Glorieta del Ángel Caído
The roundabout takes its name from the sculpture at its centre: The Fallen Angel, a bronze by the Madrid-born Ricardo Bellver (1877) depicting Lucifer at the moment of his expulsion from Paradise, inspired by Book I of Milton’s Paradise Lost. It won a First Class Medal at the National Fine Arts Exhibition (1878) and was shown that year at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.
Before the sculpture, this corner of the Retiro held a Habsburg-era chapel and, later, the Royal Porcelain Factory that Charles III built on the site. Wellington’s troops levelled it in 1812.
The bronze figure shows Lucifer at the moment of his fall, and from it the Glorieta del Ángel Caído takes its name. It stands 666 metres above sea level, a figure that has fed legends of satanic rituals, though the height owes only to the general lie of Madrid’s land.
In 1941 a municipal report recommended removing it as contrary to Franco’s regime. The proposal was rejected, and the bronze devil goes on falling forever at the centre of its roundabout, in the Jerónimos neighbourhood.
Sources (8)
- El Ángel Caído — Patrimonio Cultural y Paisaje Urbano, Ayuntamiento de Madrid
- Fuente del Ángel Caído — Wikipedia (en inglés)
- Dos fechas, dos hitos en el Retiro — Amigos del Buen Retiro
- El Ángel Caído. Desmontando mitos y leyendas — Tesoros de la Candidatura UNESCO
- La destrucción de la Fábrica La China por los británicos — Revista Madrid Histórico
- Ricardo Bellver — Wikipedia
- Ángel caído, El [Bellver] — Enciclopedia del Museo Nacional del Prado
- El Ángel Caído, su historia — Instantes (Sebastián Navarrete)