Calle de Altamirano

The name recalls Antonio de la Concepción Torres Altamirano, born in Madrid in 1616. He took the habit of the Discalced Trinitarians, the reformed branch of the order that ransomed Christian captives in North Africa, and came to govern it as general on two occasions. The street wasn’t born with his name. When the Argüelles district rose in the second half of the nineteenth century, this street was first called calle de Clot, after an industrialist settled in the area. The Trinitarian’s sign arrived toward the end of the century. Calle de Altamirano runs between Princesa and the paseo del Pintor Rosales. On its corner with Princesa stand the buildings of the Richard Gans type foundry, set up here in the early twentieth century, where printing types and matrices were made to supply much of the Spanish press.