Calle de Agustina de Aragón
The street takes its name from Agustina Raimunda María Zaragoza Doménech (Barcelona, 1786 – Ceuta, 1857), “La Artillera,” who on 2 July 1808 fired a cannon at the Portillo gate of Zaragoza after its defenders fell, becoming a symbol of popular resistance against Napoleon’s army. Goya immortalized her in the etching “What courage!” (number 7 of The Disasters of War). The street opened in 1927 as an inner-block passage of the Ensanche, promoted by a cooperative of state civil servants.
In December 1927, Alfonso XIII walked through a passage just opened in the Ensanche and, with his own hand, gave the keys to the first residents. That scene crowned this corner of low-cost housing raised as an inner-block passage beside calle Martí.
It was promoted by the Royal Cooperative Institution for State Civil Servants, under the Cheap Housing Act. The architects planned two hundred dwellings in a historicist style, but by the opening barely thirty-eight were finished. Of that whole cooperative dream, a single block survives on calle de Agustina de Aragón.
The name honours Agustina Zaragoza Doménech, “La Artillera,” born in Barcelona in 1786 and dead in Ceuta in 1857. In 1809, in the Alcázar of Seville, the Central Supreme Junta named her a second lieutenant of artillery and gave her the shield of Defender of the Fatherland. In 1870 her remains were taken to Zaragoza, and in 1909 they were finally placed in the church of Nuestra Señora del Portillo.
Sources (5)
- Colonias de Casas Baratas para funcionarios. Calles de Martí y Agustina de Aragón. 1927 — Arte en Madrid
- Agustina Zaragoza Domènech — Real Academia de la Historia, Historia Hispánica
- Agustina de Aragón — Wikipedia en español
- Biografia de Agustina de Aragón — Biografías y Vidas
- Agustina de Aragón — Museo del Ejército, Ministerio de Defensa