The symbolism of the sun, always positive, is affiliated with the light that reveals everything, power, wisdom and truth, as the antithesis of falsehood and artifice. In fact, in the allegory of truth its personification appears naked, because it needs no trickery and accompanied by a sun of profuse rays. Her figure was used as propaganda for these concepts by kings and popes, especially Louis XIV, Christina of Sweden and Pope Clement VII, also appearing on numerous commemorative medals of different times. The nimbuses of the saints themselves acquire the shape of the sun with its rays.

The passage of the Creation, following the Book of Genesis, has been represented in Navarre's art since the Navarrese Age average. Invariably the sun, the moon and the stars have their protagonism, as part of God's action, on the fourth day of creation. Genesis records it as follows (1:14-19): "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from the night; let them be signs to mark the seasons, the days and the years. Let those lights in the sky shine upon the earth"; and that is what happened. God made two great lights: the larger one to rule the day, and the smaller one to rule the night. He also made the stars. God put those lights in the sky to illuminate the earth, to rule the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness."

The translation of the text into images can be seen in outstanding works. In one of the capitals of the door of the Judgment of the cathedral of Tudela, from the first decades of the 13th century, we find God creating the firmament, signified in the sun, the moon and the stars, framed in a kind of sinuous halo. In one of the corners of the Renaissance cloister of Fitero, from the middle of the 16th century, we also find the topic, in the same way as in one of the coppers made by Jacob Bouttats (c. 1680), which are conserved in the Museum of Navarre, from the convent of La Merced in Pamplona.

The sun and the moon are usually given quotation, sometimes with anthropomorphic features in crucifixions and final judgments and, more rarely, around the Birth of Christ. In the gospels of Roncesvalles and the cathedral of Pamplona, with rich silver covers, the first Gothic and the second Renaissance, on both sides of Christ crucified, we find the representations of the sun and the moon, evoking the eclipse or darkness at the moment of the death of the Savior, which is narrated in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. For the same reason we find both stars in the central squares of some processional crosses, in the background of the Crucified, as in the A of Munárriz, work of Pedro del Mercado (1557) or in the eighteenth-century one of Aincioa. In the paintings that decorate the background of the Calvaries of the major altarpieces, they usually appear frequently. Some examples are those of Aranarache, Lerín, Etayo, Genevilla, Guembe, Guirguillano, Lazagurría, Lerate, Azcona, Sorlada, Pueyo, Leache, Zolina, Zulueta, Arre, Beriain, Maquirriain, Huarte-Araquil or Valtierra, as well as those of the Poor Clares of Estella and Benedictine nuns of the same city -today in Leire- and of the basilica of the Blessed Sacrament of Pamplona.

More exceptionally, they appear in some altarpieces, as large reliefs in the attic, on both sides of the Calvary, as in the attic of the largest of Arizcun, a work by Martin de Oyerena between 1693 and 1699.

The presence of the sun and the moon with human faces in the attics of the main altarpieces of Grocin and Igúzquiza, works from the last third of the 18th century, where they appear in relief, on both sides of God the Father, who presides over the attic, has a clear meaning of power.

The sun as light had a divine significance from very early dates, a fact that is recorded in the Gospels: "I am the light of the world" (St. John, 8, 12). It is also included in the Fathers of the Church, such as St. John Chrysostom who, speaking of Christ in the Eucharist, called him the sun: "Christus in Eucharistia est Sol" (Christus in Eucharistia est Sol). It will not surprise us that the upper part of the monstrances, in which the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, called sun, simulates a circle with straight and flamed rays to represent the rays of the sun, sometimes topped by small stars of various points and enriched with enamels, corals and colored stones, in order to provide them with richness and dazzling color.

From the 16th century to the present day, our temples have preserved examples made by local goldsmiths and others imported from other artistic centers such as Cordoba, Zaragoza or Madrid, as well as others sent from New Spain, Guatemala or Peru.

With the same Eucharistic content we find the sun in reliefs of exhibitors and tabernacles, religious ornaments and hangings for the feast of Corpus Christi and its octave, highlighting the Aragonese workshops of the monastery of Fitero, dating from the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Among the tabernacle doors with the sun king, with delicate rays and human features on the face, the one in the chapel of San Román de Sangüesa stands out, the work of Pedro Onofre de Coll (1722).

The sun has no less presence in the iconography of the Immaculate Conception, specifically in the apocalyptic model , where it is recreated as a woman dressed in the sun, following the text of St. John. In a panel of the Renaissance altarpiece of Tulebras, her image is inside the solar halo itself, it is the work of Jerónimo Cosida (1565-1570). The same happens in the relief of the same vision in Patmos of the main altarpiece of Peralta, work of Diego de Camporredondo (1772).

In the Baroque versions of topic, the richly colored sunbeams serve as a background for her figure, creating a vivid contrast with the blue tone of her mantle and the angels, who usually carry the epithets of the litanies. In some paintings the sun, as a star in circular form, appears in the immaculist representations, as in the tables of the Tota pulchra of Artajona and Olite or the canvases of José de Fuentes de Cascante (1647) and Vicente Berdusán de Tudela (1663). There are also some representations where the sun king has human features, such as the one by Juan Correa (1701) of the Dominicas de Tudela, or the Neapolitan frontal (c. 1670) and the cape of the eighteenth-century terno of the Augustinian Recollect nuns of Pamplona.

