Pasaje de Cavanilles

The Calle de Cavanilles, and with it this passage hanging from its side, received its name in 1880. Earlier it appeared written as Cabanilles, one of those waverings of the surname that the nineteenth century allowed itself without qualms. It falls squarely in the Pacífico neighborhood, south of the Retiro, an area gathering the names of nineteenth-century soldiers, scientists, and geographers. Antonio José Cavanilles was the Enlightenment botanist who in 1801 took over the direction of the Royal Botanical Garden and kept it until his death in 1804. A priest and naturalist, he learned botany in Paris and was ahead of almost everyone in applying Linnaeus’s classification within Spain. The passage runs about 40 meters and begins at number 48 of the street. To bridge the drop it descends a stairway of sixteen steps until it crosses perpendicular to the Callejón de Cavanilles, so that the two lanes trace a cross seen from above. The single-story houses flanking it keep the ground level as it was before the neighboring streets were leveled, leaving this corner sunk below the rest of the neighborhood.