Calle de Arriaza

Juan Bautista Arriaza y Superviela was born in Madrid in 1770. Before the pen came the sextant: he served as a naval officer until a serious eye ailment took him away from the sea. Turned diplomat, he spent part of the Peninsular War in London, where he defended the Spanish cause with patriotic verse. Under Ferdinand VII he gained official recognition as court poet, and from that post he celebrated royal anniversaries and feats of arms. His compositions on Madrid’s Second of May gave him the fame his surname still holds in this corner of Argüelles. The street ends near Príncipe Pío, the same spot where Goya set the executions of that May dawn of 1808 that Arriaza turned into verse.