The funeral honors for the kings and queens of the Hispanic monarchy were celebrated with solemnity in Pamplona as the capital of the kingdom and episcopal see, an act that preceded those that days later were organized in other cities of Navarre. The function of royal funerals had a double character, since from the mid-sixteenth century and as a matter of preeminence in the protocol, a royal provision of Philip II allowed the Pamplona Regiment to organize their own funerals on a different day than those of the viceroy and committee Royal, as studied by authors such as José Luis Molins, Juan José Martinena, Ricardo Fernández Gracia and Alejandro Aranda.

The magnificence of the funeral ceremony implied the effort of different trades: tailors, upholsterers, wax workers, carpenters, painters, preachers and, finally, engravers and printers who recorded the event in the list of funerals. The main interest of all of them was directed to the great ceremony of the cathedral, converted into a "theater of death", in whose Wayside Cross the tomb or catafalque was erected, around which the drama of the funeral revolves.

An essential element of the tumulus were the emblems and hieroglyphs, visual riddles that combined text and image with a double goal: on the one hand contributed to the funeral decoration, and on the other served to teach and persuade by conveying a message to the viewer. In their composition took part a mentor manager of the "ideological coating" of the machine, instructed in symbols and allegories, and a painter in charge of materially translating the ideas of the first one.

Thanks to the zeal of successive municipal archivists, the file Municipal of Pamplona holds the series of hieroglyphs destined for the catafalque that the Regiment of the city erected for the funerals of Philip V (1746), Barbara de Braganza (1758), Isabella of Farnese (1766) and Charles III (1789), a faithful and direct testimony of ephemeral art in Navarre. Made on vat paper in the form of cards with an average size of 60 x 45 cm, the hundred or so hieroglyphs from Pamplona have an exceptional patrimonial value as they are one of the few cases in which the original emblems have survived to the present day, given that we usually know them through the descriptions or engravings included in the funeral reports.

The Pamplona hieroglyphs conform to the canonical composition of the "triplex emblem" of Alciatus, formed by motto or degree scroll in Latin language , body or pictura and epigram in the form of Castilian poetry. And they insist on a message linked in a coherent speech that begins with the pain for the death of the monarch, advances towards the manifestation of the power of death and culminates with the triumph over it thanks to a virtuous life, without forgetting the dynastic succession that assures the stability of the crown. To exemplify the above concepts, his mentors made use of a multitude of references, some of them starring female figures with different meanings, as the following selection of images testifies.

The iconographic program begins, as did the funeral sermon proclaimed by the orator from the portable pulpit attached to the tumulus, with the deep sorrow that overwhelms the people of Pamplona and Navarre when they hear the news of the death of the king or queen. For this purpose, the hieroglyphs depicted symbols related to the city and the kingdom, easily identifiable by those attending the ceremony, such as the lion and the Five Wounds of the coat of arms of Pamplona, the walled enclosure of the city, the chains of Navarre or the river Arga. But they can also use images of a general nature in which the feminine universe has a place.

In the hieroglyphic no. 4 of the funeral of Barbara de Braganza, two elegantly dressed ladies converse in the middle of a landscape, under the shelter of a large crown suspended in the sky. On the ring of the crown we can read: Urbem concordia munit (Concord strengthens the city) and below it: Intima coronam lacrimae (sample the crown weeping). The woman to our right exclaims: Eu! Regina est mortua (Alas! The queen is dead), while the one on the left carries a cartouche with the registration: Absconditum signat (Proclaim the hidden). All of them are sentences that Fray Miguel de Corella, mentor of the Pamplona hieroglyphs, extracted from the Mundus Symbolicus of the Milanese Augustinian Filippo Picinelli, one of the great encyclopedias of emblems of the XVII century that the Navarrese Capuchin consulted for the making of the emblems.

The friendly appearance of the hieroglyphic in the form of a dialogue between the two women hides the sad news of the queen's death, which the epigram translates in terms of "pain", "gloomy sorrow" and "dread", without forgetting that Bárbara de Braganza has become dust that "already serves the worms for sustenance". Fray Miguel de Corella copies almost literally a royal octave from the Harmonica vida de santa Teresa (1722), a biography in verse of the saint from Avila written by the Aragonese Jesuit José Antonio Butrón, another of his sources for the composition of the hieroglyphs.

Let us move forward to the funeral of Charles III in 1789, whose funeral report prepared by Ambrosio San Juan and Vicente Rodríguez de Arellano described the last hieroglyphic:

"All the grief of the Nation was represented in a very beautiful Lady, dressed in Royal insignia, leaning on the Coat of Arms of Castile. In her hand she held a crowned skull, to which she looked tearfully saying: Attendite, et videte si est alius dolor sicut dolor meus (Look, and see if there is another pain similar to the pain that torments me, variation of Lm 1:12).

