In 2012, a partial restoration was completed.[22]​ In 2018, visits grew by 103% and reached more than 4,000 per weekend on the occasion of the announcement of the then possible exhumation of Franco.[23]​ The disinterment was finally carried out on October 24, 2019. The remains of the former head of state were transferred to the Mingorrubio cemetery, along with those of his widow Carmen Polo, thus fulfilling Franco's wish to be buried with his wife outside the monument[24]​ and an ad hoc reform of the Historical Memory Law approved in 2018 with the exclusive purpose of exhumation.[25]​[26]​.

José Antonio Primo de Rivera was also exhumed in 2023 at the request of his family,[27] whose remains currently rest in the San Isidro cemetery, along with his relatives.

In 2012, a partial restoration was completed.[22]​ In 2018, visits grew by 103% and reached more than 4,000 per weekend on the occasion of the announcement of the then possible exhumation of Franco.[23]​ The disinterment was finally carried out on October 24, 2019. The remains of the former head of state were transferred to the Mingorrubio cemetery, along with those of his widow Carmen Polo, thus fulfilling Franco's wish to be buried with his wife outside the monument[24]​ and an ad hoc reform of the Historical Memory Law approved in 2018 with the exclusive purpose of exhumation.[25]​[26]​.

José Antonio Primo de Rivera was also exhumed in 2023 at the request of his family,[27] whose remains currently rest in the San Isidro cemetery, along with his relatives.

It was Franco who personally chose Cuelgamuros to erect his "colossal architectural endeavor" there after a "painstaking search to locate the natural grandeur he was looking for", in the company of General Moscardó.[67]​[68][69]​ The general idea of what was going to be built there was also his[70]​ ―"a monument that would link the times of Franco with those of the Catholic Monarchs, Charles V and Philip II" and that "more than any other legacy of his regime, it reflected the concept that Franco had of himself as a historical figure on a par with Philip II"―[71]​ and during the design of the project by the architect Pedro Muguruza Franco made many indications and suggestions and also during its construction, such as doubling the size of the crypt[72]​[73]​ ―according to his biographer Paul Preston, the Valley of the Fallen would become Franco's second "private obsession", after of hunting―.[74]​ According to General Millán Astray Franco had a secret passion, that of "urban planner architect, builder of cities." "It was he, likewise, who designed and directed the construction of the Legion Officers' Circle...", said Millán Astray.[75]​ Pedro Muguruza, for his part, explained in Barcelona in 1942 that "the Caudillo wants Spain to orient its architecture by giving it a style peculiar to the historical moment that our nation has experienced in its liberating Crusade." "The new architectural style that is going [is] the imperial one," Muguruza will say.[76]​ For his part, the future abbot of the Benedictine monastery Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel stated that Franco "had great concern for the grandeur of the monument, but he also took care of the details. He chose all the Virgins... In every question he was asked, he demanded that he be consulted... Sometimes it took him a long time to go to the Valley, to return there, and then they had done something that he did not like and it had to be changed. (The one who also went up to Cuelgamuros a lot was General Millán Astray, "who gave tobacco to the prisoners, and gave us speeches, harangues of a patriotic type," as the practitioner of the works, also a prisoner, recalled.[79]​.

One of General Franco's fundamental concerns was the design of the monumental cross, a true symbol of the Valley. Franco rejected the different projects that were presented to him and he himself drew sketches of the cross he had in mind. Finally he approved the design presented to him by the architect Diego Méndez "Diego Méndez (architect)"), who had taken charge of the works in 1950 due to Pedro Muguruza's serious illness—he would die on February 3, 1952—[80]​. A sober and concise cross, according to Méndez, which nevertheless measured 150 meters high.[81] Another of Franco's concerns was the decoration of the crypt because he wanted there to be a parade of heroes and martyrs on both sides because "the entire Crusade" "has really been that, it has been a parade of heroes and martyrs," he told the architect Méndez. But he finally convinced him to have the walls covered with scenes from the Apocalypse.[82] Franco also personally selected in the forests of the mountains of Segovia the juniper that was going to be used to make the cross for the main altar of the basilica and on which the carving of a Christ sculpted by Julio Beovide was going to be placed.[83]​.

Méndez set out to develop the original ideas of imperial greatness so that the monument plastically represented "the racial virtues, such as those of heroism, asceticism, the adventurous spirit, the desire for conquest, "quixotism", which form the whole that inspires and defines what is Spanish as a unity of sublime essence and a permanent aspiration towards the eternal." Thus the monument to the fallen had to be "nothing more and nothing less than the Altar of Spain, of heroic Spain, of mystical Spain, of eternal Spain."[84]

Juan de Ávalos was in charge of the sculptures at the base of the cross. At first it was planned to place representations of the twelve apostles there, but in the end it was agreed that they would be the four evangelists, at the base, and the four cardinal virtues in the transition area from that to the shaft of the cross. In addition, Ávalos sculpted the Pietà that was to appear above the entrance door to the basilica. General Franco did not like the first Pietà that he made—he told Ábalos that it was very pathetic, very sad, and that it looked like a bat—and he had to sculpt another one following Franco's ideas, who approved the sketches, and which was the one that was finally placed in the entrance.[85]​ On the other hand, the cardinal virtues had to be represented with manly images because Franco said that "women do not usually really embody those virtues."[86]​.

Finally, the "Youth Barracks" mentioned in the founding decree of 1940 was not built and the monastery designed and built by Muguruza, because it was too far from the basilica, did not house the monks but instead became a hostel and the headquarters of the Center for Social Studies destined to study and disseminate "Catholic social doctrine, which inspired the social achievements of the regime."[87] Thus a new monastery was built almost attached to the cliff on which the cross stood, "in such a way that the monks will be able to access the basilica without having to expose themselves to the elements, through an interior gallery excavated in the rock and with a vaulted ceiling, and then taking the elevator."[88] The decision to build the new monastery, which cost 160 million pesetas, was made by Franco after hearing the complaint of the future abbot Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel that the old one was too far from the basilica. «And when [the works] were finished and we [the monks] could move, I remember that [Franco] said: "Well, you will be happy now." "Well, yes... We are always willing to collaborate and do what His Excellency orders, but, of course, we have to do something that lends itself." "Yes, yes, I understand that it is better this way; it has cost a little, but it is better this way," recalled Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel years later.[89]

The Benedictine order was chosen to take charge of the abbey. Thus, a contract was signed with the abbey of Silos on May 29, 1958, signed by the abbot of Silos, Isaac María Toribios, and by the undersecretary of the Presidency, Luis Carrero Blanco, representing Franco. It was agreed to establish an independent abbey in the Valley of the Fallen, composed of at least twenty professed monks and an undetermined number of novices, whose obligations included "celebrating every year on July 17 a feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross"; “sing a solemn mass of thanksgiving and a Te Deum” on April 1, “the day our crusade ended”; “celebrate a solemn mass” on October 1st “by H.E. the head of the State"; and "on November 20 of each year" "sing a solemn Mass for the Dead for all the fallen of our Crusade."[90] Franco personally chose Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel for the position of abbot of the Valley of the Fallen monastery.[91]​.

The first workers on the monument were free workers hired by the San Román company—one of them was the father of who would later become the famous actor Francisco Rabal. Months later, political prisoners began to work on the construction site.[97] Many of them were taken to the valley by the contractors themselves who stopped by the prisons to select them. Years later, one of the political prisoners in the Ocaña prison, sentenced to thirty years in prison, remembered the following:[98]​.

The legal basis for recruiting prisoners was a decree of May 28, 1937 that established the right to work for prisoners of war and non-common prisoners (the "red prisoners") and the ministerial order of October 7, 1938 that established the Redemption of Sentences through Work with the purpose of achieving "the spiritual and political strengthening of the families of the prisoners and of these themselves" through "the enormous task of extracting from the prisoners and their families "the poison of ideas of hatred and anti-homeland." The promoter of the idea of the redemption of sentences through work, the Jesuit José Agustín Pérez del Pulgar, justified it like this in The solution that Spain gives to the problem of its political prisoners, published in 1939: "It is very fair that the prisoners contribute with their work to the reparation of the damages to which they contributed with their cooperation to the Marxist rebellion", that it is the prisoner who works for the free worker, "who is assumed not to have committed a crime against the State and against society..., helping to rebuild what with his rebellion he contributed to destroy. [...] It is not possible, without taking precautions, to return to society, or as it were, to social circulation, damaged, perverted, politically and morally poisoned elements, because their re-entry into the free and normal community of Spaniards, without further ado, would represent a danger of corruption and contagion for everyone, along with the historical failure of the victory achieved at the cost of so much sacrifice.

For the prisoners, the option of redeeming sentences through work was "a situation incomparably better than those that will be experienced by those who are locked up in prisons or will be pushed to the walls in front of rifles."[100] As Susana Sueiro Seoane has stated, "obviously, given the extremely harsh conditions prevailing in Spanish prisons at that time, any political prisoner preferred to take advantage of the so-called System of Redemption of Sentences by Labor, designed by the Franco regime to exploit the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who crowded its prisons. Without a doubt, it was a better option for the prisoner than being locked up in unhealthy and overcrowded prisons because forced labor reduced their sentence time and, in the case of the Valley, they could work outdoors and receive visits from their families.

The bureaucratic procedure to access the system of redemption of sentences through work began with the written request of the prisoner, having to complete an application that was processed before the Ministry of Justice, Patronato de Nuestra Señora de la Merced (created for this purpose); In this request, the prisoner in question had to explain the reasons for his desire for a position, the prison he came from, why he was there, and the years of prison he had left to serve.[102] This is the process followed by the political prisoners who were not directly selected from the prisons by the concessionaire companies. This is how one of them, a lieutenant of the Army of the Republic, sentenced to thirty years in prison, remembered it, who was initially in the detachment that built the Buitrago dam to go to Cuelgamuros a year and a half later:[103]​.

