There is a generalized negative reaction in Spain every time it is mentioned that Madrid has something that is typical of another place. It happens when you talk about its fish market, or almost any traditional dish. In this case it is a more international symbol: the Statue of Liberty. While the New York colossus is known for its size and for being the representation of the city, and almost of the country, the one in Madrid is a small version that is hardly known, although it was made three decades earlier.
Ponciano Ponzano is the author of this sculpture of two meters that is located a few meters from Atocha, in the Pantheon of Illustrious Men in Madrid. Like the one the French gave to the Americans, this Statue of Liberty has a crown of rays, but the one here is more in the Greco-Latin tradition of representing the Roman goddess Libertas. She wears a Phrygian cap, a scepter in one hand and a broken yoke in the other, all as an allegory of the end of oppression. In addition, the one in Madrid sits on the funerary monument of the politicians Mendizábal, Argüelles and Calatrava.
The Pantheon of Illustrious Men of Madrid
This statue was originally located in the now defunct cemetery of San Nicolás, by the Méndez Álvaro area, and when it was closed in 1912 it was moved to the Pantheon of Spain, or the Pantheon of Illustrious Men, which had been completed a decade earlier.
The pantheon is located in the cloister of the Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha. It is a neo-medieval style building with echoes of Byzantine art, built between 1892 and 1899 by Fernando Arbós y Tremanti.
All the references to the past in its architecture also speak of the concept itself, which is a romantic idea that the French rescued in the early 19th century from the original idea of the classical Greeks. Although the modern version is not a place of worship to the gods, but to men who have been important to the nation. The one in Madrid houses the mausoleums of prominent Spanish politicians and military men, such as Sagasta, Cánovas del Castillo and Eduardo Dato. Admission is free and you can visit any day except Mondays.