A MYTH ABOUT QUEEN ELENA
Bas reliefs on each side of the base of the statue of Queen Elena illustrate episodes from her life, especially her contribution to the earthquake relief effort. As well as visiting the city soon after the disaster, and tending to some of the wounded on board a ship moored in the harbour, she subsequently became the patroness of the body set up to look after the welfare of earthquake orphans.
Although there is no evidence to suggest that Queen Elena ever disembarked and set foot amid the highly dangerous ruins of the city when she visited just after the earthquake, etchings of her ministering to the injured among the rubble were printed in magazines that appeared in the mood of national grief in January 1909. The bas relief reproduced below almost certainly owes its origins to those illustrations.