The description is faithfully adjusted to the preserved hieroglyphic, whose painting stars the allegory of Spain seated and wearing the royal insignia, whose grief for the death of the monarch is insistently expressed: "Carlos has expired. Woe is me sad!", reiterate the couplets of the epigram in which the nation sheds tears for "the most beautiful Lis that the garden produced", in a clear allusion to the Bourbon dynasty of the deceased monarch.

Once the pain for the death of the king or queen has been recorded, a reflection on the event that provokes it is unavoidable: the all-consuming time. Graves, skeletons and skulls are the protagonists of a good part of the funeral speech , accompanied by other metaphors of the expiration of life as the hourglass, the flower that withers, the candle that is extinguished or the sunset.

Let us fix our attention on two hieroglyphs. One of them corresponds to number 24 of the funeral of Barbara de Braganza, in which a skeleton emerges from a tomb and extends its arms to reach the queen who, surprised, runs to take refuge at the door of the palace. In the dialogue that is established between the two, Death proclaims: Nemine Parco (I spare no one). To which the queen replies: Nec mihi? (Not even me?). The epigram, again inspired by the Harmonic life of St. Teresa, abounds in the equalizing power of death whose lightning will strike all equally, so that neither kings nor the great of the earth are safe from his empire.

The following hieroglyph is number 3 of the funeral of Isabel de Farnesio, and in it we can see how death has already fulfilled its threat. It is degree scroll Quod es fui; quod sum eris (What you are I was; what I am you will be), and its picture sample an open sepulcher with the tombstone leaning on one side, so that its interior is visible. In it rests the skeleton of the queen herself, still with the crown on her head as a symbol of her ephemeral power. The tenth of the epigram recalls the expiration of the achievements of this world and the lesson to be learned by those attending the ceremony when "listening" to the words addressed to them by the queen from her tomb: "You must be what I am, for I was what you are". In the mournful setting of the Pamplona cathedral, the message and the vision of the royal remains must have been overwhelming.

Up to this point the iconographic program seems to lead irremissibly to the victory of death. But in a society that believes in eternal life, death cannot triumph over a superior power capable of overcoming it and granting the deceased monarch the passage from the earthly to the heavenly sphere. It will be a virtuous life that guarantees eternity to our kings and queens and turns them into model of conduct for their subjects. Consequently, there is no lack of allegories of their virtues.

A hieroglyphic of the funeral of Philip V serves as an example, inspired, like the rest, by those composed by the Madrid artist Sebastián Herrera Barnuevo for the funeral of Philip IV celebrated in 1665 in the convent of the Incarnation of Madrid, included in the Description of the honors that were made to the Catholica Magestad de D. Felipe quarto (1666). The anonymous mentor of the Pamplona emblems handled with profusion the most important Hispanic relation of exequies of the XVII century that details the funerals for the "Rey Planeta".

The hieroglyphic has as its motto: Deducet te mirabiliter dextera mea (May your right hand teach you to do exploits, variant of Ps 45 (44),5). In her picture, enclosed in a laurel wreath, Faith appears in one of her most characteristic iconographic types: dressed in white, blindfolded and holding the chalice and the Sacred Form in her left hand, while she extends her right hand to be guided by the arm of Philip V emerging from a cloud. The king conducted himself in life guided by Faith, and after his death he will continue to guide his people in Faith from the glory of heaven.

The quatrain that composes the epigram abounds in this idea: "Siempre andará sin recelo / la Fee aunque ciega se sample / por que Felipe la adiestra / con su mano desde el cielo" (She will always walk without fear / la Fee although blind / por que Felipe la adiestra / con su mano desde el cielo). Although we read Felipe because it was the name originally written, now the name Luisa appears. Why the change? To the reuse of this same hieroglyph in the funerals celebrated in the cathedral of Pamplona in February 1819 for María Luisa de Borbón-Parma, wife of Carlos IV. Obviously, a readjustment was necessary to allow its use, so that over the name "Felipe" was placed a label with the name "Luysa" that hid the previous one. It is a good example of the survival of the symbolic culture in Navarre at the beginning of the 19th century, although it did not generate new materials, but rather reused the existing ones.

Other royal virtues are embodied in feminine allegories, such as the peaceful nature of Bárbara de Braganza with Peace accompanied by the rainbow, and the constancy of Carlos III in the midst of variable fortune, the latter on his wheel and with his wings outstretched. In final, the feminine protagonism was not lacking in the funeral iconographic programs of the Pamplona Regiment in report of our kings and queens of the XVIII century.