Calle del León is a street in Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain, within the Barrio de las Letras in El Madrid de los Austrias. It runs between Calle del Prado and Calle de Atocha at the height of Antón Martín.
In the Golden Age it was a meeting place for actors, given its proximity to the corrals de comedias and the presence of very illustrious writers among its neighbors, among them Miguel de Cervantes (who lived in two houses on this street and died in the last one).
It had two popular gatherings, in the Café del Prado and the Café de Zaragoza, one at each end of the street.
The playwright and Nobel Prize winner for Literature Jacinto Benavente y Martínez was born here in 1866, and the Royal Academy of History is located there.
History
Known in the maps and references of the time (17th century) as Calle del Mentidero or Calle del León, but the reason for this last name, which is the one it has kept, is unknown, it was popularly accepted as an anecdotal origin that everything came from a foreigner, Indian for some, Turkish for others, who settled there in the company of a caged lion, charging two maravedís to anyone who wanted to see and smell it.
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