Calle de Torrijos

The name honours José María de Torrijos y Uriarte, a soldier born in Madrid in 1791 who made his life a banner of liberalism. He trained at the Academy of Alcalá de Henares, and the War of Independence caught him still an adolescent: he came to the aid of Daoíz and Velarde at the Monteleón park and ended the conflict with the rank of brigadier general. His defence of the 1812 Constitution set him against Ferdinand VII and led him to prison and exile. The end came in 1831. The governor of Málaga laid a trap: under the pseudonym Viriato, he posed as a liberal and convinced him by letter that the coast would rise in his favour if he landed from Gibraltar. Torrijos fell for the deception. Captured along with nearly fifty followers, he was shot without trial on 11 December on the beach of San Andrés. That scene was immortalised by Antonio Gisbert in The Execution of Torrijos and His Companions on the Beach at Málaga, a canvas that hangs today in the Prado and fixed the general as a romantic martyr of liberty.