Callejón de Jorge Juan
The alley takes its name from the street it branches off, named by municipal agreement on 8 February 1866 for Jorge Juan Santacilia (Novelda, 1713 – Madrid, 1773), sailor, geodesist and Enlightenment scientist. He served on the Board of Trade and Currency from 1754 and directed the Royal Seminary of Nobles from 1770 until his death.
A dead-end alley off Calle de Jorge Juan, in the Recoletos neighbourhood, between Serrano and Velázquez. The parent street was named on 8 February 1866, in the middle of the Ensanche that Carlos María de Castro had laid out in 1860.
The man behind the name is Jorge Juan Santacilia, an Alicante sailor known as “the Spanish Sage”. He crossed the Atlantic with the geodesic expedition the Paris Academy of Sciences sent to Ecuador between 1735 and 1744; those measurements confirmed that the Earth flattens at the poles. In Madrid he held a post on the Board of Trade and Currency, tied to the Mint whose site is now the Jardines del Descubrimiento, and from 1770 to 1773 he directed the Royal Seminary of Nobles.
Its names
- Calle de la Monedaca. 1860-1866
- Callejón de Jorge Juan1866-actualidad