Panteón de Hombres Ilustres: Tombs of Murdered Prime Ministers
Why is it significant?
Walk up to the brick bell tower and the arcaded cloister beside it: this is the Panteón de Hombres Ilustres, the Pantheon of Illustrious Men, one of the quietest corners of central Madrid. It was built in the 1890s as part of a grand new basilica for the Virgin of Atocha that was never completed.
Key Facts
| Place | Panteón de Hombres Ilustres: Tombs of Murdered Prime Ministers |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle de Julián Gayarre 3, 28014 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.40620, -3.68370 |
| Part of Walk | Avenue of Shells: Madrid Under Siege and the Road to Democracy |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk up to the brick bell tower and the arcaded cloister beside it: this is the Panteón de Hombres Ilustres, the Pantheon of Illustrious Men, one of the quietest corners of central Madrid.
It was built in the 1890s as part of a grand new basilica for the Virgin of Atocha that was never completed. Only the cloister and the tower rose, and they became a resting place for statesmen. Inside lie the marble tombs of three prime ministers: Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, José Canalejas and Eduardo Dato, with sculpture by masters like Agustín Querol and Mariano Benlliure.
What the three have in common is how they died. Cánovas was shot by an Italian anarchist at a spa in the Basque Country in 1897. Canalejas was shot in 1912 in Puerta del Sol while he looked into a bookshop window. Dato was killed in 1921 by gunmen firing from a motorcycle near the Puerta de Alcalá. Three heads of government murdered in twenty-four years... political violence had become a habit long before the Civil War turned it into catastrophe.
Next door, the Basílica de Atocha, home of one of Madrid's most venerated images of the Virgin, was burned in the first days of the war and rebuilt in the years after it. Fire, siege, dictatorship, a coup, the bombs of 2004: the city you have just crossed carries all of it, mostly without plaques.
That is why the years after 1975 still fascinate historians around the world. In a short time, a country with that history negotiated its way from dictatorship to a democratic constitution, through elections, an amnesty and the Moncloa Pacts of 1977, and held firm on the night of 23-F. Spaniards still argue about the price and the silences of that road, and that argument is itself a sign of democracy. Atocha station is just behind you when you are ready to go... and this is where our walk ends.