Calle de Padilla

Juan de Padilla (Toledo, c. 1490 – Villalar, 24 April 1521), alderman of Toledo and captain general of the Comunidades of Castile, was executed at Villalar alongside Juan Bravo and Francisco Maldonado after the Comunero defeat. The street was laid out in Castro’s eastern Ensanche (1860 Plan) and appears bounding block 215 in works records of 1863-1864.

Three parallel streets carry the names of the leaders Charles I had beheaded at Villalar on 24 April 1521: Padilla, Juan Bravo and Maldonado. The Comuneros, defeated and executed, ended up as street names that crossed the Franco years without anyone removing them. Juan de Padilla came from a family of Toledo gentry and inherited his father’s post as alderman of Toledo. When the revolt broke out, he led the Toledo uprising and the Junta Santa of Ávila named him captain general of the Comunero army. He was captured at Villalar on 23 April, a day before his execution. His widow, María Pacheco, held the resistance from Toledo until February 1522, when she had to flee to Portugal. At number 38 of the street, a building from around 1925, Juan Ramón Jiménez lived with Zenobia Camprubí between 1929 and August 1936; a plaque on the façade still recalls it.

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