Legendary gods and kings
on the cornice of the Royal Palace
In 1742, Philip V and his architects Sachetti, Bonavia and Ruiz set out to plan in advance the decoration to be used on the façades of the new palace which was to replace the old Alcázar (or fortress) of the Austrias. They therefore consulted Pedro José Gómez de Balboa, also known as Friar Martín Sarmiento, who was a member of the Benedictine monastery of San Martín and whose fame as a sage had spread beyond its walls.
Fray Martín gave very detailed suggestions for the decoration of the façades of the new palace; these included over 100 statues of monarchs, sculpted in white stone and measuring more than two metres tall, as well as eight busts of kings and gods of mythology from Spain's cultural history, and additional adornments of balls, pyramids and four coats of arms for each one of the façades.
Work on all these sculptures was begun in an area near what is today the Plaza de España square, which then became the well-known "Calle de los Reyes" (or street of kings), and when finished they were installed on the cornice of the building. However, on 8 February 1760, according to a document in the Palace's General Archive, the King, the newly-crowned Charles III, ordered them to be removed and stored in the palace basement.
The figures of the 94 Asturian, Leonese and Castilian monarchs, as well as four Roman emperors connected with Hispanic dynasties, and two indigenous kings from the new South American territories, were evicted from their places. This unusual step of removing the statues has led to a range of bizarre interpretations, such as the fear of their possibly falling off the cornices -an event rumoured to have been seen by the royal family in dreams- or for reasons of architectural safety of the building.
The fact of the matter is that not only were all the statues taken down from their plinths, but that the inscriptions identifying each of the kings were also ordered to be removed from the base of the pedestals. This meant that all the detailed documentation which had been studied in order to give each statue its appropriate appearance with the attire and weaponry corresponding to each period became muddled, and later attempts to match each statue with its original name to be able to ascertain their identities have revealed numerous errors.
The eight busts which were not dismantled, and the allegorical coats of arms depicted at their base following the recommendations of Martín, the Benedictine friar, can still be seen today. There are also some statues which were installed in an almost random manner on some points of the cornice in the 1970s, and whose names, carved into the stones of the façade, do not match those carved on the bases of the pedestals.
On the east façade are the busts of Gargoris, the legendary king of the Curetes and his son/grandson Habidis, the fruit of his incestuous affairs; and a group in the middle surrounded by a coat of arms with a military theme, with four Hispanic monarchs.
On the west façade, only visible from the Parque del Moro park, are Geryon with his triple head and Argantonio, king of the Tartessus. According to legend he lived 300 years, and although the bust shows a young man, this can be understood if the person of Argantonio is seen as representing a legendary dynasty rather than a single king.
On the south façade, next to a clock with a single hand flanked by four statues and two more of Atahualpa and Moctezuma on each side of the façade, we can see Hercules and Osiris, the latter of which was ordered to be removed by Charles III for the construction of the new Queen's Pavilion and because of possible damage to the bust. There was no statue in the steeple until the installation in 1978 of a bust of Juanelo Turriana- the illustrious 16th-century engineer of Italian origin, known for manufacturing a device which made it possible to raise the water from the Tagus river up to the Alcázar fortress in Toledo, spanning a height of 100 metres - which is a copy, three times the size, of one sculpted by León Leoni, which is in the Santa Cruz Museum in Toledo.
The pre-Roman Portuguese god Endovelico was placed at one corner of the north façade, and at the other end, the Turdetanian god Nethon, mentioned by Strabo as being similar to the Latin god Mars. These can be seen from the Sabatini gardens, together with a series of kings, which are located not on the upper cornices but rather decorating the corners of the façade.
The rest of the statues are distributed around the Plaza de Oriente square, the Sabatini Gardens, the Army Museum, the Retiro Park, the Air Force Headquarters and the Gardens of Aranjuez.
Ronda, Vitoria, El Paular, Burgos, Toledo, Soria, Logroño and Pamplona have at some point all had, and in some cases still have, statues from the cornice of the Royal Palace in Madrid.
