Amos Chapple Visuals

The 1880s were a busy time for the Gayet-Gauthier metalworking foundry in France. That decade the workshop cast the Statue of Liberty and this monument, of the Archangel Gabriel.

The celestial warrior has stood atop Lyon’s hilltop Notre Dame Basilica since 1885 when he was emplaced to aid the city in its struggle against the scourges of cholera, poverty and political unrest.

140 years on, only one of those demons has been defeated but the archangel has been wounded in the spiritual battle. A 2013 renovation team found a bullet from an unknown sniper had pierced the monument’s right arm at an unknown date.

After surviving World War II, this figure disappeared from the corner of Budapest’s New York Palace.

She represents freedom and America and the bird she sits on represents the Hungarian nation – all things antithetical to the leftists who seized power after the war. Under Socialism, the monument had to go.

After Hungary won its independence in 1989, the New York Palace underwent massive renovations and the lady and her eagle were emplaced back on their perch. (If anyone knows the exact date this happened please let me know!)

Today the pair sit atop a reborn palace that houses a luxury hotel and a cafe widely considered the most beautiful in the world.

She dances on the grave of an empire.

The Vittoria Light, crowned with a statue of winged victory, was built in the 1920s on top of an abandoned fort of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After the annexation of Trieste to Italy following World War I, the lighthouse was conceived as a Fascist-style memorial to the sailors killed in that conflict. Its emplacement on top of the fort served as a gloating marker of Austro-Hungarian defeat.

The rooftop figure is over seven meters high and was built with slits cut into her wings to reduce the strain caused by the Bora wind that streaks over the Gulf of Trieste.

The instruction inscribed on the front of the lighthouse has been followed since its electric lamp was first switched on in 1927: “Shine on and remember the fallen of the sea.”

“Beautiful from afar, but far from beautiful,” is how some locals describe the crowning figure of Brussels’ town hall. The statue was first emplaced on the building’s spire by a brave team of workers all the way back in 1454.

It depicts Michael, the patron Saint of the Belgian capital, slaying Satan. The lord of darkness perhaps hit back in 1863 when a lightning strike blasted the sword out of Saint Michael’s hand. The weapon reportedly clattered onto the cobbles of the Grand Place 100 meters below.

The statue has been restored and retouched several times through its life and in the 1990s it was taken down and replaced with a copy. The ancient original now lives in a museum in Brussels, still sporting flecks of its original gold coating.

She is Seville’s most famous Christian symbol and stands atop the tower built for a mosque.

In the 8th century Seville and most of the rest of the Iberian peninsula was conquered by Arab armies. A later series of military raids known as the reconquista ended with European Christians recapturing the territory by the late 1400s.

With Seville back in Christian hands the grand mosque of the city was converted into a cathedral and in 1568 this beautiful wind vane, known as Giraldillo, was emplaced atop the modified minaret.

She has twisted with the wind ever since, enduring earthquakes, lightning strikes and more than 450 blistering Andalusian summers.

The palm leaf in her left hand represents the triumph of Christendom over Islam while Giraldillo’s pregnant figure hints at Spain’s bright future under European control.

Inscribed just under the statue is a proverb: “The strongest tower is the name of the Lord.”

The sword-clasping ‘turul’ that has looked out from Buda Castle since 1903.

The mythical turul bird is credited with leading the Hungarians to their promised land from somewhere east of Europe in the 9th century.

The turul entered Hungarian mythology when a pregnant Magyar princess dreamed the bird swooped down and foretold that her unborn son and his descendents would reign over distant lands. After the tribe departed west, the turul guided the Magyars until they reached the land of today’s Hungary and settled.

The Budapest turul was made by sculptor Gyula Donáth. The artist died in 1909 but left a statue that endured through both world wars.

In photos of Budapest made after World War II, the turul can be seen looking out apparently unscathed over the broken city.