Calle de Martín de Vargas

Behind the name is a monk who wanted to return his order to the harshness of its beginnings. Martín de Vargas was born in Jerez toward the end of the fourteenth century and spent much of his life in Rome, where he became confessor to Pope Martin V. He had worn the habit of the hermits of Saint Jerome, but on returning to Spain he withdrew to the monastery of Piedra and there changed course: he became a Cistercian. What he saw in the Castilian monasteries struck him as too lax. With the approval of Martin V himself, he founded the Congregation of Castile in 1425 and raised near Toledo the monastery of Monte Sión as head of the movement. It was the first far-reaching reform within the Castilian Cistercian order, gathering the houses of the Crown of Castile under a more austere rule. He died in 1446. The street, laid out in the Las Acacias district, branches off the Paseo de las Acacias and drops toward the river. The surname on the sign belonged to a reformer who measured faith in hardships.