Die Hinrichtung der Comuneros von Kastilien

On 24 April 1521, in the Castilian town of Villalar, three leaders of a failed revolt against the young king Charles the First were beheaded. They were Padilla, Bravo and Maldonado, remembered ever since as the Comuneros. Antonio Gisbert painted their last morning more than three centuries later, in 1860, working in Rome. He shows the three near the scaffold in the cold dawn light, one already slumped in death, the others waiting their turn. Spanish liberals of Gisbert's own day read the rebels as early martyrs for freedom against absolute power, and the message was not lost: the Congress of Deputies bought the huge canvas, and it still hangs in the Spanish parliament. Every year Castile marks the anniversary of Villalar as its regional day.