Calle Lanuza
The street bears the name of Juan de Lanuza y Urrea (Zaragoza, 1564-1591), last Chief Justice of Aragon, executed by order of Philip II on 20 December 1591 after sheltering Antonio Pérez under Aragonese law and declaring the entry of Castilian troops a breach of it. His death ended Aragonese self-rule and made him a symbol of nineteenth-century historical liberalism.
Calle de Lanuza runs between paseo del Marqués de Zafra and calle de los Peñascales, in the heart of the Fuente del Berro neighbourhood. When it opened, in 1898, it was called calle del Progreso. The City Council changed its mind barely three years later and in 1901 gave it the surname it bears today.
Behind that surname is a man who held his post for only three months and died for it. Juan de Lanuza y Urrea inherited from his father the office of Justice of Aragon, supreme guardian of the kingdom’s laws. He came to hold it at the worst possible moment. During the Aragonese Disturbances, he declared that the entry of the Castilian army violated the kingdom’s laws and organised an armed defence to stop it. Philip II answered without courts or sentence: he ordered him beheaded. Lanuza was executed on 20 December 1591.
In 1904 Zaragoza raised a monument to him in the plaza de Aragón, beneath a carved phrase that can still be read: “Justicia, ley suprema.”
Its names
- Calle del Progreso1 enero 1898 – 26 julio 1901