Calle de Santa Valentina

In the year 308, at the height of Maximinus’s persecution of Christians, Valentina, a young virgin from Caesarea in Palestine, was martyred. Her story reached us because it was written down by Eusebius, bishop of that same city and a witness to the events. What is told of her has the edge of a scene: when her companion Thea was being tortured, Valentina cried out in protest and was seized at once. They led her before a pagan altar to force her to make a sacrifice, and she answered with a kick to the brazier, scattering the embers across the floor. She was burned alive alongside Thea. The calendar remembers her as “the brave one”. The neighbourhood, Valdeacederas, grew in the late nineteenth century north of the city, around the road to France, filling with day labourers and market gardeners. The name refers to the “valley of the sorrels”, the sour herb that grew beside the local streams.