Equestrian Monument to King Felipe III, in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid
A Cultural
Equestrian Monument to King Felipe III, in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid
The Equestrian Monument to King Felipe III of Spain in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid is made up of a Mannerist bronze sculpture larger than life size and an architectural pedestal from a later period, currently supported on a rectangular plinth or bench that serves as protection and support for a wrought iron lance fence.
The equestrian portrait is the fundamental part of the monument. The king appears with a young and smiling face, showing serenity. His head is uncovered and he is protected with half armor, with the breastplate decorated with bas-reliefs. The neck with a large ruffle stands out, according to the fashion of the moment. Iconographic elements of diverse origins, attributes of power that indicate the rank of the character are joined to the real image. On the chest appears the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, of Burgundian origin, while the right hand holds the baton, using the left to hold the reins.
The horse, advancing at a pace, raises one of its front legs, giving movement to the figure. It is meticulously worked, as can be seen in the treatment of the agitated manes, the tail, the muscles and the veins marked through the skin. The reconstructed head is treated in a more concise and schematic way. On the strap appears the signature of the sculptor Pietro Tacca, “PETRUS TACCA F. FLORENTIAE 1614”. There is also a second inscription "RESTORED 1934 / ESCULTOR - FUNDIDOR / J. CRISTÓBAL - CODINA H".
The pedestal is a quadrangular prismatic body four meters high, topped by two semi-cylinders. It is made with three types of stone, gray granite in the base, pink granite in the middle section and Colmenar de Oreja limestone at the top, in the friezes, moldings and tombstones.
On the granite plinth there are several moldings with plant decoration, triglyphs and bay leaves. Two allegorical tombstones with sculpted reliefs representing war trophies are located on the sides of the intermediate body. In the frontal semi-cylinder there is a heraldic relief with the coats of arms of the Royal House and the Villa of Madrid on a trimmed leather cartouche, topped by the royal crown. In the rear semi-cylinder there is a tombstone with loose bronze letters alluding to the placement of the equestrian monument in the Plaza Mayor: "THE QUEEN DOÑA ISABEL II / AT THE REQUEST OF THE / MADRID CITY COUNCIL / COMMANDED TO PLACE / IN THIS SITE THE STATUE / OF SEÑOR REY / DON FELIPE III / SON OF THIS VILLA / WHO RESTITUTED HER / THE COURT IN 1606 / AND MADE IT BUILD IN 1619 / THIS MAJOR SQUARE / YEAR 1848 ”.
The upper body or finish of the pedestal starts with a beautiful frieze with scrolls and vegetal decoration that connects with the cornice by means of a molding of ova and leaves. The set of equestrian sculpture and its pedestal, although heterogeneous in origin, is harmonious and well proportioned, constituting an element that notably enriches the space of the Plaza Mayor, both for its correct scale and for the stylistic agreement with the architecture of the herself. If from the formal and stylistic point of view the monument is suitable for that space, it is no less so from the historical point of view, since Felipe III was precisely the promoter of the works to complete the square in 1617. Both elements, square and equestrian monument, together take on a special value that makes this space the place in the city that best evokes the historical period of the Habsburg dynasty, creating an image that is part of the collective memory of Madrid and foreigners.
In conclusion, the bronze equestrian sculpture of King Philip III of Spain is one of the most important and significant pieces of Mannerist monumental statuary, one of the few surviving in Europe from this period and the oldest of those preserved outside of Italy. made by two leading artists such as Giambologna and Pietro Tacca, so its uniqueness and importance for the historical heritage of the Community of Madrid is beyond doubt. The restorations carried out in 1934 by Juan Cristóbal González Quesada are worthy and are perfectly integrated into the whole. The pedestal designed by Juan José Sánchez Pescador with the stone reliefs of Sabino de Medina de la Torriente created for that location in 1848, is an element of appreciable architectural and artistic value that places the portrait in height, complements and enhances equestrian, essential to allow adequate contemplation, which is why it is considered an inseparable complement to the main sculpture. The set of both pieces, called Equestrian Monument to King Felipe III of Spain, in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid, brings together values of historical and artistic interest relevant to its declaration as Asset of Cultural Interest in the Monument category.
Various documentary sources and archaeological remains from classical antiquity attest to the frequent presence in cities of equestrian portraits made in bronze, called in Rome "equi magni", erected for commemorative or propaganda purposes. In the imperial city there were more than twenty simultaneously, but the value of bronze as a recyclable raw material made most of them disappear already in remote times.
