The Monument to Columbus lies on the namesake square, the Plaza de Colón. In 1864, Queen Isabella II issued a royal decree authorizing the Spanish government and the Madrid City Council to erect a national monument to commemorate Christopher Columbus. After the project was revived in 1877, a public contest for the monument's design took place, and the winner was Arturo Mélida. Following the scrapping of an earlier draft, the 17-metre tall pedestal was built between 1881 and 1885, with a basement that is a Gothic Revival work.
Jerónimo Suñol created the statue that would top it, a 3.30-metre tall Carrara marble work featuring Columbus holding a flag of Castile. The statue was delivered to the Madrid City Council in 1892. The monument's dedication ceremony was scheduled for 4 January 1886, but the death of Alfonso XII on 25 November 1885 resulted in the cancellation of the event.
The monument was dismantled in 1976 and moved a year later to a nearby location in the Jardines del Descubrimiento. It returned to its original location in 2009, in the context of the renovation of the Prado–Recoletos axis.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nik Frost
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