Calle de Nicasio Gallego

Juan Nicasio Gallego was born in Zamora in 1777 and died in Madrid in 1853. He trained in Salamanca, took holy orders, and rose to archdeacon, but he entered literary history for a handful of odes and elegies in the classical mold. His best-remembered work is the elegy El dos de mayo, written in the heat of the 1808 Madrid uprising against Napoleon’s troops. Those verses, calling for resistance, earned him a reputation as a patriotic poet throughout the 19th century. Politics cost him dearly. A liberal deputy in the Cortes of Cádiz, he defended national sovereignty and freedom of the press. When Ferdinand VII returned in 1814 and repealed the Constitution, Gallego was arrested and confined in various monasteries; he regained his freedom with the liberal revolution of 1820. Later he was permanent secretary of the Royal Spanish Academy. The street runs through Trafalgar, in the heart of Chamberí.