Calle Luisa Fernanda
Honors the Infanta María Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon, sister of Isabella II and Duchess of Montpensier, with the street named in 1865 as the Argüelles district took shape.
The name honors María Luisa Fernanda de Bourbon (1832-1897), Infanta of Spain, daughter of Ferdinand VII and younger sister of Queen Isabella II. The street received its sign on 4 October 1865, as the brand-new Argüelles district was being laid out.
Luisa Fernanda married Antonio de Orleans, Duke of Montpensier, in 1846. Her wedding was held on the same day as her sister Isabella’s and set off a diplomatic conflict, since the match broke the agreements on French influence in Spain. From their palace in Seville, the couple nursed for years the ambition of taking the crown, amid plots aimed at Isabella II herself. The outcome came sideways: not she reigned, but her daughter María de las Mercedes, married to Alfonso XII.
That political weight shows in the street itself. After the Glorious Revolution, it lost the Infanta’s name and became Calle de Carlos Latorre; the royal name returned with the Restoration. It runs short and straight between Calle de la Princesa and Calle de Ferraz, a step from the Temple of Debod.