Calle de Amorós
The street bears the surname Amorós, linked by local tradition to the Valencian teacher and soldier Francisco Amorós y Ondeano (1770-1848), who introduced systematic gymnastics into Spain and France. No primary street-name source confirms this reference for this particular street.
Calle de Amorós belongs to La Guindalera, a residential colony that grew east of the Castro Plan between 1890 and the first third of the 20th century. Its names honour a curious mix: Enlightenment figures, 19th-century soldiers and the neighbourhood’s farming landowners.
The best-documented candidate is Francisco Amorós y Ondeano, born in Valencia in 1770 and dead in Paris in 1848. A colonel of infantry and, above all, an educator, he directed Madrid’s Royal Pestalozzian Military Institute, a short-lived school that closed in January 1808. A supporter of the French, he crossed the border and settled in Paris in 1813, where he set up gymnasiums and in 1830 published his Manuel d’éducation physique, gymnastique et morale. France repaid the favour with the Legion of Honour.
A word of caution is in order. This street’s name does not appear in the old street registers, and it might well refer not to the Valencian gymnast but to some local property owner of the same surname, a common practice in the colonies of the eastern Ensanche.