Calle del Duque de Sesto

The calle del Duque de Sesto was born within the Ensanche Este of the Castro Plan (1860), in a sector where the Marquess of Salamanca held the property reins. For years it bore another name: calle de la Elipa, because its layout pointed toward an isolated farm. It was the Duke of Sesto’s great carriage houses that gave it its final identity, in the change of name the city approved on 14 August 1896. Behind the title stood an almost improbable figure. José Isidro Osorio y Silva (1825–1909) gathered sixteen noble titles and four grandeeships of Spain, though he preferred to sign as Duke of Sesto. As mayor of Madrid, backed by O’Donnell, he drove the bringing of the Lozoya waters, the reform of the Puerta del Sol and the opening of first-aid stations. His life took even sharper turns: he was tutor to the future Alfonso XII, first in Vienna and then at Sandhurst, and it was he who persuaded Isabella II to abdicate in favour of her son.