Calle de Serrano

The Marquis of Salamanca had this artery opened from 1863, when he began to develop the first stretch between Villanueva and Goya. At first the street was called Bulevar de Narváez, in honor of General Ramón María Narváez. But politics ruled the street map: after the Glorious Revolution of 1868, the council renamed it Serrano in 1869. The new namesake was Francisco Serrano y Domínguez, born in San Fernando (Cádiz) in 1810. He entered the army as a cavalry cadet and rose during the First Carlist War. He returned from the captaincy-general of Cuba with the title of I Duke of la Torre. In September 1868 he commanded the insurgent army at the battle of Alcolea, and with Isabella II already on her way to exile he took over the provisional Government. In 1869 the Cortes named him Regent of the Realm, a post he held until 1871. The end has something of coincidence: Serrano died in Madrid in 1885, at number 14 of the street that already bore his name.