HISTORICAL

These statues, spread over diverse Madrid sets, don’t have a chronological order and different dinasties are mixed, but they are a Madrid historical curiosity.

These statues were made in XVIII century to decorate Royal Palace cornices. Fray Martín Sarmiento made a big research job through Spanish history, getting information about outfits and weapons of all the spanish kings, including four roman emperors born in Spain. The story goes this way:

• • In 1743 Spanish king Felipe V asked Sarmiento to made a research of all spanish kings.
• • In 1747, Fernando VI (Felipe V’s heir) asked Sarmiento to present an ornamental project. It finally included facades, cornices and patios with different subjects: science, army, national affairs, geography and, finally, one hundred thrity four spanish kings.
• • In 1748 the King approved this project, so Sarmiento started to work designing the statues outfits, weapons and other ornaments. After some years of work, he finally offerred Fernando VI a collection of ninety four kings including dinasties from Asturias, León y Castilla, and four roman emperors born in Spain.
• • When they were all put in their right place, an order from the King on 8th february 1760 ordered to remove the statues and erase the names , so the kings couldn’t be identified. A month after, the order is carried out.

After this order from the King, the statues are hidden in a Royal palace basement, where they stayed almost forgotten for almost a century, until 1847, when the Queen Isabel II order them to be recovered and put in parks and gardens for decorating, and even some of them are put back in the sets Sarmiento had chosen so many years ago. But there were a problem. The names had been removed and it was difficult to identify which statue represented which spanish king. The statues were named in a very random and quick  way, without any kind of research and without cheking them. Sarmiento’s hard job was for nothing.

With binoculars, anybody can check that the name written in the statue is not the same name that is written in the Royal Palace facade. An easy proof of the agitated life of these statues.

Removing the statues name was a Fernando VI strategy to rewrite the Borbones history. The Borbones are a french dinasty not connected with the medieval spanish royal families. Show to the people those statues was like proving them that the Borbones were not ‘spanish’.

The statues were the historical proof that Borbones were a foreign dinasty to XVIII century spaniards, although the Borbones were the dinasty that finally gather together all the spanish kingdoms under an only crown, creating nowadays Spain.