke and his wife María Josefa Pimentel (countess-duchess of Benavente), was the first private collection opened to the public in Madrid. In 1786 the 9th duke organized it by subject and made it accessible to any reader. By around 1834 it held 60,000 volumes and numerous manuscripts. When the House of Osuna was ruined for good over the course of the nineteenth century, Menéndez Pelayo promoted its purchase by the State, which acquired it by law in August 1884. The holdings passed to the National Library.