Calle de la Primavera

The street runs down from Calle de la Esperanza to Calle de la Fe, in the heart of Embajadores. Short and sloping, it gave its name to the corner Répide christened the Primavera quarter. On Texeira’s 1656 map it is silent; by 1769 it already bears its present name, having earlier been Calle de las Damas and Calle de Buenavista. The origin smells of festivity. Here, since the 17th century, stood a tree-lined promenade where the Cruz de Mayo was celebrated: before a fountain called de la Primavera the flowering tree was raised and the majas danced. The street’s true character arrived in 1880, when the Teatro Madrid opened at number 7 —⁠iron and glass, with a sliding roof that could open the hall in five minutes for summer performances. On Barbieri’s death in 1894 it took his surname. A fire destroyed it in 1927. From that era a single witness survives: the Café Barbieri, on the corner with Ave María, opened in 1902 and still faithful to its divans, its marble tables and its mirrors.