Calle de Ayala

Salamanca·Goya

The street takes its name from Adelardo López de Ayala y Herrera (Guadalcanal, 1829 – Madrid, 1879), playwright, politician and member of the Royal Spanish Academy. The street emerged in the last third of the 19th century with the development of the Salamanca Ensanche and took its present name in the early 1880s, after Ayala’s death, because that street was to house his residence.

Laid out by the Marquis of Salamanca as he developed his Ensanche from 1860, this street was first called Calle de los Pajaritos. The name is said to come from a stream of the same name that drained into the Abroñigal. Its first stretch, between the Paseo de la Castellana and Serrano, also bore another politically charged name, Calle del 29 de Septiembre, for the date the Glorious Revolution triumphed in 1868. In the early 1880s the city council renamed it in honour of Adelardo López de Ayala, and the reason has a melancholy touch: he was going to live there. The writer was having a mansion built on the corner with Velázquez, but died on 30 December 1879 without ever moving in. Born in Guadalcanal in 1829, Ayala shone in the high comedy of 19th-century Spanish theatre with titles such as El tanto por ciento and Consuelo, and entered the Royal Spanish Academy in 1870. His pen also served history: he wrote the manifesto “España con honra” that justified the Glorious Revolution and drove Isabella II into exile. His remains rest in the San Justo cemetery.

Its names

  • Calle de los Pajaritos / Calle del 29 de Septiembreúltimo tercio del 19th century (antes de c. 1881)
  • Calle de Ayalac. 1881 — actualidad
Sources (6)