Madrid, the Only City in the World That Has a Statue of Lucifer.
It is not usual for cities to dedicate a statue to the Fallen Angel, and Madrid is one of them. Those who walk through the Retiro Park and pay close attention to one of its sources will be able to recognize Satan himself at the top of it. The beautiful representation is the work of Ricardo Bellver, who made it in Rome in 1877 as a pensioner of the Royal Spanish Academy of Fine Arts.
Inspired by Milton's Lost Paradise, Bellver recreates the moment in which Lucifer (meaning "the light bearer") is thrown into hell by God in punishment for his rebellion after being his favorite. By its contradictory gesture, we can deduce that the beautiful angel is not exactly pleased by his descent to the scaffold.
With an athletic and beautiful body, the "fallen angel" is surrounded by a seven-headed serpent and is attached to a trunk. It is still Lucifer but soon it will be Satan, the lord of darkness. In the last century, its influence became so powerful that the police had to have the source permanently guarded because occult and satanic groups gathered there to organize sinister ceremonies.
The statue of Bellver was immediately appreciated for its artistic merits and the State bought it for 4,500 pesetas of the time. A year after its realization, in 1878, he sent it to the Universal Exhibition of Paris as part of the Spanish delegation. And a year later, the director of the National Museum, Benito Soriano, in which he was exposed for a few months, suggested that he be placed in a public place due to his many virtues that he summed up in this way: "Because of its daring composition, its original attitude and also the material with which it has been melted ". The petition was accepted and since then it has been at the confluence of the promenade of Cuba, Uruguay and Duque Fernán Nuñez in El Retiro.
The talent of the architect Francisco Jareño was required for the pedestal, which, according to the satanic subject of the statue, designed an octagonal structure with demons spitting out fish, lizards and snakes. The whole is surrounded by a flower bed. As explained by Marco and Peter Besas in his book "Hidden Madrid", the installation of the statue caused great controversy at the time due to its delicate subject and it was the commitment of Duke Fernan Nuñez who managed to finally put it in the Retiro at sight of all the world.
Finally, for the curious and the superstitious, a detail. The statue is almost exactly 666 meters above the level of evil, in which some have wanted to see a sign. Of course, Madrid itself is 665 meters above sea level. Perhaps it is that, as the bishop of Madrid said a few years ago, "in the capital he sins massively". The Fallen Angel, without a doubt, is not to blame.
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