Calle del Duque de Sevilla

Behind the name is a Bourbon who turned against his own family. Ferdinand VII created the title of Duke of Seville in 1823 and gave it to his nephew Enrique de Borbón, grandson of Charles IV. The child honored with the dukedom grew into the black sheep of the palace. Enrique embraced liberal ideas that clashed with the court of his cousin and sister-in-law Isabella II. He married in secret against the queen’s will and, from France, went so far as to declare himself a revolutionary and seek membership in the First International, a gesture that cost him his titles and his rank as infante. He died on 12 March 1870 in a pistol duel against the Duke of Montpensier, his lifelong rival; having lost his rank as infante, he was buried in the San Isidro cemetery and not in El Escorial. The calle del Duque de Sevilla carries that title into the grid of El Viso, the colony of Rationalist villas built from 1933 on one of Madrid’s high ridges.