Calle Bocángel
The street bears the surname of Gabriel Bocángel y Unzueta (Madrid, 1603–1658), a Baroque poet and playwright, librarian to the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, Royal Chronicler from 1638 and a forerunner of the zarzuela. It was opened in the Fuente del Berro neighbourhood during the development of the Eastern Extension in the first third of the 20th century.
A street dedicated to Gabriel Bocángel y Unzueta, a Madrid poet born in 1603 into a family of Italian roots. He studied grammar in Toledo and earned a bachelor’s degree in canon law from the University of Alcalá at barely fifteen.
He served as librarian to the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, brother of Philip IV, and in 1638 the Cortes of Castile proclaimed him Royal Chronicler, a coveted post he had to defend against rivals. As a poet he worked in the wake of Góngora’s ornate style, softened of its excesses: he debuted with Rimas y prosas and gathered his work in La lira de las musas. He also wrote musical theatre, one title of which earned him a lifetime pension from Philip IV.
The calle de Bocángel opens in the Fuente del Berro neighbourhood, in the Salamanca district, developed mainly between 1910 and 1930. The Eastern Extension named its minor streets after writers back then, and Bocángel drew one of them.