Heróis da Guerra Peninsular, Porto

The Monument to the Heroes of the Peninsular War is located at Rotunda da Boavista, Porto, Portugal.

The Peninsular War, so called, was the one that united the Portuguese and the British against the armies of France, under Napoleon Bonaparte, in the Iberian Peninsula from 1808 to 1814.

Right in the center of the garden of the Praça de Mouzinho de Albuquerque, stands this monument commemorating the brave of these struggles.

Designed by the architect Marques da Silva and the sculptor Alves de Sousa, a project chosen among the three best, this work took several years to be completed. The Cooperativa dos Pedreiros was in charge of erecting it, being started in 1909 and only inaugurated in 1952. Given the slow construction time and the death of the sculptor Alves de Sousa, still young, the work was completed under the direction of sculptors Henrique Moreira and José Sousa Caldas.

It consists of a pedestal, 45 m high, surrounded by sculptural groups, two of them even biting the base. These represent scenes of artillery in movement, and one can also see English soldiers who came to support Portugal and the intervention of the people in the fight and the "Ponte das Barcas" disaster. Note the presence of the female element in all groups: in the front, a woman, Victory guiding the people, holds the national flag in her left hand and a sword in her right.

Completing the set is a tall column topped by a lion on an eagle that it topples.

The base of the figure has figures of soldiers and scenes of facts linked to the Napoleonic wars, in reliefs carved into the granite.

Two dates, in bronze, like the whole sculpture, can be seen on two fronts of the base of the column: MDCCCVIII and MDCCCIX. Also on the pedestal are the city's coat of arms.