Calle del Marqués de Cortina

Behind the title is a Madrid man born in 1860, José Gómez-Acebo y Cortina, third Marquis of Cortina, a lawyer and liberal politician. He held a seat in Congress across six legislatures and under Alfonso XIII joined the government twice: as minister of public works with the Count of Romanones and later as minister of the navy in the cabinet Antonio Maura formed after the Annual disaster. From his time at the navy came naval aeronautics: he promoted the first ships built to carry aircraft and the fleet’s air stations, an early start for Spanish naval aviation. His other life ran through banking, as chairman of the Banco Español de Crédito between 1927 and 1932. The plaque falls in Castillejos, a neighborhood whose street plan gathered soldiers and politicians of early twentieth-century Spain.