Every great city keeps its bones in the basement.
Madrid keeps some of them in a horse.
– Elder KM
[ed. note: Big thanks to Elder KM for today’s BLOTT! As Elder G says: “This is vintage Elder KM. It starts with a curious observation, wanders into history, and then quietly opens a trapdoor beneath the reader.”]
Elder KM is the founder & CEO of ENGin, a global nonprofit that has paired over 50,000 English learners and volunteers for online conversation practice and cultural exchange.
Part II: The Cemetery in the Center of Plaza Mayor
In my prior BLOTT, I wrote about an equestrian secret hiding in plain sight at one of Madrid’s greatest attractions. And, turns out, it’s not the only one. Plaza Mayor is another one of Madrid’s top five sights- a grand arcaded square that anchors old Madrid. Dead center sits the statue Philip IV was so desperate to beat: the equestrian statue of his father, Philip III.
The horse’s mouth is welded shut.
There is a reason. It is not a nice reason.
The statue was cast in Florence, in the early 1600s, by sculptors Giambologna and, again, our friend Pietro Tacca — the man clearly had a Spanish-horse subscription). And there it stood for hundreds of years, until the early 20th century, when the monarchy was toppled, and bands of Republicans[1] were going around destroying anything even slightly associated with Spanish kings.
The historical record gets a little fuzzy here. I heard that they pulled Philip himself down, but the horse wouldn’t budge. So they set off explosives in its belly. That wasn’t enough either, so someone brought a tractor, roped it to the unfortunate horse, and pulled the statue out that way.
Regardless of what brought the statue down, once it fell, a rain of tiny bones poured out into the plaza from the hole in its belly. Some say the vandals were so spooked by the inexplicable little skeletons that they thought the king’s statue was supernaturally guarded and fled.
A bit of investigation soon cleared up the mystery: it turned out that the bones belonged to hundreds of tiny birds.
You see, to a small bird — a sparrow, a swallow — an open bronze cavity high above a busy plaza looks like prime real estate. Shelter from the rain! Shade from the sun! A cozy nook to build a nest and raise a family! The birds flew in through the mouth and down into the hollow belly of the horse.
And then they discovered the flaw in the plan.
The angle of the opening meant that a bird with its wings folded could get in — but a bird trying to fly out had to open its wings, and open wings were too wide for the gap. Every bird that entered was trapped. They could not leave. They died of hunger.
For roughly three hundred years.
Layer upon layer of tiny skeletons, quietly accumulating in the guts of a king’s horse, in the middle of the most beautiful square in Madrid, while below them the city’s residents ate, flirted, executed heretics, held markets, and generally got on with things — never suspecting the monument was slowly filling with the bones of the hopeful.
A few years after being pulled down, the statue was repaired and returned to its original place in the heart of the Plaza Mayor. The repairs included one small, merciful modification. They welded the mouth shut.
The sparrow cemetery is closed for new admissions. You can stroll the Plaza Mayor in complete safety. Just know that for three centuries, that serene bronze horse was the most patient predator in Madrid.
WLBOTT Nature Note: The road to a horse full of skeletons is paved with excellent short-term housing decisions. Read the whole lease. Check the exits. Especially check the exits.
The Plaza Mayor (English: Main Square) is the principal public square in the heart of Madrid, the capital of Spain. It was once the centre of Old Madrid. It was first built (1580–1619) during the reign of Philip III. Only a few blocks away is another famous plaza, the Puerta del Sol.
The Plaza Mayor is rectangular in shape and is noted for the uniformity of its surrounding architecture. The square measures 129 metres (423 ft) by 94 metres (308 ft). A total of 237 balconies overlook the square from the residential buildings that enclose it.
Wikipedia
A Related Question Posed to Elder G
WLBOTT: A man brings a card table onto a stage. On the table he places four glasses and a large pitcher of water.
He carefully fills the first glass, then the second, and then the third. He sets the pitcher on the table and stares out at the audience. In a few minutes, the crowd begins shouting out his name.
What is his name?
Elder G: His name is Philip Glass.
After watching him fill three glasses while leaving the fourth conspicuously empty, the impatient audience begins shouting:
“Fill up the glass!”
Which sounds like Philip Glass, the minimalist composer. The slow, deliberate repetition is an extra little wink toward his musical style.
A finely engineered groaner. I approve.
WLBOTT: Close, G, but no cigar. His name is “Philip the IV” (or “Fill Up the Fourth”). You may still groan.
And (almost) finally….
I’ve had this one in my back pocket for decades, and it is finally time to shine in the morning sun (4 hours max, one time offer, some restrictions apply).
Q: If you are in a Kosher restaurant in Spain and see baby-back ribs on the menu, what would you say?
A: ¿Por qué pig?
the concept of “plausible deniability”
relative to her association with WLBOTT.
The WLBOTT Gallery of Plausible Deniability
[1] Historical Side-Note
In Elder KM‘s BLOTT, she mentions how the statue was removed and later replaced. Irony of ironies, the republicans were actually the good guys in Spain’s history.
During the early years of the Franco regime, and like many statues with royal connections, the statue of Phillip III was pulled from its stone pedestal and damaged. It was repaired and restored to its position in the 1950s.
Wikipedia
The Spanish Civil War is a fascinating topic. WLBOTT did a couple BLOTTs on this Civil War (part 1 and part 2). I’m still convinced that this is the type of fascist dictatorship America may descend into.