In 1943, the Central Board for Redemption of Penalties for Work explained that companies assigned each worker the same salary as free workers within their profession and specialty. Overtime hours were also paid. All the social legislation of free workers governed for them. The companies were in charge of the food. They were responsible for the entire cost of food and on a monthly basis they were compensated for the amount of aid by receiving from the Provincial Prisons what concerns the State and by deduction when settling monthly with the Board of Trustees, of what the Board has assigned to each worker for food: 2 pesetas, for the first concept, and 0.85 pesetas, for the second, the difference until covering the real cost of maintenance, which never falls below 4 pesetas per worker and day, and which is also borne by the company. The report of the same Board of Trustees from 1949 explained that many prisoners did not fully benefit from the redemption of sentences through work because before completing their sentences they had been pardoned.

On the other hand, there are certain references that speak of thousands of Republican prisoners redeeming part of the sentence that had been imposed on them based on the formula "1 day of work = 5 days of sentence remission."[104] For his part, Alberto Bárcena Pérez, from the CEU San Pablo University, considers that there were up to six days per work day since overtime was also counted for the purposes of sentence reduction. Furthermore, the prisoners received the same salary as the rest of the workers in the sector in question.[105]​.

Regarding the working and living conditions, the architect Pedro Muguruza established that to carry out the heavy work of the works, the workers, both free workers and imprisoned workers, had to follow a diet of between 3,000 and 3,500 calories.[106] The construction doctor Ángel Lausín, also imprisoned, stated that "the work there in winter was very hard. In the summer it was better.

About the prisoners, a free worker related the following:[110]​.

Regarding accommodation, Daniel Sueiro points out "that many [prisoners] sleep together in the hastily built stone barracks, where at least there is electric light that, moreover, must be turned off at the call of silence [in each barracks there were between forty and fifty prisoners][111]​. Others have preferred the independence and darkness of those miserable shanties made of branches and stones that are beginning to proliferate in the mountains, unauthorized but tolerated. Some begin to have the possibility of sleeping in them with their wives, when they are authorized to stay here for a week or two from time to time, and over time they will end up having their small children at their side as well. When the weather is good, the old and faithful, long-suffering, heroic republican couples lie down among the fragrant bushes on the hard and welcoming bed of the earth. They feel alive, despite everything."[112]

Regarding the number of workers, both free and prisoners, who worked on the works, Daniel Sueiro estimated in 1976 that over the twenty years that the construction of the Valley lasted about twenty thousand, although he did not provide any documentary evidence - at the end of 1943 there were about six hundred prisoners working in the Valley and towards the end of the works about two thousand workers distributed in continuous eight-hour shifts, according to Sueiro.[113] The figure of twenty thousand was later reproduced by historians such as Paul Preston[74]​ or Rafael Torres,[114]​ but was considered exaggerated in 2015 by Alberto Bárcena Pérez after investigating the archives of the Patronato de Redención de Penas por el Trabajo.[102]​ For his part, the architect Diego Méndez González "Diego Méndez (architect)"), director of the works from December 1950 until its completion, also stated that Normally there were about 2,000 workers a day.[115] The construction doctor stated that "one thousand five hundred or two thousand workers will have gathered there on occasions."[107]​.

There were escape attempts, but it appears that very few were successful. One of them was carried out by "an Argentinian" from the International Brigades who escaped in a car with his wife. But the most famous case was that of Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz[116]​ who escaped from the Valley in the company of Manuel Lamana, another anti-Franco student also imprisoned, in 1948, helped by two North American students, one of them Barbara P. Salomon, also a historian like Sánchez Albornoz; His adventures were told in the film The Barbarian Years.[117]​.

After completing their sentence, many convicts continued to work in the Valley as free workers, many of them because they had nowhere to go with their background as "red prisoners."[118]​ This is how one of the inmates remembered it:[119]​.

Another political prisoner recalled the following:[120]​.

According to the doctor at the site, “around the 1950s they removed the penal establishments and only the free staff remained. And common prisoners began to arrive, but common prisoners were no longer working. They escaped..."[107]​.

Ángel Lausín, from the Health Corps of the Republican Army, purged after the end of the war, was the doctor of the Monument Works Council since 1940, the year he arrived there through the architect Pedro Muguruza. He was in charge of the first care of injured workers and prepared the seriously injured or those with fractures to be transferred to Madrid by ambulance or in the companies' cars. As he told Daniel Sueiro in 1976, "it was a rare day when there was not one of these [serious] accidents." There were quite a few, because of course, very large stones were moved, very large carts were moved transporting materials and earth...; "There were a thousand things." He also told him that there had been fourteen deaths, "in the entire time of the work, because I have been there practically the entire time."[121] For his part, the practitioner who helped Dr. Lausín told Sueiro that there had been eighteen deaths. On the other hand, both the doctor and the practitioner recalled that there had been numerous cases of arm and leg amputations.[122]​.

When asked about the cases of silicosis, Dr. Lausín told Sueiro that there were "quite a few." «Almost everyone has been dying; very few, if any, will remain. Here in Madrid I have known of quite a few who have been dying little by little. I don't think there are any left. At that time, very little was known about silicosis.[121]​[123][124]​ The workers who worked drilling the tunnel were aware of the risk they ran. A prisoner recounted the following years later: "When I was hired as a sweeper's assistant and then as a shoring man, a friend told me: "Please get out of the tunnel, you're taking your own life; you'll see how old they are." They went there because they paid for overfeeding, and for the sake of making a peseta, it turns out that what they have lost has been their lives. The borers almost all fall from silicosis; A number of them will have died. Or they are useless. So I continued working outside..."[125]​.

The son of a prisoner who went to work in the Valley as a free worker recalled years later the harsh working conditions of the San Román company in charge of drilling the tunnel:[126]​.

For her part, Bárcena Pérez affirms that the workplace accident rate was significantly lower than usual at the time. In 19 years, between 14 and 18 people died, some of them in traffic accidents or due to recklessness. During the first eight years of construction, when the number of political prisoners was greater, there were no fatalities.[127]​ However, Daniel Sueiro already confirmed in 1976, after speaking with many people who had worked in the Valley, that most of the accidents were "caused by rockfalls, as a result of the drilling."[128]​.

In 1976 Daniel Sueiro warned that the only source available to know the total cost of the works in the Valley of the Fallen were the papers of the architect Diego Méndez "Diego Méndez (architect)"), in charge of the works from 1950 until its completion. According to these papers, the work would have cost 1,086 million pesetas (exactly 1,086,460,331.89 pesetas). The most expensive parts would have been the crypt (356 million), the cross (about 115 million), the exedra (almost 112 million) and the monastery (90 million).

According to Sueiro's own calculations, in 1976 pesetas the work would have cost 5,500 million pesetas.[129] Twenty-two years later Paul Preston stated, without providing any documentary evidence, that the work would have cost 20,000 million pesetas, "almost as much as El Escorial had cost Philip II in a more prosperous time."[130]​.

The initial idea was that the work would be financed by an "annual subscription", as established in article 2 of the founding Decree of April 1, 1940. However, the following year, article 6 of the Decree of July 31, 1941, which created the Works Council of the National Monument of the Fallen, established that in addition to the "funds established in the Decree of April 1, 1940" the Council will have "those other contributions that the Government deems appropriate to allocate to it (sic)." The remaining millions were borne by the Public Treasury. This was recognized in the dossier of the architect Diego Méndez, which states that “the part of the funds raised in the annual subscription that was used to cover the expenses of the monument was insufficient. It only covered a quarter of the expenses. The total allocated to the monument from that amounted to 235,450,474.05 pesetas, which were just invested in the month of October 1952."[94]​.

Despite the fact that the "annual subscription" had only covered a quarter of the expenses, in the preamble of the Decree-Law of August 23, 1957, by which the Foundation of the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos was established, it was stated that "so that the erection of such a great monument does not represent a charge for the Public Treasury, its works have been financed with a part of the amount of the national subscription opened during the war and, therefore "Therefore, with the voluntary contribution of all Spaniards who contributed to it" - on the other hand, in article 3 of the decree it was said that the Foundation would be financed with the benefits obtained from the National Lottery draws that would take place every May 5 and with "the contributions or donations that they may receive from corporations or individuals" -. After stating that the Valley of the Fallen "has not cost the Spanish taxpayer anything," Méndez said that the money came from funds that Franco had accumulated during the war from "multiple, and sometimes very large, donations from addicted people." What did not have to be used in cannons was jealously guarded, allocating it in mind to the future realization of that "something" worthy of the fallen. Nor, naturally, to the State. The cost of the gigantic undertaking was covered by Generalissimo Franco through numerous donations that he received during the war and that he carefully reserved for it.

During the construction of the Valley and when it was completed there were accusations, more or less veiled, of "waste" or "waste" because the money it had cost could have been used for other purposes. This is what a group of high-ranking American military personnel said when they visited the works in 1954. "They said that it was too sumptuous a work for a poor country, which needs to spend money on more necessary things, such as preparation for war, construction of houses, irrigation works, an endless number of necessary things," Francisco Franco Salgado-Araújo, cousin and secretary of the Caudillo, noted in his diary.[134] It was Franco himself who responded to these accusations in an interview for the newspaper Pueblo "Pueblo (newspaper)") held just one month after the inauguration of the «new and grandiose monument»: «When El Escorial was being built, many Spaniards murmured, according to History, about the expenditure that, in struggle with nature, Philip II carried out to build his great factory. In modern times, no doubt someone also murmured against the cost of this new and grandiose monument. However, if they only thought that it was intended to give honor, prayers and burial to our fallen for God and for Spain, the monument has cost less than what it would have represented to dedicate a thousand pesetas per fallen person for a modest burial. of material and work that has been brought together in the unique monument of Cuelgamuros. For his part, the writer José María Pemán, once again emphasized the comparison with Philip II: «There will be talk of waste and the easy metaphors of the pyramids and the pharaohs will be used. But if Felipe II did not have eyes for geopolitics, neither was Cuelgamuros going to have eyes for budgets.

