Calle Basilio Paraíso

Basilio Paraíso Lasús earned a medical degree in Zaragoza and never treated a single patient: trade was his calling. In 1876 he founded La Veneciana, a mirror workshop that within a few years had hundreds of agents across Spain and premises in Madrid and Seville. From there he moved into trams, Aragonese mines and the founding of the newspaper Heraldo de Aragón. From the Zaragoza Chamber of Commerce he became one of the voices of “regeneracionismo,” the movement that wanted to shake up a Spain worn out at the turn of the century. Alongside Joaquín Costa he led the Unión Nacional, a movement that promised much and barely managed to seat one deputy before falling apart. The 1908 Spanish-French Exhibition, which he organized in Zaragoza, earned him a lifetime seat in the Senate and the French Legion of Honour. After his death, the mirror firm he had built ended up in the hands of the giant Saint-Gobain.