By Domingo Medina.| The street that the city of La Laguna dedicates to the brothers Bencomo and Rodríguez, don Pedro (1749-1828), don Santiago (1754-1818) and don Cristóbal (1758-1835), begins at Nava y Grimón and ends at the plaza from Los Remedios (Cathedral Square).
The old names that this street had, such as Espinosa, in 1592, and Moya, in reference to the neighbor Francisco de Moya, are due to the custom of that time of identifying the streets with the names of some of the people who lived in them. The one in Las Piteras was due to the large number of plants of this species. But the old name, until it was called Bencomo, was that of Calle del Tambor, because the wineries that the corsair Amaro Pargo had in it, next to the house of José de la Santa y Ariza, which is the current number 5 of Calle del Agua, and on the corner of El Tambor (Bencomo), were in the three houses that he built on the plots that he bought from Lieutenant Colonel Bartolomé Benítez de Aponte and his wife, María Rita de Lugo, on April 16, 1728.
The corsair and merchant exported the wines and brandy that he produced in the wineries on this street and in those he had in those of Agua, with his vidueño and malvasia vines that he obtained in the area of Geneto, Tegueste, the Risco de San Roque and the ravine of La Carnicería.
The wines produced were kept in the “Drum room”, where the barrels were stacked in the first of the aforementioned houses. You can still see on the façade of this house the window through which the barrels or barrels were introduced, located at a higher height to facilitate unloading from the carriage that was placed under the aforementioned architectural hole.
On the opposite side of the street, and on the corner of Nava and Grimón, was built on a plot that Amaro Rodríguez Felipe had begun to build in the middle of the 8th century, a building that reached up to the height of the balconies. and it was left unfinished. Later, once the previous building was demolished, the Rodríguez de Azero mansion, current Casino de La Laguna since 1973, was built in that space.
In the second section of the street, between Viana and Tabares de Cala, on its right side is a large mansion where the Municipal Urban Planning Management of the La Laguna City Council is currently located, a house that was acquired in 1992 from the family Ascanio.
ROYAL MARITIME AND LAND CONSULATE
On the corner of Tabares de Cala is the ancestral home founded by José Saviñón y Guillama (1760-1800), alderman of Tenerife. From 1789 it was ceded so that the Royal Maritime and Land Consulate of the Canary Islands could be installed. This institution was created by Royal Decree of December 22, 1786, with residence in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, capital of Tenerife. Its importance throughout the national territory was essential for the promotion of the economy. In this city, this implementation has double importance because other administrations, such as the Captaincy General of the Canary Islands, had moved to Santa Cruz in 1723.
The opposition of the merchants of Santa Cruz managed in 1819 for the Consulate to reside in said port, although this change lasted only a few months. Already, since 1788, the trustee of Santa Cruz, Mr. Domingo Chirino had promoted the file in favor of the transfer. The refusal of the Royal Consulate to execute the move caused a conflict where the opposition of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife, the City Council and the entire town of La Laguna, made it necessary for the mayor commissioner Felipe de Sierra to seek help of the military forces lent to him by General La Burria, sending the second corporal general and numerous troops to the city. In this way, and by force, they broke down doors and on June 15 they transferred said establishment to Santa Cruz.
The secretary of the Consulate, Mr. Lorenzo de Montemayor, embarked on the peninsula as a representative of the Organization despite the surveillance and manages to go to Puerto de la Cruz at night, where he boarded an English ship that took him to London. He then went to Madrid, and in this capital, with the help of Archbishop Cristóbal Bencomo, a native of La Laguna, he obtained the Royal Order of restitution from the Consulate.
Continuing with the street and before reaching its end, on the right side of it, was the well-known don Juan Núñez bakery, one of the most important in the city. In the last house, the Telegraph service was provided until its unification in the same premises with the Post Offices in the Plaza de Santo Domingo.
Three mayors of the city lived on this street, Mr. José Tabares Bartlett, Mr. José Vicente de Buergo y Oráa, Mr. Elfidio Alonso Quintero, the lawyer Mr. Manuel Aledo, the businessman and athlete Mr. Miguel Feria, and the minor surgeon Mr. Francisco Pérez, the photographer and versatile artist Don Agustín Guerra. The street ends with the building of the so-called Chapter Houses, headquarters of the Cabildo Catedral. The aforementioned headquarters is located in a popular Canarian house from the 18th century, attached to the Cathedral building. Inside it houses the Museum of Icons, which contains the largest collection of this Byzantine art technique in Spain, with 160 original pieces of about three hundred years old, which come from countries such as Russia, Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Italy and Greece.
BENCOMO BROTHERS
Mr. Cristóbal Bencomo y Rodríguez was born in the Laguna Calle del Agua, on August 30, 1758. Son of Mr. Francisco Braulio Bencomo and Mrs. Bárbara Rodríguez Fleitas. He excelled in the studies of Philosophy and Theology. He finished his ecclesiastical studies and the bishop of the Canary Islands granted him the title of preacher. Later, he moved to Madrid, where he perfected his studies of Literature and Greek. King Carlos IV of Spain appointed him Latin professor to the Prince of Asturias, with the dignity of cantor of Plasencia. He was named the prince’s confessor and later King Ferdinand VII.
He had a decisive role in the creation of the first University in the Canary Islands, the Literaria de San Fernando de San Cristóbal de La Laguna. He was the promoter of the creation of the Diocese in 1819. Together with his brothers, he was the promoter of the works of the Laguna Cathedral. Titular Archbishop of Heraclea in partibus infidelium (in lands of infidels) granted by Pope Pius VII. He died in Seville on April 15, 1835. In 1837 his mortal remains were moved to the Laguna Cathedral where they remain.
Don Pedro José (1749-1828) and Don Santiago Bencomo y Rodríguez (1754-1818) were outstanding clergymen who contributed to the establishment of the University of San Fernando, and promoted the works of the Cathedral of La Laguna, even with their own financial means. . Pedro José was a doctor of Canons, canon of the Cathedral of Santa Ana in Las Palmas, first dean of La Laguna and also the first rector of the Literary University of San Fernando.
Don Santiago Bencomo y Rodríguez was dean of the Cathedral of the Canary Islands. He graduated and received his doctorate from the University of Ávila. He bishop of Astorga, where he took possession on January 22, 1818. He could not solemnly enter the Diocese, since he died in Madrid in the convent of San Antonio de los Capuchinos on March 2 of the same year.
