Fountain of the Fallen Angel

The country’s capital city holds unique bragging rights for having what is commonly acknowledged as the only public monument to the Devil himself.

Located in the gardens of the expansive Parque del Buen Retiro, this statue is 666 meters above sea level. The Fallen Angel (Ángel Caído) is set atop a marble pillar in the midst of a fountain decorated with sinister demonic entities and some rather miscast reptiles. Lucifer is depicted at the moment he is cast out of Heaven, as inspired by a passage in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Sculptor Ricardo Bellver cast the statue in bronze for the third World’s Fair in Paris, after which point the piece was acquired by the Museo del Prado. The statue was later donated to the city of Madrid and inaugurated at its current location in 1885.

The statue is renowned equally for its discordant subject matter, as well as Bellver’s ability to imbue a sense of tension and anguish in his rendering of Satan.