Calle de Serrano Anguita

Las Salesas·Justicia

Since the early 1970s the street has borne the name of Francisco Serrano Anguita (Seville, 1887 – Madrid, 1968), journalist, playwright and Official Chronicler of the City of Madrid, in recognition of his research into the street’s own name: he showed that “San Opropio”, its former patron saint, did not exist in the Catholic calendar and that the name was an accumulated phonetic distortion of “paso propio”.

In the Justicia neighborhood runs a stretch that Texeira drew in 1656 as calle de las Beatas, after a beguinage founded around 1626. Later it came to be called San Opropio, and there lies the puzzle: San Opropio appears in no martyrology. Madrilenians venerated a saint who never existed. The man who investigated that phantom saint was Francisco Serrano Anguita (Seville, 1887 – Madrid, 1968), a journalist and playwright who made his whole career in Madrid. He premiered more than sixty works, triumphed with Manos de plata, and wrote the libretto for Black el payaso. On the last day of 1954 the city council named him Official Chronicler of the City, a post from which he wrote his daily column “Aquí Madrid”. His research reaches us only through later sources. The most popular explanation says “Opropio” is a corruption of “paso propio”; another traces it to the martyr Euprepio. Neither is confirmed, and the street took its current name in the early 1970s.

Its names

  • Calle de las Beatasc. 1626 – 18th century
  • Calle de San Opropio18th century – 1968 (aprox.)
  • Calle de Serrano Anguitaprincipios de los años 1970 – actualidad
Sources (10)

Crossings