The Pantheon of Illustrious Sailors () is a mausoleum and memorial to all the mariners of the Spanish Navy, especially prominent ones, and to the Spanish Navy and all its ships, battles and explorations in general, located in Cádiz, Spain. The term Pantheon is a concession to the generally prevalent and popular style of neoclassical architecture, which is supposed to have begun explicitly in the 18th century, but was in use long before then in the Renaissance, a "rebirth" of classical civilization, especially in decorative ornamentation.
The application of "Pantheon" in this case is entirely superficial. The building is composed of two layers: a Catholic church to which a cemetery has been added by enclosure and roofing. The church projects above the roof of the building, while the cemetery appears as projections off the nave. The philosophic term Pantheon comes from a different, polytheistic religion. Etymologically, it refers to a panoply of "all the gods." Christianity, however, is considered a monotheistic religion, despite the Trinitarian subdivision of divinity into three persons. As each person is fully God, and is not lessened by division, the Trinity is described as a mystery.
The application of the term to the building, however, is entirely architectural. The Spanish architects who assigned the term believed they were creating a type of building, which, in the 18th and 19th centuries, was termed a Pantheon, because of the central dome. The earliest extant instance of a large domed structure is the Pantheon of Rome. Originally a pagan temple, it utilized the principle of the arch to support a heaven-like surface over a public chamber, the rotunda. Geometrically a dome is an arch rotated about a central axis, so whatever load-bearing advantage an arch has is multiplied over the dome. The Roman Pantheon survived because it was quickly converted into a Christian church, like many other pagan public buildings. Domes became a standard feature of state and religious buildings thereafter. Their sudden labelling as Pantheons in the 18th century is no doubt a neoclassicism, and there are others, such as a few frontal columns. The architecture, however, is primarily church architecture, none of which dates to classical times.
Military community of San Carlos The Spanish naval pantheon is located in Poblado Naval de San Carlos, historically the Población Militar de San Carlos, in the Province of Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain. The "population" part of the name can be any community in English. Here it means district, whether naval or military, which would be covered by the general English term, "base." The base is continuous with the city of San Fernando, on the north side of it, except for the security barriers delimiting the base. The post office, the telephone company, and the "population" consider the base as part of the city. However, it never was in any municipal sense. The Población was there first, and was named San Carlos. It was treated as a town. San Fernando grew to the south of it, on land not on the base. They were both on an island, a slight elevation in the wetlands, the Isla de León, on the Bay of Cádiz. The land and structures of the base were acquired by, and are administered by, the national government, today the Ministry of Defence. For example, in the military legal system, the base is the headquarters of Juzgado Togado Militar Territorial Nº 22, "Territorial Military Court District Number 22," comprising Cadiz, with an address of Poblado Naval de San Carlos San Fernando (Cádiz).
Like any base of any country, the units at the base, their function in the military, the facilities available, and the relationships to the civilian community, change frequently as the military is brought up to date. Whether the base is the Población Militar de San Carlos, or the Poblado Naval de San Carlos, or just plain San Carlos, and whether it is on land belonging to San Fernando, or the Defense Department, are ongoing controversies not likely to be settled soon. These changes all affected the architecture and accessibility of the Pantheon one way or another.
The reservation was created from crown lands in the late 18th century by the last absolute monarch of the Spanish Empire at its peak, Carlos III, who had other dominions than Spain. He donated the land for a base he considered an absolute necessity for the defense of Cadiz and of Spain, and then died. Without the base, Cadiz, placed on a long spit of land enclosing the Bay of Cadiz, would be easily surrounded and cut off. The base was part of a general plan of walls and fortifications in and around Cadiz. Carlos III had already chosen as their patron saint, Charles Borromeo, the counter-reformation saint, who did his best to reform the church and lure the Protestants back into it, even sending a mission to Switzerland, origin point of the Swiss reform, to invite the Protestants there to return to the Catholic Church.Sadly, he resorted to persecution for witchcraft and other forms of Inquisition. His efforts to win Protestants were thus somewhat limited but he was also a militant church reformer. For his successes in partially restoring the church, Charles Borromeo was recognized as San Carlos. The successor of Carlos III on the latter's death issued an order that the incomplete works were to be named San Carlos in honor of Carlos III. The latter, of course, was no saint himself. San Fernando was not recognized as a town until the early 19th century.