Currently, the revenues provide the State with an average of two million euros per year,[15]​[136]​ but there is a deficit. In 2017 it was known that the monument represented a deficit of 2.5 million euros to the National Heritage in the three previous years.[137]​.

In application of the Decree of August 23, 1957, the Ministry of the Interior sent a circular in May of the following year to the civil governors to begin organizing the transfer of the bodies to the monument. In it it was said that one of its purposes had to be fulfilled: "that of burying those who were sacrificed for God and for Spain and all those who fell in our Crusade, without distinction of the field in which they fought, as imposed by the Christian spirit of forgiveness that inspired its creation, as long as each one was of Spanish nationality and Catholic religion."[142][143] As Daniel Sueiro highlighted in 1976, by requiring the requirement that they be Catholic, many of the republican combatants, "who although they died for Spain, they also, however, evidently did not die for God, at least not in a very special way."[142]​.

According to Daniel Sueiro, that the Valley of the Fallen was intended to bury only the dead of the national side would be demonstrated, in addition to the Decree creating the monument itself in 1940, a decree promulgated in 1946 to indefinitely extend the maximum period of ten years that the law established so that the corpses of Spanish citizens could remain buried in their initial or temporary graves - after that period they had to be taken to the common grave or transferred to niches paid for by their relatives. Without this extension, no body would have been able to be taken to the Valley and hence the need for the decree. Well, the decree stated that the extension would only affect "remains of those who died in our War of Liberation, whether they perished in the ranks of the National Army or were murdered or executed by the Marxist hordes in the period between July 18, 1936 and April 1, 1939, or even at a later date, in the event that the death was a direct consequence of war wounds or suffering." of prison. "Not a single mention, as can be seen - nor was there one in the decree creating the monument - to the Spaniards who died in opposite trenches," concludes Daniel Sueiro.[144]​.

At the beginning of 1959, some twenty thousand corpses had already been buried in the underground galleries opened under the side chapels of the transept of the basilica.[145] Joan Pinyol managed to document at least 500 cases of corpses that, like that of her grandfather, were taken to the Valley without the consent of their relatives.[146] According to Susana Sueiro Seoane, "the Regime needed many dead to fill that enormous mausoleum, but the The authorities' call for the war dead to be buried there was not very successful, so in the end, the transfer of remains was carried out en masse and with great carelessness, without identification or authorization, and on many occasions at night, specifically with regard to the republican dead, who had been murdered by the nationals and buried in clandestine common graves. Most of those listed as unknown in the "Valley" record books were taken there without the knowledge of their relatives. It is not clear today [2019] the number of those who were buried in the basilica's ossuaries, nor the precise identity of all of them. They may house the mortal remains of some 40,000 combatants from both sides. The place where war victims are buried is totally inaccessible. Relatives who have gone from not knowing where their parents or siblings were to finding out that they are buried next to Franco, cannot go and place a bouquet of flowers over his remains.

According to Susana Sueiro Seoane, the reason why it was decided at the last moment to also bury dead people from the Republican side in the Valley was due to the Franco regime's need to achieve "international recognition" by giving "a more acceptable image to Western democracies." On the other hand, this historian has pointed out that "revisionist historians"[149]​ have used the fact that dead people from the Republican side were also buried as "proof" that Franco conceived it as a "monument of reconciliation", forgetting that "the decree creating the monument, dated April 1, 1940, leaves no doubt that it was intended to honor and remember "those who fell for God and for the Country", the heroes and martyrs of the glorious Crusade, that is, the victors... But even in the speech at the inauguration of the monument in 1959, the idea of "our martyrs" continued to be insisted upon. In fact, on the access doors to the underground tombs where the war dead are buried, you can still read the inscription "Fallen by God and Spain, 1936-1939."[150]

The Valley of the Fallen was officially inaugurated on April 1, 1959, exactly twenty years after the end of the civil war. The solemn ceremony, which rivaled the celebration of Victory in 1939, was attended by government ministers, prosecutors of the Francoist Cortes and members of the National Council of the Movement, representatives of all the institutions of the regime and the single party FET and the JONS, the civil and military authorities of all the provinces, the high command of the Armies, two cardinals and a large number of bishops and archbishops, and members of the diplomatic corps. The Generalissimo Franco, dressed as a captain general, entered under the canopy "Palio (canopy)") into the basilica with his wife dressed in black with a mantilla and comb.[151]​[152]​ In the speech that the Generalissimo gave before thousands of ex-combatants, provisional ensigns, and relatives of the Fallen (from the Franco side)[153]​ he praised the heroism of "our Fallen" in defense of "our lines" and when he referred to the enemy he said that he had been forced to "bite the dust of defeat."[154]

Thus, not only did Franco not show the slightest desire for reconciliation, but his speech was “triumphant and vengeful,” according to Paul Preston. Precisely what the press highlighted the next day was that the inauguration of the Valley of the Fallen had been the culmination of Franco's Victory in 1939.[154]​ The newspaper La Vanguardia Española, for example, headlined On the 20th Anniversary of the Victory. Emotional day in the Valley of the Fallen. And from the Caudillo's speech the following phrases stood out on the cover: «In the entire development of our Crusade there is much that is providential and miraculous. How else could we describe the decisive help that we receive from divine protection in so many vicissitudes? »; «That glorious epic of our liberation cost Spain much so that it could be forgotten»; «Our victory was not a partial victory, but a total victory for everyone. "It was not administered for the benefit of a group or a class, but for the entire nation." And as an introduction to the full reproduction of Franco's speech, the following phrase of his: "The anti-Spain was defeated and defeated, but it is not dead."[155]​.

Paul Preston has highlighted that the inauguration of the Valley of the Fallen was "the apotheosis of Franco's career at the national level" - the culmination of his international career would occur six months later, with the visit of the American president Dwight D. Eisenhower to Spain. was celebrated in his memory. He always entered the basilica under a canopy.[157]​.

On October 13, 1961, a large concentration of the European extreme right was held in the Valley of the Fallen, convened by the self-proclaimed European Assembly of Ex-Combatants and organized by the Falangist minister José Solís Ruiz. Groups of German Nazis, Italian fascists and other losers of World War II went there. All of them paraded alongside former Franco combatants to pay tribute to the only coreligionist who had emerged victorious from that conflict. Franco did not consider it appropriate to attend but sent a message of welcome and congratulations through General Pablo Martín Alonso.[158]​.

Until the entry into force of the Historical Memory Law in 2007,[159]​ every November 20 (20N, anniversary of the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco), the Valley of the Fallen became a meeting point for far-right followers of Francoism and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Spanish Falange.[160]​.

The decision to bury him in the Valley was made by the government of the time "Annex: Fifteenth Government of Spain during the Franco dictatorship (1975)"), a decision ratified by King Juan Carlos I[166]​ who asked the father abbot for written permission to consent to it:

In early November 1975, when Franco's death seemed imminent, conservative architect Ramón Andrada Pfeiffer was instructed to check that Franco's tomb was prepared to receive his remains. According to Andrada, it was necessary to break the concrete slab that covered the tomb, divert the pipes that crossed it and cover its walls with concrete walls to isolate the grave and then line them with lead.[168] They then went to look for the 1,500 kilo granite slab that the architect Diego Méndez had prepared in 1959, exactly the same as the one used to cover the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and which was in the workshop of the Alpedrete stonemason who had carved them. A specialist engraved the name "Francisco Franco" on the top. They took it to the Valley and did several trials until they were able to place the slab on the tomb in a few seconds, as would be required when the funeral was carried out.[169] The sculptor Juan de Ávalos commented on a Spanish Television program, Tal Cual, broadcast in 1993, that Ramón Andrada Pfeiffer had told him the following: "Juan, I am tremendously upset because in fifteen days we have to prepare the tomb for Franco."

After the promulgation of the Historical Memory Law in 2007, during the legislature of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and years later, in September 2018 when Pedro Sánchez was President of the Government, the exhumation of Francisco Franco del Valle de los Caídos was approved by decree law with an absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies. However, after several sentences and appeals by the Franco family to try to prevent the exhumation of their grandfather, it was not until October 24, 2019, when the dictator Francisco Franco was exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen to be buried with his wife, Carmen Polo, in the Mingorrubio cemetery, an event carried out after the approval of the Supreme Court.[26]​ The President of the Government Pedro Sánchez declared that the exhumation of Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen "puts an end to a moral affront" that Spain had suffered since 1975, "the exaltation of the figure of a dictator in a public space."[170]​.

In 2013 it was necessary to undertake a profound process of partial repair of some sculptures, due to defects in the materials that the author used when making them.[179]​ In 2016 the restoration work has been completed, despite the fact that it is suspected that the problems due to the incompatibility of materials may also affect other sculptures and the interior waterproofing of the Basilica is deficient, causing leaks and leaks.[180]​.

In 2017, the UN special rapporteur for the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition reminded the Spanish Government "urgently" of the demands of the victims of Franco's regime, appealing to human rights and leaving aside positions of political parties.[181]​.

On September 13, 2018, the Congress of Deputies validated a decree law, drafted by the Council of Ministers of the socialist Government chaired by Pedro Sánchez, which approved the exhumation of the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco and their transfer outside the basilica. The decree went ahead with an absolute majority (votes in favor of the PSOE, Unidas Podemos, PNV, ERC, PDeCAT, Compromís, EH Bildu, Canarian Coalition and Nueva Canarias (172 yeses); abstention of the PP, Ciudadanos, Unión del Pueblo Navarro and Foro Asturias (164 votes); and the contrary votes "by mistake" of the popular deputies Jesús Posada and José Ignacio Llorens).[182]​ The The exhumation of Francisco Franco was finally carried out on October 24, 2019.[26]​ The President of the Government Pedro Sánchez declared that the exhumation of Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen "puts an end to a moral affront" that Spain had been carrying since 1975, "the exaltation of the figure of a dictator in a public space."[170]​.

