Question: Who is the subject of a nine-foot-tall bronze statue submerged 25 feet below the water off the coast of Key Largo?
Answer: Jesus Christ
Known as the Christ of the Abyss, this submerged statue in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is the third of its kind cast from the original Italian mold. The original Il Cristo degli Abissi was lowered into the Mediterranean Sea on August 22, 1954, just off the coast of San Fruttuoso on the Italian Riviera. The bronze statue was the work of Guido Galletti, inspired by a concept by Italian diver Duilio Marcante. It was designed to represent Christ in the new world below the waves, a memorial for all those who had lost their lives at sea and a monument to those who continued to dive beneath it.
