Calle de San Mateo

Calle de San Mateo starts at Fuencarral and ends at Plaza de Santa Bárbara, in the heart of the Justicia neighbourhood. It appeared written just so on Texeira’s 1656 map and again, identical, on Espinosa’s of 1769. This was a street of uniforms and coats of arms. In 1719 Philip V ordered the first barracks of the Spanish Infantry Guards raised here, which dominated the street until the mid-19th century. The oldest surviving palace is that of the Marqués de Matallana, at number 13, designed in 1776 and now the Museo del Romanticismo. Across the way rose the Palace of the Duke of Veragua, of Columbus’s descendants, where the duke set up a hospital for bullfighters. Number 5 went from Stamped-Paper Factory to School for the Deaf and Blind, and number 15 held the Association for the Education of Women, whose lectern was graced by Unamuno, Sorolla and Emilia Pardo Bazán. The corner with Fuencarral was a café with piano concerts and later the Almacenes San Mateo department store, whose jingle — “If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it, but how cheap Almacenes San Mateo sells!” — lodged in the city’s memory.