The one known as the Pyramid of the Italians, a tribute of Italian fascism to their fallen soldiers on the fronts of the north and the battle of Santander during the civil war, will be managed during the next 30 years by the reactionary collective Association for reconciliation and historical truth at a rate of 500 euros per year. The group, which denies the laws of historical memory, has agreed to the assignment of the controversial monument by the Brotherhood of the Rivera de Herbosa, owner of the land where the whole is based, qualified as a cultural interest (BIC) by the Junta de Castilla y León in 2024, when Vox held the command in culture. The space has gone through decades of abandonment, it is vandalized and frequently receives neo -fascist excursions.
The information was advanced by the EFE agency through the secretary of the Brotherhood currently holder, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, who has confirmed that transfer of the five hectares where this set is found, in a mountainous place in northern Burgos, practically on the border of Cantabria. There were several key battles for the Francoist conquest of the north of the Peninsula and for which the rebel Francisco Franco had the help of Italian fascism. The construction was erected in 1939 to bury and exalt the transalpine soldiers who died during the confrontations with the Republicans in the advance of the raised to the north and followed the architectural styles of the regime of Benito Mussolini, which imitated the iconography of the Roman Empire or of the Egyptian hegemony with the pyramids. Gutiérrez has indicated that the assignment will have the duration of 30 years, for 500 euros per year, for the Association for Reconciliation and Historical Truth, openly contrary to national legislation on historical and reactionary memory against public campaigns against the exalting of the historical or patrimonial legacy of the dictatorship.
The receiving platform of this monument is presented on its website as a result of “the concern of much of the society before the harmful and revengeist Law of Historical Memory created in 2007 by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and which has only served to face and divide the Spaniards even more”. Thus they classify memory regulations: “Historical memory is an ideological weapon to divide and face the Spaniards; in front of it the historical truth will be imposed as an instrument of peace and coexistence.”
The collective virtually collects several architectural elements of that stage and claims that they be converted into BIC, something that brands “achieved” in terms of the Pyramid of the Italians. This monument was classified as such in 2024, in one of Vox’s demands when entering the coalition of Government of Castilla y León with the PP. His Minister of Culture, Gonzalo Santonja, insisted on the protection of this space appealing to the “historical value”, as well as the also commemorative Sagardía column, also in the north of Burgos already charge of the Mussolini command. Santonja, who is still in office upon receiving the confidence of the regional president Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP) after the rupture of Vox, also criticized memory laws and assured that “it is not one more building”, but that it has “artistic, historical and landscape value.”
The Secretary of the Group, who gives the exploitation and management to reconciliation and historical truth, quotes EFE, has alluded to “support from Italy” by the new administrators. The BIC regulations collect that their managers must attend the space so that it does not deteriorate and open it occasionally to the public. The construction, currently plundered and visited and exalted by neo -fascist groups, sometimes arrived from Italy, has recorded that evoke Italian fascism, such as the symbol of the arrow beam, of Etruscan origin but copied by Mussolini as a symbol of force. A hole allows the passage of light and illuminate a “present, present, present” still readable in the internal walls.