Calle de San Agustín
From an image of Saint Augustine that presided over the entrance to a pleasure estate that once stood here. The property, owned by Father Lezo, left its dedication to the street.
Saint Augustine, the Church Father who left us his Confessions, reached this street in the Barrio de las Letras by a curious route: an image of him set above the doorway of a pleasure estate. Passers-by saw the saint presiding over the entrance, and the name stuck to the whole street.
Inside the grounds stood the novitiate of the Daughters of Charity, and a few steps away were the Capuchin convent of San Antonio del Prado and the Medinaceli palace, pulled down in 1910 to build the Hotel Palace.
Nothing remains of the estate or its saint-crowned doorway. The only trace of that image is the name still engraved on the street sign.
Its names
- Sin denominación documentadahasta h.1700
- Calle de San Agustính.18th century–actualidad
Sources (7)
- Por las calles de Madrid — Calle de San Agustín (blog con transcripción de Repide)
- Anexo: Obispos y arzobispos de Granada — Wikipedia
- Plaza de las Cortes — Wikipedia (referencia geográfica de la calle)
- Calle del Prado – Wikipedia (cita de Répide sobre El Globo en esquina con San Agustín)
- Convento de San Antonio del Prado (Capuchinos) – Wikipedia
- Agustín de Lezo Palomeque – Wikipedia (arzobispo de Zaragoza 1783-1796, no de Granada)
- Wikidata – Calle de San Agustín, Madrid (referencia a Gea Ortigas, Los nombres de las calles de Madrid, 2012, pp. 264-265)