The historian Paul Preston declared "The Valley of the Fallen must not disappear (...) In Spain there are people who confuse oblivion with reconciliation and memory with revenge."[183] ​​The official name of the complex became Valle de Cuelgamuros by Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory.[3]​.

On November 11, 2025, the winning project of the Cuelgamuros Valley resignification contest was announced. It was the project "The base and the cross" by Pereda Pérez Arquitectos y Lignum S.L. Through a "great crack" it will be transformed into a place of dialogue and plurality for all Spanish citizens.[186]​.

The nave is at a lower level to enhance the chancel "Channel (architecture)") and break the monotony of such a long space. It is divided into four sections, marked by series of large transverse arches, crossed in the vault to form coffered ceilings.

The dimensions of the current temple are greater than those of the original perforation, which was 11 by 11 meters. The technical difficulties of expanding the tunnel were very great due to the granitic structure of the cliff, with joints that could cause landslides, to the point that the decision was made to solidify the existing tunnel with the debris from the expansion of the floor and sides, and once this was completed and consolidated, to proceed with the total emptying. In August 1954, the interior lining was made, with large concreted transverse arches, as well as the sides and the floor, which contributes to the stability of the whole and to the support of the mass of stone that gravitates over the vault.

To the right and left are six small chapels, marked on the walls of the nave by large alabaster reliefs corresponding to different invocations of the Virgin as Patroness of the Armies of land, sea and air and for her connection to important aspects of the history of Spain. In order of entry, on the right: Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Carmen (both are the work of Carlos Ferreira) and Our Lady of Loreto (Ramón Mateu); to the left; Our Lady of Africa (Ferreira), Our Lady of Mercy (Lapayese) and Our Lady of Pilar (Mateu).

In these chapels the decoration is very simple: altar fronts in relief and triptychs in the Flemish Gothic style from the 16th century. hand-painted on leather, in the manner of the Spanish souvenir guadamecíes and medieval traces, which were made in the 19th century. by the Lapayese. In both cases scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary are represented. Other sculptural elements present inside each chapel are also the work of Lapayese, father and son. These are two alabaster images of the Apostles placed on the side walls of each of them, in such a way that they form a group of twelve (instead of Judas Iscariot, Saint Matthias was chosen).

On the walls, interspersed between each chapel, hang eight tapestries from the Apocalypse of Saint John series, a copy of a Flemish collection of the century acquired by Charles V and brought to Spain by Philip II. The originals are in the Palacio de La Granja. However, these replicas have outstanding artistic value.

Below the tapestries, two padded courses run along the walls, like a plinth.

From the large nave you ascend to the transept by a staircase with ten steps. On the sides, eight statues can be seen on pilasters, the work of Antonio Martín and Luis Sanguino, with their heads bowed and covered, inviting an attitude of respect and silence, since the visitor is in a sacred space and in a large war cemetery. They represent fallen contenders in the war on land, sea, air, as well as volunteers. The rough work of the clothing contrasts with the polish of the faces and arms.

Along this space there are two rows of benches to listen to the mass.

In the central part of the transept, the decorative norms adopted in the nave and spaces that precede it vary; However, affinity with these is achieved due to their very disparity. The layout is rigidly classical in the mural canvases, and they only break in the four main arches, supporting the dome cap, formed by padded voussoirs that flare.

In the very center of the transept and vertically with the monumental cross on the outside, the main altar is located, formed by a large slab of polished granite in a single piece. The front front of the altar table is decorated with a bas-relief of the Holy Burial, in gold plate, designed by architect Diego Méndez and executed by Espinos. The back front represents the Last Supper. On its sides, you can see the group of "Tetramorphs" or symbols of the four evangelists: the bull of Saint Luke, the lion of Saint Mark, the angel of Saint Matthew and the eagle of Saint John.

As the only decoration of the altar, and above it, stands a carving of the crucified Christ by the image maker Julio Beobide and polychromed by Ignacio Zuloaga.

The lateral arms of the transept, 12.80 meters wide, end in the chapels of the Most Holy and the Holy Sepulchre.

Around the presbytery, the images of four large bronze archangels stand out, 7 m high and the work of Ávalos: Saint Raphael, Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel and Saint Uriel (Yezrael or Azrael).

Saint Raphael is represented according to the role he played in this story, with the pilgrim's staff as a guide for the character in the book and with the fish with whose gall he cured his blindness. Saint Michael is represented with the sword, as triumphant over the rebellion of Luzbel or Satan. Saint Gabriel holds a lily, in reference to his mission of having announced the Virgin Mary. He had also previously announced to Zechariah "Zechariah (father of John the Baptist)") the birth of Saint John the Baptist. Saint Uriel, as he was known in the Christian Middle Ages especially from Saint Isidore of Seville, is the Yezrael or Azrael of the Jews and is represented in the same way that they do: with his head bowed and covered and his hands raised in a prayerful attitude. He is the archangel who, according to some apocryphal stories of the Old Testament not considered to be inspired by God (although Jewish and Christian tradition has accepted some elements of them), presents the deceased before Yahveh: hence he is also the one who presents the souls of the fallen before God. Of the four archangels in the basilica, he is the one that attracts the attention of visitors the most.

The transept is completed by three fronts: at the end of the basilica, the choir; on the right side, the Chapel of the Sepulcher; and to the left of the transept, the Chapel of the Santísimo.

Above the transept there is a dome, topped by a skylight, decorated with a mosaic by Santiago Padrós. From the front, the image, typically Byzantine and Romanesque, of the "Pantocrator" is represented in the center: Almighty Christ, King and Judge, in majesty, with the book of Life in which the phrase "Ego sum lux mundi" ("I am the light of the world") is inscribed. The typical "mandorla or mystical almond" of the Romanesque art that surrounds it is made up of the wings of seraphim and cherubs. The presence of angels in Heaven is also clearly represented by others in the mosaic, with censers and swords, according to the symbolic descriptions of some texts of the Old and New Testaments.

Below Christ the theme of the triumph or exaltation of the Holy Cross, owner of the sanctuary, is observed. The "True Cross" is being exalted on Mount Calvary, where those of the two thieves who were crucified are discovered on both sides.

To the right of Jesus Christ is a large group of Spanish saints with James the Greater at their head, and to the left another of Spanish martyrs presided over by Saint Paul (that is, the two Apostles who, according to tradition, came to preach in Spain). The entire history of Spain as a Catholic nation is summarized here.

From the opposite side, in the center is the group of the Assumption of the Virgin, raised to heaven by angels from a mountain that represents Montserrat. The representation of Montserrat is due to the following reasons: the Virgin of this invocation is the Patroness of Catalonia, Padrós was Catalan, his wife also had that name and at one point a community of Benedictine monks from Montserrat was about to come to take charge of the sanctuary, before it was dealt with by the abbey of Silos. On the mountain the carpenter's saw is discovered, in such a way that the coat of arms of the Montserrat abbey is depicted. On the mountain itself, on the other hand, there is a scallop, scallop or shell of Santiago, in allusion to the name of the artist, and an inscription referring to its creation by him.

On the sides of the group of the Assumption of the Virgin are the civil and religious fallen and the military fallen in the Civil War, a cannon and five flags are also observed; three flags of Spain (the red one) without identifying shields, another with the Cross of Burgundy and a Falangist one, the latter being the only strictly Franco symbology existing in the entire church.

The mosaic, of more than five million tesserae, was made flat in the Royal Theater of Madrid, with the difficulty of having to later incorporate it into a vaulted, dome-shaped plane, which was done by the so-called indirect method. Therefore, once installed, Padrós observed that between the central column of angels of the Assumption group (the only column originally designed) and the two groups of fallen, especially that of the contenders, there was a very large space. To break that distance, already on the site he decided to raise two other side columns of smaller and more playful angels.

Padrós made real portraits of figures, both historical (some saints, for example Saint Ignatius and Saint Teresa), and others that he drew in the Madrid Metro to capture in the mosaic, his own self-portrait and that of his wife, or that of other notable figures of the time (among them, Miguel de Unamuno in the role of Saint Raimundo de Fitero).

To save the mosaic from the humidity that was foreseen and that can be seen with the naked eye in various parts of the basilica, Diego Méndez built a double dome: above the mosaic dome, which is covered by a layer of asphalt fabric that makes it waterproof, there is a very wide opening and another upper dome.

At the head of the temple is the choir "Choir (architecture)") of Renaissance inspiration, semicircular in plan and 70 seats arranged in three heights or levels, joined, at the back, with a gallery that leads to the staircase and the elevator of the cross. The monks and the choir are located there during the celebration of mass. The seating is made of walnut wood and was carved by Ramón Lapayese with medieval war scenes. According to its author, the theme was free, the reference to the medieval Crusades seems evident, especially because in some of the panels you can see houses in the style of those existing in the Holy Land, in addition to other details that point in that direction.

In alabaster there are some relief images of Benedictine saints, some of them with the daily habit and others with the coral or cowl, and two round figures of the same material: Saint Benedict of Nursia with the book of the Holy Rule that he wrote to legislate the life of his monks, and Saint Francis of Assisi with a crucifix in his hands.

On the right side of the transept is the Chapel of the Sepulcher with three sculptures by Lapayese: a recumbent Christ and the images of Calvary, that is, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist. On the ceiling there is another mosaic by Santiago Padrós, which in this case represents the Holy Burial.

To the left of the transept is the Chapel of the Santísimo. In it there is a silver tabernacle from Espídos, in which the reliefs of the Apostles and other motifs can be seen.

