Parque del Retiro, Madrid

El Retiro is a historic public park, and its most unexpected feature is a fountain depicting Lucifer in his fall from heaven. The sculpture belongs to the Fountain of the Fallen Angel, erected in 1922 and made by Ricardo Bellver after an episode from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The claim that this is the only known public monument to Satan gives the fountain its startling distinction.

The park began as royal grounds created for Philip IV, after the Count-Duke of Olivares expanded a retreat beside the monastery of the Jerónimos. Court life once unfolded here, with performances staged for the royal family. After the Glorious Revolution, the gardens became public in 1868.

Look toward the Estanque del Retiro, the large artificial pond, and its monument to Alfonso XII, where an equestrian statue rises above a curved colonnade. Nearby, the Palacio de Cristal is a glass pavilion built for the 1887 Philippine Islands Exhibition. Today, galleries, gardens, monuments and the pond fill this former royal retreat, which became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the Paseo del Prado in 2021.