Calle Juan de Herrera

The convent that occupied this stretch of the Palacio district, between Calderón de la Barca and the square of San Nicolás, was known as Constantinople, after an image of the Virgin brought from the East. The disentailment wiped it off the map in 1836, and two new streets were laid out on its site, one dedicated to Juan de Herrera. The tribute made sense there: Herrera died in Madrid in 1597 and was laid in San Nicolás de los Servitas, the city’s oldest church, which opens onto the square where the street ends. Architect to Philip II, he traced the Segovia Bridge and the first lines of the future Plaza Mayor, and founded in 1582 the Royal Academy of Mathematics. His way of building — ornament pared to the minimum, volume over adornment, slate towers — gave its name to a style, the Herreran.