Plaza de Castellini Cartagena

A link between Puerta de Murcia and Calle Real

The current plaza de Castellini, which acts as a link between the Puerta de Murcia and Calle Real has a curious history, having once been named after Cartagena Mayor Mariano Sanz Zabala, then the eminent Actor Isidoro Maiquez, as well as after the Genoese navigator Baltasar Castellini.

This street was once the water course for the rambla which ran down from the calle de Santa Florentina into the Mar de Mandarache (which is currently the military arsenal dock,) carrying waters from the districts of the northern part of the city. In the sixteenth century construction began in what was known in this period as the Barrio de San Roque, which extended from the Puerta de Murcia to Acequieta Bridge, (the Puente de la Acequieta) which was built over the narrow channel that bled waters out from the marshlands of Almarjal to the north-west and north of the city.

In the second decade of the seventeenth century the council built a new slaughter house near to Mandarache after complaints from the San Agustín monks about the terrible smell emanating from the existing installation, which caused a new problem in this street as the navy then started to complain that the foul waters which then started to flow down into the docks of the arsenal were contaminating the King’s vessels moored in the dock.

Finally another slaughterhouse was built and the remaining street became known as calle Hospital, then Hospitalillo and finally Hospital Antiguo.

At the end of the eighteenth century these were replaced by the name of Castellini, due to the presence of Baltasar Castellini in the streets, a man contracted to build boats for the Spanish navy. For some reason in 1863 the council decide to change the name of half of the street to Isidoro Máiquez, the result being that from Calle Real to number 10, the street was called calle Máiquez, then from number 10 onwards it was called calle Castellini.

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