Monumento a San Fernando - Seville

The monument to King Ferdinand, the icon of Seville's Plaza Nueva was inaugurated in 1924

The monument was designed by municipal architect Juan Talavera, who designed the stone base and used the bronze statue designed by Joaquín Bilbao in 1919. Despite being etched in the imagination of all Sevillians, the monument has many details that go unnoticed.

The first of these hidden details is in Joaquín Bilbao's sculpture, almost finished in 1921 and cast in Madrid by the Codina brothers. This sculptor, a student of Susillo, depicts the Castilian monarch on horseback, emphasizing his triumphant character. It appears to record the entry of the Holy King into recently conquered Isbilya. As the restoration report notes, Bilbao used historicist painting, such as that of Francisco Pacheco around 1634, and various elements of Sevillian tradition to depict the saint's image and clothing . Between his legs he placed a statue of the Virgin of the Battles , a copy of the ivory statue kept and exhibited in the treasury of the Cathedral of Seville and which, according to tradition, accompanied the Holy King in all his confrontations with the Muslims.

Most of the details can be found in the pedestal designed by Juan Talavera. The former municipal architect designed a polygonal, cross-shaped piece on a slender staircase. The austerity of the stone would be broken by the placement of four statues, which would be placed on the four fronts . The four figures depicted are Alfonso X the Wise, son of Fernando III, by Pérez Comendador; Don Remondo, the first archbishop of the city after the reconquest, by Adolfo López; Garci Pérez de Vargas, one of the 24 Castilian knights who accompanied Fernando III on his military campaign in Andalusia, sculpted by Lafita; and Admiral Bonifaz, who commanded the Castilian Armada and broke the Muslim encirclement along the Guadalquivir, by Sánchez Cid.

Other details : the wall, the Giralda and the Torre del Oro (Golden Tower)
These figures are crowned with a small Gothic roof that refers to the artistic style of the Fernandine period. It is here that Talavera introduces some very surprising decorative elements. The Almohad wall that protected the city is depicted in detail in the shape of a crest. On the tops these are successively alternated with representations of the Giralda and the Torre del Oro (Golden Tower), both in their original form, i.e. without their current tops. At the front and back of the pedestal is a tall, narrow column, the capital of which has sinuous vegetal shapes typical of the Gothic style.

Finally, the work is finished with a double cornice with decorative elements from medieval architecture. The first is decorated with a gallery of human faces and lions , while the second consists of a wickerwork formed by zigzagging lines and doves interrupted at the height of each niche by alternating castles and lions, hinting at the ancient Castilian-Leonese kingdom to which the monarch Ferdinand III belonged.

Willem Vandenameele