Calle de Ambrós

The street takes its name from the term Ambrós, the Catalan and Valencian form of Ambrosio, from Latin Ambrosius and Greek Ambrósios (‘immortal’). The exact identity of the honoree has not been found in primary sources; the naming pattern of the Colonia Iturbe points to a cultural or intellectual figure of the 19th–20th centuries.

Calle de Ambrós climbs from south to north, stitching together two twin developments, Colonia Iturbe 1 and 2. From 1926 the Basque promoter Gregorio Iturbe raised them on land pressed against the old park of the Quinta de la Fuente del Berro, today deep in the Fuente del Berro district. Each street in the colony honours a figure from the arts, sciences or letters of the 19th and 20th centuries: past here parade the ceramist Daniel Zuloaga, the humanist Andrés Bello, the cartographer Enrique d’Almonte. In such company, everything suggests Ambrós was also a person of that distinguished stamp. And here the puzzle begins. The first name that comes to mind is the Valencian illustrator Miguel Ambrosio Zaragoza (1913-1992), who signed as Ambrós and gave life to Captain Thunder. But the comic came long after these streets were named, and the cartoonist is known to have no tie to Madrid. No one knows for certain who this Ambrós was, and to reveal him still demands a visit to the City Archive.

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