Behind him is a Flemish Gothic style altarpiece from the 17th century (made in the 19th century) in which the Holy Trinity is represented in a scene of pain: the Father, with the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, holds the dead Son in his arms, showing the world how far God's love for men has reached. It is surrounded by images of six apostles. Under the altar other paintings of saints in a similar style are discovered.

The chapel is crowned on its ceiling by a mosaic of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the work of Victoriano Pardo. In this way, in the two large side chapels we find representations of the Passion and Death and of Glory as central mysteries of Christianity, while at the same time they are related to the presence of so many fallen from the war in the place, which thus becomes a sanctuary of hope in eternal life.

It was Franco who personally chose Cuelgamuros to erect his "colossal architectural endeavor" there after a "painstaking search to locate the natural grandeur he was looking for", in the company of General Moscardó.[67]​[68][69]​ The general idea of what was going to be built there was also his[70]​ ―"a monument that would link the times of Franco with those of the Catholic Monarchs, Charles V and Philip II" and that "more than any other legacy of his regime, it reflected the concept that Franco had of himself as a historical figure on a par with Philip II"―[71]​ and during the design of the project by the architect Pedro Muguruza Franco made many indications and suggestions and also during its construction, such as doubling the size of the crypt[72]​[73]​ ―according to his biographer Paul Preston, the Valley of the Fallen would become Franco's second "private obsession", after of hunting―.[74]​ According to General Millán Astray Franco had a secret passion, that of "urban planner architect, builder of cities." "It was he, likewise, who designed and directed the construction of the Legion Officers' Circle...", said Millán Astray.[75]​ Pedro Muguruza, for his part, explained in Barcelona in 1942 that "the Caudillo wants Spain to orient its architecture by giving it a style peculiar to the historical moment that our nation has experienced in its liberating Crusade." "The new architectural style that is going [is] the imperial one," Muguruza will say.[76]​ For his part, the future abbot of the Benedictine monastery Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel stated that Franco "had great concern for the grandeur of the monument, but he also took care of the details. He chose all the Virgins... In every question he was asked, he demanded that he be consulted... Sometimes it took him a long time to go to the Valley, to return there, and then they had done something that he did not like and it had to be changed. (The one who also went up to Cuelgamuros a lot was General Millán Astray, "who gave tobacco to the prisoners, and gave us speeches, harangues of a patriotic type," as the practitioner of the works, also a prisoner, recalled.[79]​.

One of General Franco's fundamental concerns was the design of the monumental cross, a true symbol of the Valley. Franco rejected the different projects that were presented to him and he himself drew sketches of the cross he had in mind. Finally he approved the design presented to him by the architect Diego Méndez "Diego Méndez (architect)"), who had taken charge of the works in 1950 due to Pedro Muguruza's serious illness—he would die on February 3, 1952—[80]​. A sober and concise cross, according to Méndez, which nevertheless measured 150 meters high.[81] Another of Franco's concerns was the decoration of the crypt because he wanted there to be a parade of heroes and martyrs on both sides because "the entire Crusade" "has really been that, it has been a parade of heroes and martyrs," he told the architect Méndez. But he finally convinced him to have the walls covered with scenes from the Apocalypse.[82] Franco also personally selected in the forests of the mountains of Segovia the juniper that was going to be used to make the cross for the main altar of the basilica and on which the carving of a Christ sculpted by Julio Beovide was going to be placed.[83]​.

Méndez set out to develop the original ideas of imperial greatness so that the monument plastically represented "the racial virtues, such as those of heroism, asceticism, the adventurous spirit, the desire for conquest, "quixotism", which form the whole that inspires and defines what is Spanish as a unity of sublime essence and a permanent aspiration towards the eternal." Thus the monument to the fallen had to be "nothing more and nothing less than the Altar of Spain, of heroic Spain, of mystical Spain, of eternal Spain."[84]

Juan de Ávalos was in charge of the sculptures at the base of the cross. At first it was planned to place representations of the twelve apostles there, but in the end it was agreed that they would be the four evangelists, at the base, and the four cardinal virtues in the transition area from that to the shaft of the cross. In addition, Ávalos sculpted the Pietà that was to appear above the entrance door to the basilica. General Franco did not like the first Pietà that he made—he told Ábalos that it was very pathetic, very sad, and that it looked like a bat—and he had to sculpt another one following Franco's ideas, who approved the sketches, and which was the one that was finally placed in the entrance.[85]​ On the other hand, the cardinal virtues had to be represented with manly images because Franco said that "women do not usually really embody those virtues."[86]​.

Finally, the "Youth Barracks" mentioned in the founding decree of 1940 was not built and the monastery designed and built by Muguruza, because it was too far from the basilica, did not house the monks but instead became a hostel and the headquarters of the Center for Social Studies destined to study and disseminate "Catholic social doctrine, which inspired the social achievements of the regime."[87] Thus a new monastery was built almost attached to the cliff on which the cross stood, "in such a way that the monks will be able to access the basilica without having to expose themselves to the elements, through an interior gallery excavated in the rock and with a vaulted ceiling, and then taking the elevator."[88] The decision to build the new monastery, which cost 160 million pesetas, was made by Franco after hearing the complaint of the future abbot Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel that the old one was too far from the basilica. «And when [the works] were finished and we [the monks] could move, I remember that [Franco] said: "Well, you will be happy now." "Well, yes... We are always willing to collaborate and do what His Excellency orders, but, of course, we have to do something that lends itself." "Yes, yes, I understand that it is better this way; it has cost a little, but it is better this way," recalled Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel years later.[89]

The Benedictine order was chosen to take charge of the abbey. Thus, a contract was signed with the abbey of Silos on May 29, 1958, signed by the abbot of Silos, Isaac María Toribios, and by the undersecretary of the Presidency, Luis Carrero Blanco, representing Franco. It was agreed to establish an independent abbey in the Valley of the Fallen, composed of at least twenty professed monks and an undetermined number of novices, whose obligations included "celebrating every year on July 17 a feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross"; “sing a solemn mass of thanksgiving and a Te Deum” on April 1, “the day our crusade ended”; “celebrate a solemn mass” on October 1st “by H.E. the head of the State"; and "on November 20 of each year" "sing a solemn Mass for the Dead for all the fallen of our Crusade."[90] Franco personally chose Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel for the position of abbot of the Valley of the Fallen monastery.[91]​.

The first workers on the monument were free workers hired by the San Román company—one of them was the father of who would later become the famous actor Francisco Rabal. Months later, political prisoners began to work on the construction site.[97] Many of them were taken to the valley by the contractors themselves who stopped by the prisons to select them. Years later, one of the political prisoners in the Ocaña prison, sentenced to thirty years in prison, remembered the following:[98]​.

The legal basis for recruiting prisoners was a decree of May 28, 1937 that established the right to work for prisoners of war and non-common prisoners (the "red prisoners") and the ministerial order of October 7, 1938 that established the Redemption of Sentences through Work with the purpose of achieving "the spiritual and political strengthening of the families of the prisoners and of these themselves" through "the enormous task of extracting from the prisoners and their families "the poison of ideas of hatred and anti-homeland." The promoter of the idea of the redemption of sentences through work, the Jesuit José Agustín Pérez del Pulgar, justified it like this in The solution that Spain gives to the problem of its political prisoners, published in 1939: "It is very fair that the prisoners contribute with their work to the reparation of the damages to which they contributed with their cooperation to the Marxist rebellion", that it is the prisoner who works for the free worker, "who is assumed not to have committed a crime against the State and against society..., helping to rebuild what with his rebellion he contributed to destroy. [...] It is not possible, without taking precautions, to return to society, or as it were, to social circulation, damaged, perverted, politically and morally poisoned elements, because their re-entry into the free and normal community of Spaniards, without further ado, would represent a danger of corruption and contagion for everyone, along with the historical failure of the victory achieved at the cost of so much sacrifice.

For the prisoners, the option of redeeming sentences through work was "a situation incomparably better than those that will be experienced by those who are locked up in prisons or will be pushed to the walls in front of rifles."[100] As Susana Sueiro Seoane has stated, "obviously, given the extremely harsh conditions prevailing in Spanish prisons at that time, any political prisoner preferred to take advantage of the so-called System of Redemption of Sentences by Labor, designed by the Franco regime to exploit the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who crowded its prisons. Without a doubt, it was a better option for the prisoner than being locked up in unhealthy and overcrowded prisons because forced labor reduced their sentence time and, in the case of the Valley, they could work outdoors and receive visits from their families.

The bureaucratic procedure to access the system of redemption of sentences through work began with the written request of the prisoner, having to complete an application that was processed before the Ministry of Justice, Patronato de Nuestra Señora de la Merced (created for this purpose); In this request, the prisoner in question had to explain the reasons for his desire for a position, the prison he came from, why he was there, and the years of prison he had left to serve.[102] This is the process followed by the political prisoners who were not directly selected from the prisons by the concessionaire companies. This is how one of them, a lieutenant of the Army of the Republic, sentenced to thirty years in prison, remembered it, who was initially in the detachment that built the Buitrago dam to go to Cuelgamuros a year and a half later:[103]​.

In 1943, the Central Board for Redemption of Penalties for Work explained that companies assigned each worker the same salary as free workers within their profession and specialty. Overtime hours were also paid. All the social legislation of free workers governed for them. The companies were in charge of the food. They were responsible for the entire cost of food and on a monthly basis they were compensated for the amount of aid by receiving from the Provincial Prisons what concerns the State and by deduction when settling monthly with the Board of Trustees, of what the Board has assigned to each worker for food: 2 pesetas, for the first concept, and 0.85 pesetas, for the second, the difference until covering the real cost of maintenance, which never falls below 4 pesetas per worker and day, and which is also borne by the company. The report of the same Board of Trustees from 1949 explained that many prisoners did not fully benefit from the redemption of sentences through work because before completing their sentences they had been pardoned.

