Calle María Ignacia

This street’s name has no documented origin. It appears in the street registry of Bellas Vistas, in Tetuán, as one of many women’s given names that filled the streets of northern Madrid when the neighbourhood rose over the old estates west of Bravo Murillo, between the late 19th century and the first decades of the 20th. Whom María Ignacia belonged to, whether a specific person or simply a name picked at random, is not recorded. She shares a name with María Ignacia Ibáñez, the 18th-century actress whom José Cadalso called Filis in his verses, though nothing connects one to the other. The coincidence is just that, a repeated name. Much of the Bellas Vistas street registry was named with women’s given names, with no surname or biography to accompany them. María Ignacia is a sign that reached today with a name and nothing behind it.