Calle de la Ventosa

In the Palacio district, on the slope falling toward the Manzanares behind the Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande, the steep calle de la Ventosa runs down between Gran Vía de San Francisco and Ronda de Segovia. The name came from a healer, Juana Picazo, who cured with a glass vial used as a cupping glass. She claimed the instrument had belonged to Saint Isidore and that its power came from there. Her neighbors paid and stayed ill; when they denounced her, the Inquisition tried her as a witch. Tradition says she was shaved, tarred and feathered, and paraded through town on a donkey “bound for the galleys.” After that she appears in no record. The municipal resolution of 11 January 1835 fixed the name. The area was always working-class and full of trades, taverns and workshops, and even left its mark in Galdós, who in Fortunata y Jacinta has a character walk down here toward the portillo de Gilimón.