On the other hand, there are certain references that speak of thousands of Republican prisoners redeeming part of the sentence that had been imposed on them based on the formula "1 day of work = 5 days of sentence remission."[104] For his part, Alberto Bárcena Pérez, from the CEU San Pablo University, considers that there were up to six days per work day since overtime was also counted for the purposes of sentence reduction. Furthermore, the prisoners received the same salary as the rest of the workers in the sector in question.[105]​.

Regarding the working and living conditions, the architect Pedro Muguruza established that to carry out the heavy work of the works, the workers, both free workers and imprisoned workers, had to follow a diet of between 3,000 and 3,500 calories.[106] The construction doctor Ángel Lausín, also imprisoned, stated that "the work there in winter was very hard. In the summer it was better.

About the prisoners, a free worker related the following:[110]​.

Regarding accommodation, Daniel Sueiro points out "that many [prisoners] sleep together in the hastily built stone barracks, where at least there is electric light that, moreover, must be turned off at the call of silence [in each barracks there were between forty and fifty prisoners][111]​. Others have preferred the independence and darkness of those miserable shanties made of branches and stones that are beginning to proliferate in the mountains, unauthorized but tolerated. Some begin to have the possibility of sleeping in them with their wives, when they are authorized to stay here for a week or two from time to time, and over time they will end up having their small children at their side as well. When the weather is good, the old and faithful, long-suffering, heroic republican couples lie down among the fragrant bushes on the hard and welcoming bed of the earth. They feel alive, despite everything."[112]

Regarding the number of workers, both free and prisoners, who worked on the works, Daniel Sueiro estimated in 1976 that over the twenty years that the construction of the Valley lasted about twenty thousand, although he did not provide any documentary evidence - at the end of 1943 there were about six hundred prisoners working in the Valley and towards the end of the works about two thousand workers distributed in continuous eight-hour shifts, according to Sueiro.[113] The figure of twenty thousand was later reproduced by historians such as Paul Preston[74]​ or Rafael Torres,[114]​ but was considered exaggerated in 2015 by Alberto Bárcena Pérez after investigating the archives of the Patronato de Redención de Penas por el Trabajo.[102]​ For his part, the architect Diego Méndez González "Diego Méndez (architect)"), director of the works from December 1950 until its completion, also stated that Normally there were about 2,000 workers a day.[115] The construction doctor stated that "one thousand five hundred or two thousand workers will have gathered there on occasions."[107]​.

There were escape attempts, but it appears that very few were successful. One of them was carried out by "an Argentinian" from the International Brigades who escaped in a car with his wife. But the most famous case was that of Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz[116]​ who escaped from the Valley in the company of Manuel Lamana, another anti-Franco student also imprisoned, in 1948, helped by two North American students, one of them Barbara P. Salomon, also a historian like Sánchez Albornoz; His adventures were told in the film The Barbarian Years.[117]​.

After completing their sentence, many convicts continued to work in the Valley as free workers, many of them because they had nowhere to go with their background as "red prisoners."[118]​ This is how one of the inmates remembered it:[119]​.

Another political prisoner recalled the following:[120]​.

According to the doctor at the site, “around the 1950s they removed the penal establishments and only the free staff remained. And common prisoners began to arrive, but common prisoners were no longer working. They escaped..."[107]​.

Ángel Lausín, from the Health Corps of the Republican Army, purged after the end of the war, was the doctor of the Monument Works Council since 1940, the year he arrived there through the architect Pedro Muguruza. He was in charge of the first care of injured workers and prepared the seriously injured or those with fractures to be transferred to Madrid by ambulance or in the companies' cars. As he told Daniel Sueiro in 1976, "it was a rare day when there was not one of these [serious] accidents." There were quite a few, because of course, very large stones were moved, very large carts were moved transporting materials and earth...; "There were a thousand things." He also told him that there had been fourteen deaths, "in the entire time of the work, because I have been there practically the entire time."[121] For his part, the practitioner who helped Dr. Lausín told Sueiro that there had been eighteen deaths. On the other hand, both the doctor and the practitioner recalled that there had been numerous cases of arm and leg amputations.[122]​.

When asked about the cases of silicosis, Dr. Lausín told Sueiro that there were "quite a few." «Almost everyone has been dying; very few, if any, will remain. Here in Madrid I have known of quite a few who have been dying little by little. I don't think there are any left. At that time, very little was known about silicosis.[121]​[123][124]​ The workers who worked drilling the tunnel were aware of the risk they ran. A prisoner recounted the following years later: "When I was hired as a sweeper's assistant and then as a shoring man, a friend told me: "Please get out of the tunnel, you're taking your own life; you'll see how old they are." They went there because they paid for overfeeding, and for the sake of making a peseta, it turns out that what they have lost has been their lives. The borers almost all fall from silicosis; A number of them will have died. Or they are useless. So I continued working outside..."[125]​.

The son of a prisoner who went to work in the Valley as a free worker recalled years later the harsh working conditions of the San Román company in charge of drilling the tunnel:[126]​.

For her part, Bárcena Pérez affirms that the workplace accident rate was significantly lower than usual at the time. In 19 years, between 14 and 18 people died, some of them in traffic accidents or due to recklessness. During the first eight years of construction, when the number of political prisoners was greater, there were no fatalities.[127]​ However, Daniel Sueiro already confirmed in 1976, after speaking with many people who had worked in the Valley, that most of the accidents were "caused by rockfalls, as a result of the drilling."[128]​.

In 1976 Daniel Sueiro warned that the only source available to know the total cost of the works in the Valley of the Fallen were the papers of the architect Diego Méndez "Diego Méndez (architect)"), in charge of the works from 1950 until its completion. According to these papers, the work would have cost 1,086 million pesetas (exactly 1,086,460,331.89 pesetas). The most expensive parts would have been the crypt (356 million), the cross (about 115 million), the exedra (almost 112 million) and the monastery (90 million).

According to Sueiro's own calculations, in 1976 pesetas the work would have cost 5,500 million pesetas.[129] Twenty-two years later Paul Preston stated, without providing any documentary evidence, that the work would have cost 20,000 million pesetas, "almost as much as El Escorial had cost Philip II in a more prosperous time."[130]​.

The initial idea was that the work would be financed by an "annual subscription", as established in article 2 of the founding Decree of April 1, 1940. However, the following year, article 6 of the Decree of July 31, 1941, which created the Works Council of the National Monument of the Fallen, established that in addition to the "funds established in the Decree of April 1, 1940" the Council will have "those other contributions that the Government deems appropriate to allocate to it (sic)." The remaining millions were borne by the Public Treasury. This was recognized in the dossier of the architect Diego Méndez, which states that “the part of the funds raised in the annual subscription that was used to cover the expenses of the monument was insufficient. It only covered a quarter of the expenses. The total allocated to the monument from that amounted to 235,450,474.05 pesetas, which were just invested in the month of October 1952."[94]​.

Despite the fact that the "annual subscription" had only covered a quarter of the expenses, in the preamble of the Decree-Law of August 23, 1957, by which the Foundation of the Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos was established, it was stated that "so that the erection of such a great monument does not represent a charge for the Public Treasury, its works have been financed with a part of the amount of the national subscription opened during the war and, therefore "Therefore, with the voluntary contribution of all Spaniards who contributed to it" - on the other hand, in article 3 of the decree it was said that the Foundation would be financed with the benefits obtained from the National Lottery draws that would take place every May 5 and with "the contributions or donations that they may receive from corporations or individuals" -. After stating that the Valley of the Fallen "has not cost the Spanish taxpayer anything," Méndez said that the money came from funds that Franco had accumulated during the war from "multiple, and sometimes very large, donations from addicted people." What did not have to be used in cannons was jealously guarded, allocating it in mind to the future realization of that "something" worthy of the fallen. Nor, naturally, to the State. The cost of the gigantic undertaking was covered by Generalissimo Franco through numerous donations that he received during the war and that he carefully reserved for it.

During the construction of the Valley and when it was completed there were accusations, more or less veiled, of "waste" or "waste" because the money it had cost could have been used for other purposes. This is what a group of high-ranking American military personnel said when they visited the works in 1954. "They said that it was too sumptuous a work for a poor country, which needs to spend money on more necessary things, such as preparation for war, construction of houses, irrigation works, an endless number of necessary things," Francisco Franco Salgado-Araújo, cousin and secretary of the Caudillo, noted in his diary.[134] It was Franco himself who responded to these accusations in an interview for the newspaper Pueblo "Pueblo (newspaper)") held just one month after the inauguration of the «new and grandiose monument»: «When El Escorial was being built, many Spaniards murmured, according to History, about the expenditure that, in struggle with nature, Philip II carried out to build his great factory. In modern times, no doubt someone also murmured against the cost of this new and grandiose monument. However, if they only thought that it was intended to give honor, prayers and burial to our fallen for God and for Spain, the monument has cost less than what it would have represented to dedicate a thousand pesetas per fallen person for a modest burial. of material and work that has been brought together in the unique monument of Cuelgamuros. For his part, the writer José María Pemán, once again emphasized the comparison with Philip II: «There will be talk of waste and the easy metaphors of the pyramids and the pharaohs will be used. But if Felipe II did not have eyes for geopolitics, neither was Cuelgamuros going to have eyes for budgets.

Currently, the revenues provide the State with an average of two million euros per year,[15]​[136]​ but there is a deficit. In 2017 it was known that the monument represented a deficit of 2.5 million euros to the National Heritage in the three previous years.[137]​.

