Calle del Amparo

Lavapiés·Embajadores

The name in use since 1878 refers either to the nickname or given name of a midwife from Granada who lived and practised on this street in the 17th century, or to the common noun “amparo” (shelter) understood as a refuge for the needy, a hypothesis proposed by Répide for lack of any document attesting to a woman of that name. It was earlier “Comadre de Granada” —⁠already so on the Texeira map of 1656⁠— and, more briefly, “Comadre” after the 1834 reform.

Few streets in Madrid owe their name to a flower that served as a clock. The Calle del Amparo runs down from Calle de la Esgrima to the Ronda de Valencia on a slope that never eases, crossing Embajadores. In the 17th century that incline marked the southern edge of town: beyond it began the open country. Its oldest known name was Calle de la Rosa, and there the story begins. A midwife from Granada lived in the neighbourhood with a singular habit: she left beside the woman in labour a freshly cut bud from her garden. While the flower stayed closed, the birth was still under way; when it opened, it signalled that all had gone well. That gesture gave her such fame that the street ended up named after her, and on the 1656 map it already appeared as Calle de la Comadre de Granada. The place-name gradually shortened. The 1834 reform left it as plain Calle de la Comadre, and in 1878 the city council changed it to the Amparo it bears today. The old echo survives in the Travesía de la Comadre, the historic access to the Granada woman’s house.

Its names

  • Calle de la RosaAnterior a 1656
  • Calle de la Comadre de GranadaDocumentado en el plano de Texeira (1656) y en el de Espinosa (1769)
  • Calle de la Comadre1834–1878
  • Calle del Amparo1878 – actualidad
Sources (7)

Crossings