Mention pyramids and Spain is unlikely to be the first place that springs to mind. But beside a mountain road in northern Spain stands a 20-metre pyramid with one of the country’s more unusual and controversial histories.
The Pirámide de los Italianos (Pyramid of the Italians) stands at Puerto del Escudo in Burgos province, just a few metres from the border with Cantabria.
Often described as Spain’s only pyramid, it is actually a mausoleum built during the final years of the Spanish Civil War. Today it is empty, closed to the public and protected as a historic monument.
Why is there a pyramid in northern Spain?
Construction took place between 1938 and 1939 to create a burial place for Italian soldiers who died fighting on the Nationalist side during the Battle of El Escudo.
Italian architect Attilio Radic designed the unusual building, with military chaplain Pietro di Varzi overseeing its symbolic elements. The structure belongs to the Rationalist architectural style found in Italy between the two world wars.
The pyramid reaches 20 metres and contains a circular, domed chamber. Hundreds of small niches once held the remains of soldiers from the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie.
The entrance provides one of its strangest features. A huge letter M surrounds the doorway. Historians have offered different interpretations, including a reference to Mussolini or to the Italian words morte and morti, meaning death and the dead.
Fascist symbols once stood beside the main entrance, although these later disappeared.
What happened to the soldiers?
The pyramid has not contained the soldiers’ remains for more than 50 years.
In May 1971, a coach carrying Italian relatives travelling to the mausoleum crashed, killing 12 people. Italy later decided to remove the remains from the site.
In 1975, 268 were returned to Italy, while the others went to a military memorial in Zaragoza. The pyramid subsequently fell into disuse and suffered decades of vandalism and deterioration.
Why did the pyramid become controversial?
Its Civil War and fascist connections eventually placed the abandoned mausoleum at the centre of a political argument over how Spain should deal with monuments from the dictatorship.
Calls to demolish it came from historical memory groups and political campaigners, while supporters of preserving the building argued that its architectural and historical value justified protection.
The Junta de Castilla y León settled its immediate future in February 2024 by declaring the pyramid a Bien de Interés Cultural (Asset of Cultural Interest) with Monument status.
The official declaration describes it as a unique part of the region’s architectural and historical heritage. However, protection does not mean ignoring what the building represented.
The ruling specifically requires the monument to include information that reinterprets it in accordance with Spain’s Democratic Memory Law.
Can you visit the Pyramid of the Italians?
You can see the exterior beside the N-623 at Puerto del Escudo, close to the Ebro reservoir, but the building itself remains closed.
Its isolated mountain setting makes an already unusual structure look even more unexpected. The official heritage description notes that decades of vandalism and looting have taken their toll.
So while calling it simply “Spain’s only pyramid” makes a great headline, the reality is considerably more interesting.
It is a Civil War mausoleum, an example of Italian interwar architecture, an abandoned burial site and now a protected monument carrying some very uncomfortable history.
Bridging the Gap’s recap
- The Pirámide de los Italianos stands at Puerto del Escudo in Burgos province.
- The 20-metre pyramid was built between 1938 and 1939.
- It served as a mausoleum for Italian troops who fought on the Nationalist side during the Civil War.
- The soldiers’ remains were removed from the site in 1975.
- The pyramid subsequently suffered decades of vandalism and deterioration.
- Its future became the subject of a political and historical memory dispute.
- Castilla y León granted it protected Bien de Interés Cultural status in February 2024.
- The exterior remains visible, but the pyramid itself is closed to visitors.