The judgement of Carlos III turned out to be perspicacious and sound as, a generation after his death, 12,000 Spanish with some English and Portuguese held Cadiz against a French force of 70,000 under Napoleon in the Siege of Cádiz. All the rest of the country had fallen. When the French were gone, the savants who had congregated at Cadiz suggested a Constitution for a limited monarchy, but it was rejected by the monarch. San Carlos, however, entered a new ascendance in the structure of the military. It became the seat of the Spanish Naval Academy and the headquarters of the Spanish marines, with the Pantheon in a new role as chapel. In 1943 the Naval Academy moved to Pontevedra. The role of San Carlos after 1943 seemed to decline. San Fernando has been lobbying to take over its lands for commercial development, a goose laying a golden egg for some interests, as former bases are in many countries, especially the United States.
The issue came to a head in 2018, when all the old wisdom of Carlos III was reaffirmed. The Ministry of Defence (Ministerio de Defensa) firmly reasserted its claim over the previous land of the base, and more. In April of that year the Council of Ministers (Consejo de Ministros) declared the Población Militar de San Carlos, using those words, as a "Zone of Interest for National Defense" (Zona de Interés para la Defensa Nacional). On 12 June the Royal Decree (Real Decreto) was published in the Official State Gazette (Boletin Oficial del Estado, BOE). Previously were considered in the poblacion; now, somewhat more were to be included in the zone. The naval base to the north was brought in, and any nearby air space. The decree was more specific, giving coordinates of the zone and listing military rights over it. No action could be taken, or any regulation or statute passed, no transfer of property, or any new use, could be originated without express permission of the Ministry of Defense. National Defense must take priority.
Architecture of the building Unlike many prominent buildings, this one was not built in a single style for a single purpose; it evolved during the more than two hundred years of its existence. The various terms that have been used to describe it are not always apt, especially when they are translated into English.
Structural elements The main structural elements used in the Illustrious Sailor's Pantheon are the arch, the vault, and the dome, all of which were in use in classical times, but generally not to the degree of elaboration shown in the great cathedrals and capitols of the Renaissance and after. The classical uses were, in turn, derived from the elaboration of a single, simple device: the wedge. Wedges were among the first tools devised by mankind, such as cutters, scrapers, and especially axes.
The wedge interposes the compression-resistant properties of its solid-state structure to change the direction and strength of a vector force transmitted by it. In the figure, the axeman imparts a momentum to the blade which, impacting the wood, generates a force acting at P along the length of the blade. The force does not leave in that direction because there is no bearing surface there. Instead, the force departs at right angles to the bearing surfaces at Q, forcing the wood apart and imparting momentum to any chips that fly off.
The angle of intersection of the bearing surfaces is subtended by an arc at a. Suppose the wood is removed and a number of axes are placed face-to-face, and that P is a static gravitational load. The arc is extended to an arch, while Q is diverted along the arch, leaving a force-free space below it. The forces at Q, however, must ultimately be countered or the arch will fly apart and collapse. If they are countered, the forces act to compress the wedges. The compressional strength of stone is very high. The alternative structure to an arch, the lintel, or beam across the top of the opening, as in the many prehistoric henges, must support the load in a different way. Every horizontal beam must sag under a load.A theoretically straight and level bridge would have no vertical resistive force and would collapse immediately. Instead of collapsing it bends downward, creating a component along the bridge and a component vertical to the bridge, which resists the load. It bends until it either breaks or the load is countered. When it does, the length must extend, subjecting the lintel to tensile forces. As the tensile strength of stone is much lower, the lintel under heavy loads typically breaks and collapses. Many arches survive from antiquity, but few lintels are still in place.
Composition
The inner and earliest Pantheon is a classic example of church architecture of the Renaissance, a time when the cathedral structure reached its floruit. Small churches continued with the typical form evolved from a Roman house: a nave, or hall for the congregation with rows of seats; an apse, or special area facing the nave for the choir, the sacraments, statues or other images, and a stained glass window if one could be afforded, and the bema, a preaching pulpit inserted between in a lofty position appropriate to the power and authority of the church, believed to derive from the power and authority of God himself. Large churches, on which large amounts of cash could be expended, either private or public, took a more grandiose form along cathedral lines. The Pantheon is of the grandiose, expensive type, rather than the country-church, thrifty type. Home churching remained outside the pale in Spain. In Switzerland the great churches had been abandoned and stood vacant as monuments to vanity and corruption while the people worshipped in humble homes. This latter philosophy was never allowed to get started in Catholic Spain. The Inquisition stood in the way.