History

The intellectual discussion meetings at the Café Lion

This historical location for intellectual gatherings in Pre-Civil War Madrid, can be found at number 59 on the popular Calle Alcalá, between Cibeles square and the Alcala Gate. This famous café was founded at the end of the 1920s, when these intellectual discussion meetings were fashionable, of which the most significant being set up by Salazar Chapela at the beginning of the 1930s. Further such gatherings were incorporated by Guillermo de Torre, Antonio de Obregón, Gustavo Pittaluga, Huberto Pérez de la Ossa, César M. Arconada, Francisco Ayala, Jorge Rubio and Rodolfo Halfftler among others.

By the second meeting at the café, the gatherings were being referred to as the “blue bench meetings”, with the Republic having already named as vice-secretaries and general directors, many of its participants. It was made up of people such as, José Bergamín, Ramón Pastor, Antonio Sacristán, Luis Lamana, Semprún Gurrea, Melchor Fernández Almagro, Doctors Oliver and Delgado de Torres, Justino Azcárate, Pedro Burgos, Ernesto and Constantino Navarro, Miguel Pérez Ferrero, Francisco Sedano and José María de Cossío.

A third was presided over by Ramón del Valle-Inclán during his stay in Madrid and welcomed the participation of Anselmo Miguel Nieto, Doctor Salvador Pascual and Mora del Pîno y Penagos.