In application of the Decree of August 23, 1957, the Ministry of the Interior sent a circular in May of the following year to the civil governors to begin organizing the transfer of the bodies to the monument. In it it was said that one of its purposes had to be fulfilled: "that of burying those who were sacrificed for God and for Spain and all those who fell in our Crusade, without distinction of the field in which they fought, as imposed by the Christian spirit of forgiveness that inspired its creation, as long as each one was of Spanish nationality and Catholic religion."[142][143] As Daniel Sueiro highlighted in 1976, by requiring the requirement that they be Catholic, many of the republican combatants, "who although they died for Spain, they also, however, evidently did not die for God, at least not in a very special way."[142]​.

According to Daniel Sueiro, that the Valley of the Fallen was intended to bury only the dead of the national side would be demonstrated, in addition to the Decree creating the monument itself in 1940, a decree promulgated in 1946 to indefinitely extend the maximum period of ten years that the law established so that the corpses of Spanish citizens could remain buried in their initial or temporary graves - after that period they had to be taken to the common grave or transferred to niches paid for by their relatives. Without this extension, no body would have been able to be taken to the Valley and hence the need for the decree. Well, the decree stated that the extension would only affect "remains of those who died in our War of Liberation, whether they perished in the ranks of the National Army or were murdered or executed by the Marxist hordes in the period between July 18, 1936 and April 1, 1939, or even at a later date, in the event that the death was a direct consequence of war wounds or suffering." of prison. "Not a single mention, as can be seen - nor was there one in the decree creating the monument - to the Spaniards who died in opposite trenches," concludes Daniel Sueiro.[144]​.

At the beginning of 1959, some twenty thousand corpses had already been buried in the underground galleries opened under the side chapels of the transept of the basilica.[145] Joan Pinyol managed to document at least 500 cases of corpses that, like that of her grandfather, were taken to the Valley without the consent of their relatives.[146] According to Susana Sueiro Seoane, "the Regime needed many dead to fill that enormous mausoleum, but the The authorities' call for the war dead to be buried there was not very successful, so in the end, the transfer of remains was carried out en masse and with great carelessness, without identification or authorization, and on many occasions at night, specifically with regard to the republican dead, who had been murdered by the nationals and buried in clandestine common graves. Most of those listed as unknown in the "Valley" record books were taken there without the knowledge of their relatives. It is not clear today [2019] the number of those who were buried in the basilica's ossuaries, nor the precise identity of all of them. They may house the mortal remains of some 40,000 combatants from both sides. The place where war victims are buried is totally inaccessible. Relatives who have gone from not knowing where their parents or siblings were to finding out that they are buried next to Franco, cannot go and place a bouquet of flowers over his remains.

According to Susana Sueiro Seoane, the reason why it was decided at the last moment to also bury dead people from the Republican side in the Valley was due to the Franco regime's need to achieve "international recognition" by giving "a more acceptable image to Western democracies." On the other hand, this historian has pointed out that "revisionist historians"[149]​ have used the fact that dead people from the Republican side were also buried as "proof" that Franco conceived it as a "monument of reconciliation", forgetting that "the decree creating the monument, dated April 1, 1940, leaves no doubt that it was intended to honor and remember "those who fell for God and for the Country", the heroes and martyrs of the glorious Crusade, that is, the victors... But even in the speech at the inauguration of the monument in 1959, the idea of "our martyrs" continued to be insisted upon. In fact, on the access doors to the underground tombs where the war dead are buried, you can still read the inscription "Fallen by God and Spain, 1936-1939."[150]

The Valley of the Fallen was officially inaugurated on April 1, 1959, exactly twenty years after the end of the civil war. The solemn ceremony, which rivaled the celebration of Victory in 1939, was attended by government ministers, prosecutors of the Francoist Cortes and members of the National Council of the Movement, representatives of all the institutions of the regime and the single party FET and the JONS, the civil and military authorities of all the provinces, the high command of the Armies, two cardinals and a large number of bishops and archbishops, and members of the diplomatic corps. The Generalissimo Franco, dressed as a captain general, entered under the canopy "Palio (canopy)") into the basilica with his wife dressed in black with a mantilla and comb.[151]​[152]​ In the speech that the Generalissimo gave before thousands of ex-combatants, provisional ensigns, and relatives of the Fallen (from the Franco side)[153]​ he praised the heroism of "our Fallen" in defense of "our lines" and when he referred to the enemy he said that he had been forced to "bite the dust of defeat."[154]

Thus, not only did Franco not show the slightest desire for reconciliation, but his speech was “triumphant and vengeful,” according to Paul Preston. Precisely what the press highlighted the next day was that the inauguration of the Valley of the Fallen had been the culmination of Franco's Victory in 1939.[154]​ The newspaper La Vanguardia Española, for example, headlined On the 20th Anniversary of the Victory. Emotional day in the Valley of the Fallen. And from the Caudillo's speech the following phrases stood out on the cover: «In the entire development of our Crusade there is much that is providential and miraculous. How else could we describe the decisive help that we receive from divine protection in so many vicissitudes? »; «That glorious epic of our liberation cost Spain much so that it could be forgotten»; «Our victory was not a partial victory, but a total victory for everyone. "It was not administered for the benefit of a group or a class, but for the entire nation." And as an introduction to the full reproduction of Franco's speech, the following phrase of his: "The anti-Spain was defeated and defeated, but it is not dead."[155]​.

Paul Preston has highlighted that the inauguration of the Valley of the Fallen was "the apotheosis of Franco's career at the national level" - the culmination of his international career would occur six months later, with the visit of the American president Dwight D. Eisenhower to Spain. was celebrated in his memory. He always entered the basilica under a canopy.[157]​.

On October 13, 1961, a large concentration of the European extreme right was held in the Valley of the Fallen, convened by the self-proclaimed European Assembly of Ex-Combatants and organized by the Falangist minister José Solís Ruiz. Groups of German Nazis, Italian fascists and other losers of World War II went there. All of them paraded alongside former Franco combatants to pay tribute to the only coreligionist who had emerged victorious from that conflict. Franco did not consider it appropriate to attend but sent a message of welcome and congratulations through General Pablo Martín Alonso.[158]​.

Until the entry into force of the Historical Memory Law in 2007,[159]​ every November 20 (20N, anniversary of the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco), the Valley of the Fallen became a meeting point for far-right followers of Francoism and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Spanish Falange.[160]​.

The decision to bury him in the Valley was made by the government of the time "Annex: Fifteenth Government of Spain during the Franco dictatorship (1975)"), a decision ratified by King Juan Carlos I[166]​ who asked the father abbot for written permission to consent to it:

In early November 1975, when Franco's death seemed imminent, conservative architect Ramón Andrada Pfeiffer was instructed to check that Franco's tomb was prepared to receive his remains. According to Andrada, it was necessary to break the concrete slab that covered the tomb, divert the pipes that crossed it and cover its walls with concrete walls to isolate the grave and then line them with lead.[168] They then went to look for the 1,500 kilo granite slab that the architect Diego Méndez had prepared in 1959, exactly the same as the one used to cover the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and which was in the workshop of the Alpedrete stonemason who had carved them. A specialist engraved the name "Francisco Franco" on the top. They took it to the Valley and did several trials until they were able to place the slab on the tomb in a few seconds, as would be required when the funeral was carried out.[169] The sculptor Juan de Ávalos commented on a Spanish Television program, Tal Cual, broadcast in 1993, that Ramón Andrada Pfeiffer had told him the following: "Juan, I am tremendously upset because in fifteen days we have to prepare the tomb for Franco."

After the promulgation of the Historical Memory Law in 2007, during the legislature of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and years later, in September 2018 when Pedro Sánchez was President of the Government, the exhumation of Francisco Franco del Valle de los Caídos was approved by decree law with an absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies. However, after several sentences and appeals by the Franco family to try to prevent the exhumation of their grandfather, it was not until October 24, 2019, when the dictator Francisco Franco was exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen to be buried with his wife, Carmen Polo, in the Mingorrubio cemetery, an event carried out after the approval of the Supreme Court.[26]​ The President of the Government Pedro Sánchez declared that the exhumation of Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen "puts an end to a moral affront" that Spain had suffered since 1975, "the exaltation of the figure of a dictator in a public space."[170]​.

In 2013 it was necessary to undertake a profound process of partial repair of some sculptures, due to defects in the materials that the author used when making them.[179]​ In 2016 the restoration work has been completed, despite the fact that it is suspected that the problems due to the incompatibility of materials may also affect other sculptures and the interior waterproofing of the Basilica is deficient, causing leaks and leaks.[180]​.

In 2017, the UN special rapporteur for the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition reminded the Spanish Government "urgently" of the demands of the victims of Franco's regime, appealing to human rights and leaving aside positions of political parties.[181]​.

On September 13, 2018, the Congress of Deputies validated a decree law, drafted by the Council of Ministers of the socialist Government chaired by Pedro Sánchez, which approved the exhumation of the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco and their transfer outside the basilica. The decree went ahead with an absolute majority (votes in favor of the PSOE, Unidas Podemos, PNV, ERC, PDeCAT, Compromís, EH Bildu, Canarian Coalition and Nueva Canarias (172 yeses); abstention of the PP, Ciudadanos, Unión del Pueblo Navarro and Foro Asturias (164 votes); and the contrary votes "by mistake" of the popular deputies Jesús Posada and José Ignacio Llorens).[182]​ The The exhumation of Francisco Franco was finally carried out on October 24, 2019.[26]​ The President of the Government Pedro Sánchez declared that the exhumation of Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen "puts an end to a moral affront" that Spain had been carrying since 1975, "the exaltation of the figure of a dictator in a public space."[170]​.

The historian Paul Preston declared "The Valley of the Fallen must not disappear (...) In Spain there are people who confuse oblivion with reconciliation and memory with revenge."[183] ​​The official name of the complex became Valle de Cuelgamuros by Law 20/2022, of October 19, on Democratic Memory.[3]​.

