Calle de San Pedro

It very likely honours the apostle Saint Peter, the fisherman of Galilee to whom Jesus gave the keys of heaven and whom tradition made the first pope of Rome. His name fits the calendar of saints that fills this corner of the neighbourhood, where the nearby signs invoke San José, Santa María, Santa Polonia and the Desamparados, like a small calendar of devotions gathered in a few metres. No one knows why Saint Peter was chosen for this particular lane. Madrid’s old chroniclers passed the name by without explanation. There may have been an image of the saint on a wall, a niche lit by an oil lamp, or a devout resident with weight enough to fix the sign. None of those clues reached us.