Monumento a Colón-Valladolid,Spain - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

-History

Initially, the sculpture is part of a monumentalization project for Havana, completed in which the execution of the sculpture is granted to Antonio Susillo, who in 1891 completed it, making its foundry in the workshops of Thiebaut Freres. The base is made of granite stone and the figures superimposed on it were made in bronze.
The structure of the base is pyramid trunk of four sides, in each of them there are reliefs with moments of the life of Columbus: His visit to the monastery of La Rábida, where he seeks support from the monks and support in the cliques of the court, not for nothing we talk about the Catholic Monarchs. The departure of the ships from the port of Palos and his arrival on the continent, which will not bear his name appear on two other sides, and finally recreates the welcome in the salons of the kings on his return with the discovered objects. Above the reliefs are four sculptures that represent the fundamental values ??on which Columbus relied for his discovery: History, Nautical, Study and Value. On the stone sits a sphere that symbolizes the globe bordered with a ribbon with the slogan "Non Plus Ultra" inscribed. This ribbon is torn by the claw of a lion, symbolizing the end of the "finis terrae", a step beyond, on the other side of the ocean, this same motto "abbreviated" by the lion is the one that appears in the ribbon that surrounds the columns next to the national shield.
Reinforcing this symbolism of a national company can also be seen the shield of Spain held by the eagle of San Juan, and if it were not clear the identity of the sponsors of the company the medallions with the effigies of Ysabel and Fernando.
Rounding out the figure of Columbus kneeling, as he was supposed to when he first stepped on the American shores and behind him an allegorical representation of the Faith with a cross and a chalice, as a reinforcement of the idea of ??divine inspiration and fair reward to the effort.
Its location was to be the Central Plaza of the Cuban capital, when the rebellion and loss of the colony occurred. Returned the sculpture to Spain the council of ministers decided to award as a destination of the work Valladolid, although this decision attracted some other stir because the Municipal Commission of Seville claimed for himself the location of the sculpture.
Both cities competed in historical rights over the Colombian figure and his legacy, since if it was in Valladolid where the discoverer died in 1506 and where he had obtained the funds for his trips in various interviews with the kings, it was in Seville that the consulate was established of the Indies, and where during the four centuries of union the merchants and merchants arrived with the ports of the American continent. Both cities housed houses where Columbus resided at various times in his life. The crucial point of the decision came when the Andalusian town hall presented the guarantees for the payment of one million reais to be made to the heirs of the author as payment for the work. However, the town hall of Valladolid, made the payment promptly with many efforts, and the work ended up being located in the city of Pisuerga.
After its achievement there was still the question of where to place the monument, which was resolved through a popular survey through the pages of the newspaper El Norte de Castilla, and which resulted in its current location, the Campo Grande in 1901.
But the vicissitudes of the sculpture do not end there, since the block of the work only had the bronze figures detached from any frame, and even the author's sketches, which were believed lost, were not even preserved. This is where the figure of Juan Agapito y Revilla, dynamic of the cultural field of the city, acquires again relevance, who finally manages to access copies of Antonio Susillo's documents and begins the assembly of the sculpture.
The laying of the first stone at the end of 1903 was attended by the young King Alfonso XIII of Spain, and the monument was inaugurated two years later. Recently (2006) and on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the death of the discoverer in the city of Valladolid, the sculpture has been completely restored, just as its urban environment has been remodeled.

-Biography

Cristóbal Colón, Cristoforo Colombo in Italian or Christophorus Columbus in Latin (Genoa, n.1 1 2 c.1436-14513-Valladolid, May 20, 1506), was a navigator, cartographer, admiral, viceroy and governor General of the West Indies in the service of the Crown of Castile. He is famous for having made the discovery of America, on October 12, 1492, upon arriving at the island of Guanahani, currently in the Bahamas.
He made four trips to the Indies - the name of the American continent until the publication of Martin Waldseemüller's Planisphere in 1507 - and although he was not possibly the first European explorer of America, he is considered the discoverer of a new continent - hence the name of the New World - for Europe, being the first to trace a round-trip route across the Atlantic Ocean and released the news. This fact decisively stimulated the worldwide expansion of European civilization, and the conquest and colonization by several of its powers of the American continent.
His antropónimo is a world icon that inspired innumerable denominations, like that of a country: Colombia, 4 and two regions of North America: British Columbia, in Canada, and the District of Columbia, in the United States.

Author: Antonio Susillo
Creation: 1891 (permanently installed in 1905)
Style: Realism
Material: Bronze and granite stone

URL of the statue: Not listed

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