Calle de Núñez de Arce

Barrio de las Letras·Cortes

For Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1832–1903), poet and politician, one of the most widely read lyric voices of the late 19th century. The change was ordered in 1904, six months after his death; the street had earlier been called calle de la Gorguera.

Núñez de Arce gives his name to this street without ever having lived on it: the dedication is pure tribute, for the writer died far from here, on calle de la Cruzada. It was earlier called Gorguera, a word that seems a corruption of agorera, the name once given to fortune-tellers. A certain María Mola is said to have read fortunes hereabouts and to have ended up executed on charges of witchcraft. The seer’s street ended up, through time and phonetics, as something almost unrecognisable. The only name carved in stone around here belongs neither to the writer nor to the seer, but to the printer Joaquín Ibarra.

Its names

  • Calle de la Agorerah. 15th century
  • Calle de la Gorguerah. 16th century – 1904
  • Calle de Núñez de Arce1904 – actualidad
Sources (10)