Only two specimens reached the Modern Age, the so-called Regisole of Pavia, destroyed by the Jacobins in 1796 and the monument to Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome, transferred in 1537 to the Capitol Square, the only complete Roman equestrian portrait testimony preserved today . During the Middle Ages, in northern Italy numerous funerary monuments of nobles or soldiers were erected, inside and outside the temples, sometimes including life-size stone or wooden equestrian sculptures. In the typology of medieval tombs or cenotaphs, it is necessary to mention, for which they contributed to the definition of the equestrian monument of the modern era, the frescoed cenotaphs in the lateral naves of the Duomo of Florence, dedicated to the condottiers Sir John Hawkwood (1436 ) and Niccolò da Tolentino (1456), the work of painters Paolo Uccello and Andrea del Castagno respectively. In them, the figures are treated in a sculptural way, and many of the elements that will characterize equestrian monuments of later centuries appear, such as pedestals with architectural motifs, commemorative legends, attributes of political or military power and heraldic shields.
Bronze artwork was the almost exclusive heritage of Italian artists from the Middle Ages until well into the 1441th century. It was mainly the workshops of Florence that recovered the old foundry techniques, and the Tuscan city became one of the main European centers for the production of bronzes, forging and goldsmithing. The first artists to restore the Roman tradition and materialize in bronze a commemorative equestrian sculpture of a non-funerary nature and larger than life size were the Florentines Antonio di Cristóforo and Niccolò di Giovanni Baroncelli, authors between 1442 and 1447 of the monument to Duke Niccolò III d 'This in Ferrara. Shortly after, between 1453 and 1478, Donatello made for its placement in front of the Basilica of San Antonio in Padua the monument to the condottier Erasmo da Narni "Gattamelata", located on a high pedestal of eight meters. Already in the next generation, between 1488 and 1508, Andrea Verrocchio would model the monument to the condottier Bartolomeo Colleoni, with an arrogant gesture, bound for the field of San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, cast after his death by Alessandro Leopardi. Leonardo da Vinci, in his first Milanese stage, modeled a seven-meter-high horse in terracotta for the ambitious equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, which he did not cast in bronze and was destroyed by French troops. Later, between 1511 and 1547, he made designs for another equestrian monument to Gian Giacomo Trivulzio that he did not execute either. In 1509, during the sessions of the Diet of Augsburg, Emperor Charles V commissioned Leone Leoni (1590-XNUMX) with a bronze equestrian sculpture that would have been the first made of a Spanish monarch. However, the temperamental artist, who had in his Milanese studio a cast of the equestrian portrait of Marcus Aurelius, did not get to model it.
In the second half of the 1587th century, the Medici dynasty, restored under the government of the Tuscany region by Emperor Charles V, undertook an ambitious propaganda plan and legitimation of its authority, questioned by the supporters of the republic. In 1529, the Grand Duke Ferdinand I commissioned the sculptor Jean Boulogne (Douai 1608- Florence XNUMX), called Giambologna in Italy and Juan de Bolonia in Spain, an equestrian sculpture in memory of his father, Grand Duke Cosimo I.
This Mannerist sculptor of Flemish origin, educated in Antwerp and later in Rome, an admirer of the work of Michelangelo, is a key figure in understanding the resurgence of monumental equestrian sculpture. His interest in the horse led him, from the beginning of his career in Florence, to model a series of small bronzes in collaboration with Antonio Susini, in which he defined a type of animal of noble bearing walking at a pace, with a bent neck and head classic profile. For years he explored variants of lower rank that mainly affected the mane and tail. The extraordinary Roman horse head incorporated in 1585 into the Medici collection served as a model and inspiration. The commissioning of the monument to Cosimo I meant, regarding the figure of the horse, a simple change of scale, applying the results of his study. The success of this monument, placed on a pedestal in Florence's Plaza de la Signoria in 1594, led to a series of similar commissions for which the elderly Giambologna turned to his disciple Pietro Tacca as a collaborator. Emperor Rudolph I was one of the first interested in having his own equestrian monument, but the project did not go beyond the modeling phase. The portrait of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I de Medici, commissioned by the character himself around 1600, was modeled in 1602 and cast with the help of Tacca between 1602 and 1607. The following year, after the sculptor died, it was placed in the Plaza de la Santíssima Annunziata from Florence. This portrait presents numerous variants with respect to that of Cosimo I, both in the figure of the horse and that of the rider, perhaps because it was destined for a public space in the same city.
