Calle Marceliano Santa María

The man who gave this street its name painted faith as few in his time did. Marceliano Santa María Sedano was born in Burgos in 1866, into a family of deep religious conviction. He trained first at his city’s drawing academy and then in Madrid, and that devout root marked his brush. Supported by a grant from the Provincial Council of Burgos, he spent four years in Rome, and from there came the canvas that made him famous: El triunfo de la Santa Cruz, a huge painting of battle and Christian banners that won a medal at the National Exhibition of 1892 and another at the 1893 international show in Chicago. Back in Spain he painted walls, ceilings, and portraits and formed a school of pupils, before settling in Madrid, where he died in 1952. The street that recalls him runs through El Viso, among white 1930s façades that have little to do with the Castilian golds he so often painted.