On November 11, 2025, the winning project of the Cuelgamuros Valley resignification contest was announced. It was the project "The base and the cross" by Pereda Pérez Arquitectos y Lignum S.L. Through a "great crack" it will be transformed into a place of dialogue and plurality for all Spanish citizens.[186]​.

The nave is at a lower level to enhance the chancel "Channel (architecture)") and break the monotony of such a long space. It is divided into four sections, marked by series of large transverse arches, crossed in the vault to form coffered ceilings.

The dimensions of the current temple are greater than those of the original perforation, which was 11 by 11 meters. The technical difficulties of expanding the tunnel were very great due to the granitic structure of the cliff, with joints that could cause landslides, to the point that the decision was made to solidify the existing tunnel with the debris from the expansion of the floor and sides, and once this was completed and consolidated, to proceed with the total emptying. In August 1954, the interior lining was made, with large concreted transverse arches, as well as the sides and the floor, which contributes to the stability of the whole and to the support of the mass of stone that gravitates over the vault.

To the right and left are six small chapels, marked on the walls of the nave by large alabaster reliefs corresponding to different invocations of the Virgin as Patroness of the Armies of land, sea and air and for her connection to important aspects of the history of Spain. In order of entry, on the right: Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Carmen (both are the work of Carlos Ferreira) and Our Lady of Loreto (Ramón Mateu); to the left; Our Lady of Africa (Ferreira), Our Lady of Mercy (Lapayese) and Our Lady of Pilar (Mateu).

In these chapels the decoration is very simple: altar fronts in relief and triptychs in the Flemish Gothic style from the 16th century. hand-painted on leather, in the manner of the Spanish souvenir guadamecíes and medieval traces, which were made in the 19th century. by the Lapayese. In both cases scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary are represented. Other sculptural elements present inside each chapel are also the work of Lapayese, father and son. These are two alabaster images of the Apostles placed on the side walls of each of them, in such a way that they form a group of twelve (instead of Judas Iscariot, Saint Matthias was chosen).

On the walls, interspersed between each chapel, hang eight tapestries from the Apocalypse of Saint John series, a copy of a Flemish collection of the century acquired by Charles V and brought to Spain by Philip II. The originals are in the Palacio de La Granja. However, these replicas have outstanding artistic value.

Below the tapestries, two padded courses run along the walls, like a plinth.

From the large nave you ascend to the transept by a staircase with ten steps. On the sides, eight statues can be seen on pilasters, the work of Antonio Martín and Luis Sanguino, with their heads bowed and covered, inviting an attitude of respect and silence, since the visitor is in a sacred space and in a large war cemetery. They represent fallen contenders in the war on land, sea, air, as well as volunteers. The rough work of the clothing contrasts with the polish of the faces and arms.

Along this space there are two rows of benches to listen to the mass.

In the central part of the transept, the decorative norms adopted in the nave and spaces that precede it vary; However, affinity with these is achieved due to their very disparity. The layout is rigidly classical in the mural canvases, and they only break in the four main arches, supporting the dome cap, formed by padded voussoirs that flare.

In the very center of the transept and vertically with the monumental cross on the outside, the main altar is located, formed by a large slab of polished granite in a single piece. The front front of the altar table is decorated with a bas-relief of the Holy Burial, in gold plate, designed by architect Diego Méndez and executed by Espinos. The back front represents the Last Supper. On its sides, you can see the group of "Tetramorphs" or symbols of the four evangelists: the bull of Saint Luke, the lion of Saint Mark, the angel of Saint Matthew and the eagle of Saint John.

As the only decoration of the altar, and above it, stands a carving of the crucified Christ by the image maker Julio Beobide and polychromed by Ignacio Zuloaga.

The lateral arms of the transept, 12.80 meters wide, end in the chapels of the Most Holy and the Holy Sepulchre.

Around the presbytery, the images of four large bronze archangels stand out, 7 m high and the work of Ávalos: Saint Raphael, Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel and Saint Uriel (Yezrael or Azrael).

Saint Raphael is represented according to the role he played in this story, with the pilgrim's staff as a guide for the character in the book and with the fish with whose gall he cured his blindness. Saint Michael is represented with the sword, as triumphant over the rebellion of Luzbel or Satan. Saint Gabriel holds a lily, in reference to his mission of having announced the Virgin Mary. He had also previously announced to Zechariah "Zechariah (father of John the Baptist)") the birth of Saint John the Baptist. Saint Uriel, as he was known in the Christian Middle Ages especially from Saint Isidore of Seville, is the Yezrael or Azrael of the Jews and is represented in the same way that they do: with his head bowed and covered and his hands raised in a prayerful attitude. He is the archangel who, according to some apocryphal stories of the Old Testament not considered to be inspired by God (although Jewish and Christian tradition has accepted some elements of them), presents the deceased before Yahveh: hence he is also the one who presents the souls of the fallen before God. Of the four archangels in the basilica, he is the one that attracts the attention of visitors the most.

The transept is completed by three fronts: at the end of the basilica, the choir; on the right side, the Chapel of the Sepulcher; and to the left of the transept, the Chapel of the Santísimo.

Above the transept there is a dome, topped by a skylight, decorated with a mosaic by Santiago Padrós. From the front, the image, typically Byzantine and Romanesque, of the "Pantocrator" is represented in the center: Almighty Christ, King and Judge, in majesty, with the book of Life in which the phrase "Ego sum lux mundi" ("I am the light of the world") is inscribed. The typical "mandorla or mystical almond" of the Romanesque art that surrounds it is made up of the wings of seraphim and cherubs. The presence of angels in Heaven is also clearly represented by others in the mosaic, with censers and swords, according to the symbolic descriptions of some texts of the Old and New Testaments.

Below Christ the theme of the triumph or exaltation of the Holy Cross, owner of the sanctuary, is observed. The "True Cross" is being exalted on Mount Calvary, where those of the two thieves who were crucified are discovered on both sides.

To the right of Jesus Christ is a large group of Spanish saints with James the Greater at their head, and to the left another of Spanish martyrs presided over by Saint Paul (that is, the two Apostles who, according to tradition, came to preach in Spain). The entire history of Spain as a Catholic nation is summarized here.

From the opposite side, in the center is the group of the Assumption of the Virgin, raised to heaven by angels from a mountain that represents Montserrat. The representation of Montserrat is due to the following reasons: the Virgin of this invocation is the Patroness of Catalonia, Padrós was Catalan, his wife also had that name and at one point a community of Benedictine monks from Montserrat was about to come to take charge of the sanctuary, before it was dealt with by the abbey of Silos. On the mountain the carpenter's saw is discovered, in such a way that the coat of arms of the Montserrat abbey is depicted. On the mountain itself, on the other hand, there is a scallop, scallop or shell of Santiago, in allusion to the name of the artist, and an inscription referring to its creation by him.

On the sides of the group of the Assumption of the Virgin are the civil and religious fallen and the military fallen in the Civil War, a cannon and five flags are also observed; three flags of Spain (the red one) without identifying shields, another with the Cross of Burgundy and a Falangist one, the latter being the only strictly Franco symbology existing in the entire church.

The mosaic, of more than five million tesserae, was made flat in the Royal Theater of Madrid, with the difficulty of having to later incorporate it into a vaulted, dome-shaped plane, which was done by the so-called indirect method. Therefore, once installed, Padrós observed that between the central column of angels of the Assumption group (the only column originally designed) and the two groups of fallen, especially that of the contenders, there was a very large space. To break that distance, already on the site he decided to raise two other side columns of smaller and more playful angels.

Padrós made real portraits of figures, both historical (some saints, for example Saint Ignatius and Saint Teresa), and others that he drew in the Madrid Metro to capture in the mosaic, his own self-portrait and that of his wife, or that of other notable figures of the time (among them, Miguel de Unamuno in the role of Saint Raimundo de Fitero).

To save the mosaic from the humidity that was foreseen and that can be seen with the naked eye in various parts of the basilica, Diego Méndez built a double dome: above the mosaic dome, which is covered by a layer of asphalt fabric that makes it waterproof, there is a very wide opening and another upper dome.

At the head of the temple is the choir "Choir (architecture)") of Renaissance inspiration, semicircular in plan and 70 seats arranged in three heights or levels, joined, at the back, with a gallery that leads to the staircase and the elevator of the cross. The monks and the choir are located there during the celebration of mass. The seating is made of walnut wood and was carved by Ramón Lapayese with medieval war scenes. According to its author, the theme was free, the reference to the medieval Crusades seems evident, especially because in some of the panels you can see houses in the style of those existing in the Holy Land, in addition to other details that point in that direction.

In alabaster there are some relief images of Benedictine saints, some of them with the daily habit and others with the coral or cowl, and two round figures of the same material: Saint Benedict of Nursia with the book of the Holy Rule that he wrote to legislate the life of his monks, and Saint Francis of Assisi with a crucifix in his hands.

On the right side of the transept is the Chapel of the Sepulcher with three sculptures by Lapayese: a recumbent Christ and the images of Calvary, that is, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist. On the ceiling there is another mosaic by Santiago Padrós, which in this case represents the Holy Burial.

To the left of the transept is the Chapel of the Santísimo. In it there is a silver tabernacle from Espídos, in which the reliefs of the Apostles and other motifs can be seen.

Behind him is a Flemish Gothic style altarpiece from the 17th century (made in the 19th century) in which the Holy Trinity is represented in a scene of pain: the Father, with the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, holds the dead Son in his arms, showing the world how far God's love for men has reached. It is surrounded by images of six apostles. Under the altar other paintings of saints in a similar style are discovered.

The chapel is crowned on its ceiling by a mosaic of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the work of Victoriano Pardo. In this way, in the two large side chapels we find representations of the Passion and Death and of Glory as central mysteries of Christianity, while at the same time they are related to the presence of so many fallen from the war in the place, which thus becomes a sanctuary of hope in eternal life.