The portrait of Henry IV of Bourbon, King of France, was also commissioned at the beginning of the XNUMXth century by his wife Maria de Medici, at which time the small bronze model preserved in the Dijon Museum can be dated. The sculpture, which recovers many of the characteristics of the portrait of Cosimo I, was modeled by Giambologna and cast by Tacca in 1613, settling in Paris in 1614. Unfortunately it was destroyed during the French Revolution, although a copy was erected in 1818 on the same site. The fourth and last monumental equestrian sculpture made by Giambologna was that of King Felipe III of Spain, commissioned in 1606 from the artist by Grand Duke Ferdinand I and sent to the Spanish court in 1616 by his successor Cosimo II, as a gift to the sovereign through of the Duke of Lerma. Flamenco came to model the horse, but he died before realizing the real figure, which can be attributed to Pietro Tacca following a portrait made by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. Felipe III held the throne of Spain and Portugal from 1598 until his death in 1621. He transferred the capital of his states to Valladolid in 1601, returning it to Madrid in 1606. During his reign, the peace treaty known as the Twelve Years Truce was signed with the Netherlands, which was the official recognition of Holland. From the point of view of building activity, he promoted the construction in Madrid of the Monastery of the Incarnation in 1611 and of the Plaza Mayor in 1617, in addition to other buildings of a religious nature. The equestrian portrait of King Philip III continues the line of previous bronzes made by Giambologna in terms of the posture of the horse, corresponding to the already experienced model of long mane, raised front leg and bent neck. The gesture of the character, with the raised right arm holding the baton, is very similar to those of Cosimo I and Enrique IV. The work was provisionally deposited in the gardens of the Alcázar of Madrid, passing in 1617 to the Reserved Garden of the Casa de Campo, in front of the old Vargas palace. This Renaissance garden of walks and geometric Italian-style flowerbeds, documented on a canvas painted by Félix Castelo around 1640, was presided over by the fountain of the Eagle, in front of which the equestrian statue was placed on a pedestal. As various authors have pointed out, the placement of a public equestrian portrait with all the attributes of power in a space restricted to the monarch's family and protected from views, was a misinterpretation of the meaning of the work. Neither from the formal point of view the choice was correct, since it was in competition and prevented the view of the source of the Eagle from the palace. Despite this, this situation lasted for more than two centuries. In the XNUMXth century, Antonio Ponz reflected in his book Viage de España on the convenience of locating the magnificent sculpture in a public place, considering the Plaza Mayor the appropriate place. At the beginning of the XNUMXth century there was an attempt to transfer it to the Salón del Prado by order of José Bonaparte, which did not come true. In May 1846, Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, writer, chronicler of the Villa and councilor of the Madrid City Council, presented his General Improvements Project in Madrid to the Consistory, where he proposed the reform of the Plaza Mayor and the transfer of the equestrian statue of Felipe III to the center of it, to display its artistic beauty and to represent the monarch who ordered the square to be built.
The City Council commissioned the architect Juan José Sánchez Pescador, author of the Casas del Cordero de la Puerta del Sol, to design a new pedestal for the sculpture, its disassembly and transfer. The sculptural work was commissioned to Sabino de Medina de la Torriente. The works were carried out during the year 1848 and the monument was completely finished at the beginning of 1849. In its new location, the monument suffered various vicissitudes, as a consequence of the agitated political changes of the time. After the revolution of 1868 the sculpture was withdrawn to the warehouses of the Villa. During the First Republic, its replacement by an allegory of the Martyrs of July 7, 1822, was proposed, which was only a project. In 1875, coinciding with the Bourbon Restoration, it returned to its place in the center of the square. In April 1931, after the proclamation of the Second Republic, the monument suffered an attack by introducing firecrackers through the horse's mouth. The explosion caused serious damage. The cornice or upper platform of the pedestal fell to the ground, dragging the sculptural group with it, breaking the horse's legs. The animal also lost the head, part of the neck, the rump and fragments of the four legs. The rider was beheaded and without his right arm. The bridle, reins, dagger, and baton were lost. The restoration was entrusted by the Madrid City Council to the sculptor Juan Cristóbal González Quesada, who assembled the fragments, patched up the damaged parts and rebuilt what was lost, including the heads of the horse and rider. To date it has not been possible
document if the original material was recast or in some elements new bronze was added. This laborious restoration of more than one hundred pieces was completed in 1934, the sculptural group being returned to its place. During the Civil War it remained in the center of the square, protected by a solid masonry.
In 1970, the sculpture and its pedestal were disassembled again to carry out the works of the underground parking of the Plaza Mayor. In 1971 it was installed in its current form, with a new, smaller and simpler gate.
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