Monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1942)

Author: Víctor Eusa (Pamplona, 1894-1990) and Carlos (Zaragoza, 1910-Zaragoza, ¿?) and José (Barcelona, 1905-Zaragoza, ¿?) Buzzi Gussoni.
Promoter/financing: Popular subscription led by the City Council of Tudela.
Inauguration/installation: October 25, 1942.
Location: Santa Barbara hill.

The initiative to erect a monument dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Tudela was conceived in March 1940, with the preaching of the Jesuit Father Abaitúa during Lent, in which he delved into reconciliation through the mediation of the Sacred Heart of Christ. The popular echo was immediate, constituting a Pro-Monument Commission that opened a popular subscription that led the City Council with 10,000 pesetas to cover the approximate 100,000 that the work amounted to, publishing periodically in the press the list of donors. The inauguration, on October 25, 1942, the feast of Christ the King, was presided over by the civil and religious authorities.

The architectural project is by Víctor Eusa from Pamplona, the most representative architect of the first half of the 20th century in Navarre, and for the execution of the image a budget was requested from a sculptor from San Sebastián and the sculptor from Zaragoza, Carlos Buzzi, being finally awarded to the latter. However, the registration visible on the base of the image: "J. Buzzi", seems to confirm the intervention in the project of the brothers Carlos and José Buzzi, sons of the Italian sculptor Juan Buzzi, founder together with Juan Gussoni of the Buzzi-Gussoni workshop in the Aragonese capital, specialized in funerary and decorative sculpture. After the death of the founders, Carlos and José continued with the family business, extending their work to different provinces of Spain, including Navarra. Although both were sculptors, it was José who dedicated himself directly to the official document, while Carlos was in charge of the design and installation of the works, which combine the tradition inherited from the family workshop with the great religious imagery projects of the 20th century. The Buzzi brothers' workshop closed in the 1960s.

Erected as a "spiritual beacon" on top of the Cerro de Santa Barbara, with its nine meters high and its approximate weight of sixty tons, the monument to the Sacred Heart dominates the urban landscape of Tudela and its region. The formal language, sober and monumental, responds to the goal of legibility at a great distance and to the will of firmness and permanence. Railroad rails were used for the interior frame of the image, provided by the Railway Company thanks to the management of its director, Vicente Pérez Laborda. The monument houses, at the height of the chest, a tube with the list of all the donors, thus intertwining the constructive and devotional dimensions. The registration that recalls its collective origin also contributes to this: "Popular piety erected this monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, solemnly inaugurated on October X, 1942, the feast of Christ the King".

The work has known successive restorations position Antonio Loperena (1972 and 1986) and Pedro Jordán (1999). Since 1956 the monument to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has stood on a hill opposite that of the Heart of Jesus, with a project by the municipal architect Enrique Delso and an image by the Zaragozan sculptor Ángel Bayod Usón, who managed to capture a figure of great beauty and naturalness in which Mary is sample as Mother, with her gaze fixed on her children, her arms extended to welcome them, and as Queen, with the world at her feet symbolized by a hemisphere. This devotional diptych -Christ and Mary- configures a symbolic urbanism in which the riverside city takes refuge under divine protection, the monuments acting as visible signs of its religious identity.