Calle de Ventura de la Vega

Barrio de las Letras·Cortes

For Ventura de la Vega (1807-1865), playwright, author of El hombre de mundo and a central figure of Spanish theatre in the mid-19th century. The City Council dedicated the street to him in 1888, more than twenty years after his death.

Calle de Ventura de la Vega recalls a playwright born in Buenos Aires with a name that already promised the stage: Buenaventura. He crossed the Atlantic as a boy and made his whole career in Madrid, becoming one of the figures of 19th-century Spanish theatre. He translated, directed the Teatro Español, and taught elocution to Isabella II, who learned to project her voice with a teacher from the River Plate. In 1845 he premiered El hombre de mundo, the comedy that set aside high Romantic flight to portray the manners of the middle class. The plaque that today bears his name answers to no event that happened here: in 1888 the neighbourhood scattered literary tributes across its corners and this one fell to him.

Its names

  • Calle del Bañoh.1800–1888
  • Calle de Ventura de la Vega1888
Sources (9)

Crossings