Calle del Prado (Madrid)

Prado Street is a street in Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain, El Madrid de los Austrias, within the Barrio de las Letras. It runs down from Príncipe Street to Las Cortes. Along its length it runs along the corner of Echegaray Street, Ventura de la Vega Street, León Street and Santa Catalina Street. At number 21 is the building of the Ateneo de Madrid.

History

It is very likely that the origin of its name was given to it by the comedy commissioner Francisco de Prado, a resident of this street at the end of the 16th century, which until very recently had been a road. Popular tradition associates its vicinity with the old San Jerónimo meadow, later Paseo del Prado.

Pedro de Répide, quoting Mesonero, mentions some curious neighbours of Calle del Prado, such as the beautiful, smug and brave hortera Pepa la Naranjera, who had her fruit stand on the corner of Calle del Príncipe at the beginning of the 19th century; another neighbour, Dr. Joaquín Hysern, a defender of homeopathic procedures, who died on this street on 14 March 1883, was of a different social class.

Ateneo de Madrid

The Ateneo de Madrid is a private cultural institution located in the capital of Spain that was founded in 1835. Its full name is Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid (“Scientific, Literary and Artistic Athenæum of Madrid”).

The roots of the Athenæum trace to the ideals of Francophiles and liberals of the early 19th century.

After the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the Afrancesado, who had joined the French cause and supported Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain, were exiled with him upon the triumph of the Supreme Central Junta and the Cortes of Cádiz, which enacted in 1812 the first Spanish liberal constitution.

The restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814 after the previous year’s Treaty of Valençay, however, brought a return to absolutism and the flight of the Spanish patriots of Cádiz. Much of the enlightened aristocracy, that for one reason or another had been persecuted in Spain, took refuge in France and England.