In the sculptural models, the sun is usually a golden burst of straight and flamed rays, such as those shown in the carvings of Manuel Pereira in the Augustinian Recollect nuns of Pamplona, Arróniz, Ablitas or Pamplona Cathedral and countless other images. On occasions, the sunburst was made in silver, such as that of the Purísima de Cintruénigo or that worn by the Virgen del Cólera de Olite, which dates from 1729 and is the work of the silversmith Antonio Ripando.

Among the great miracles attributed to St. Francis Xavier, reported in paintings and in his joys, stands out that of the sunrise. In one of the canvases of the series painted for the castle of Xavier by the Flemish painter Godefrido de Maes, in 1692, that passage was recreated. The idea was to emulate Joshua, when he made the king of the stars stop in the battle against the Amorites.

The biographies of Xavier, known as "the sun of the East" in a popular Jesuit comedy, tell how he saved the Christians of Travancor, attacked by the Bagadas, from succumbing. The painting presents the saint section of the battle, with the Crucifix raised and directed, as well as his face, towards the sun, pleading and trying to stop it with the gesture of the other hand. The reason for all this is to be found in the comparison that some biographers and exegetes of the XVII century make of the saint, in that event, with the biblical hero Joshua, when he managed to stop the sun. Father Francisco Garcia, in his biography published in 1685, narrates that threat for those of Travancor, the assault of the Badagas and refers how Javier: "Having fulfilled the official document of Moses", which was to pray, "wanted to do that of Joshua and went out armed with zeal and confidence to oppose the enemy". The passage of the detained sun was glossed in the numerous hagiography of the saint and by poets such as Juan Antonio Escobar and Basurto Spanish.

The sun accompanies, for various reasons, the representations of other saints, such as Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius of Loyola, Vincent Ferrer, Nicholas of Tolentino or Francis of Paola. In the first case, he usually wears it on his chest hanging from a rich chain, as a sign of his enlightenment to men with his doctrine, truth and wisdom. The founder of the Society usually carries it in one of his hands, with the peculiarity that inside it is the anagram of Christ: JHS (Iesus homo salvatoris), which is complemented by the book of the rule, in which the motto: AMDG (Ad maiorem Dei gloriam) appears. The sun of St. Ignatius used to be made of silver and even filigree of the same metal, like the one in the saint's basilica in Pamplona.

St. Vincent Ferrer wears the sun due to the association of the Trinity and the image of the sun elaborated by the saint, which makes that, sometimes, he presents three suns. In the case of St. Francis of Paola, it bears the motto of his order of minims: CHARITAS. St. Nicholas of Tolentino wears it, on occasions, in substitution of a star that guided him at night when he went to church.

The presence of the sun in the emblems painted for the funeral obsequies of the kings, commissioned by the city council of the capital of Navarre, during the Ancient Regime, has been studied by professors J. L. Molins and J. J. J. Azanza. Its presence was very abundant, for obvious reasons of its significance as the star king of the regular course, prodigal and beneficent. Sometimes, it is used at the moment of the sunset, other times it appears with another smaller sun, in allusion to the crown prince, in a clear dynastic and succession context, with no lack of nods to the charity of the monarch. Of all the funerals organized by the city council of Pamplona, in the XVIII century, it was in those of Felipe V, in 1746, when the sun appeared more in the emblems, painted in that occasion by Juan de Lacalle. In one of them the sun appeared setting, copying a Madrid example of the funerals of Philip IV; in another there was a skull crowned with the sun, with similar inspiration and meaning, that of the triumph of the monarch's death over death with his presence in the sky; in another, we find a black catafalque with the crown, escorted on both sides by the Eucharistic sun and the immaculist moon; in another, the eclipsed sun is depicted; and in another, we find the great sun and a smaller one in a sunset, while one hides the other rises, insisting on the monarchical succession. All those compositions had their corresponding motto in Latin and their epigram in Spanish, with a brief explanation or gloss.

At the funeral of María Bárbara de Braganza, in 1758, Juan Antonio Logroño, under the supervision of Fray Miguel de Corella, painted the emblems. In one of them we find the sun setting in the horizon, to gloss her death according to a widespread custom in the funeral ceremonial. In the funerals of Isabel de Farnesio (1766), the person in charge of the paintings was Fermín Rico, who followed the dictation of the one who devised the program, who was the Mercedarian Juan Gregorio González de Asarta. In one of the emblems, very colorful, a rich garden with trees and flowers is presented, presided over by a radiant sun that floods the whole with its rays. The accompanying text speaks of the benevolence of the queen, similar to the generosity of the sun that, with its warmth, made the trees and plants grow.

Finally, the obsequies of Carlos III (1789), had emblems made by Juan Francisco Santesteban, according to the program of the presbyter Ambrosio de San Juan and the poet and playwright Vicente Rodríguez de Arellano. One of the emblems represented a widespread model , consisting of an eagle representing Charles III flying towards the sun.

Likewise, the sun was the main protagonist in the portraits of the reprint of the Annals of Navarre, which was totally destroyed in 1757, although we know the illustrations. In all of them the sun appeared with the portrait of the corresponding monarch, with the exception of those who did not die a natural death, in which case the knife, sword or some object that identifies the violence of the death appears. These are authentic solar kings. Professor Víctor Mínguez analyzed, in a magnificent work, the presence of the solar star and its emblematic significance together with the monarchs. The series of the kings of Navarre is a testimony of sovereigns who reign under the sun, symbol in different cultures of positive and beneficial qualities and virtues, so the rulers used it for their representation.