Calle de Ferrer del Río

Between the calle de Francisco Silvela and the calle de Cartagena, in the heart of La Guindalera, runs this street born in the last quarter of the 19th century, when the area was built up as an extension of the Buenavista district. The man who names it, Antonio Ferrer del Río, learned his letters at the Colegio de San Mateo, where Alberto Lista taught him. As a young man he lived in Cuba and signed his articles there with a pen name that gave away his origin, “El Madrileño”. Back in Spain he worked as a journalist and librarian, edited the magazines El Laberinto and La América, and his prestige carried him into the Royal Spanish Academy in 1853. Among other works he wrote the History of the Reign of Charles III in Spain, commissioned by Isabella II. Death took him in office: on 22 August 1872, while heading Public Instruction for all of Spain, he died in the Madrid town of El Molar.

At number 18 of this street —⁠today the seat of the parish of Virgen de la Providencia y San Cayetano⁠— lodged Felipe Pérez y González (Seville, 1854 – Madrid, 16 March 1910), librettist of the zarzuela La Gran Vía (1886), the most-performed Madrid piece of his generation.