Calle de las Virtudes

The name appeals to the virtues in the abstract, that moral quality classical philosophy ordered into prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. Why the word ended up labeling this short street in Almagro is unknown: no record survives of the reason or of who named it. The Calle de las Virtudes runs between José Abascal and García de Paredes, barely two hundred meters of tenement fronts, in the Chamberí expansion. That modest scene caught Benito Pérez Galdós’s eye. In Fortunata y Jacinta, his heroine walks down buying dates and fixes her gaze on the houses of this street, because the homes of the poor always stirred an affectionate interest in her. Today no plaque explains the virtues, only narrow balconies over a brief street.