February 13, 2013

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

STATELY AND PALATIAL ARCHITECTURE OF PAMPLONA

An exceptional collection of European engravings in sixteenth-century Pamplona

Beatriz Blasco Esquivias.
Complutense University of Madrid

The transition from the average to the Modern Age brought, among other novelties, the development of a cultured, comfortable and representative architecture, which soon proved to be ideal to show the splendor and magnificence of the kings of the Hispanic Monarchy and the new urban nobility. written request Parallel to the rise of the modern cities and the consequent retreat of the rural environment, the palaces and urban manor houses were acquiring a progressive regularity in plan and elevation (ultimately derived from the model Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, 1446-1451, and other Italian palaces of the same period), at the same time that the domestic interiors were modernized through the characterization of the rooms according to their use (as opposed to the old medieval rooms with no specific function) and through the adoption of certain modes and customs of the Nasrid Arab culture, which, due to their refinement, singularity, sophistication and delicacy, were ideal for expressing the power and magnificence of the great noble families. Thanks to contemporary chroniclers and travelers, such as the German Thomas Münzer (in Spain, 1494-1495), it is possible to know the splendor of palaces and stately homes in which the regularity, order and representation of the Italian Renaissance could be happily combined with the sophistication, luxury and comfort inherited from Arab culture, providing us with examples of rare perfection.
 

Casa de Pilatos (Seville). Central Courtyard
 

Avoiding references to the Casas Señoriales and Palaces of Navarre -which will be analyzed by various specialists- we will go through several palaces and urban manor houses, representative of a nobility that, in the awakening of the Modern Age, bet on the language of the Renaissance -which they had known during their trips to Italy- as an effective way to vindicate their power and greatness against the authority of the Catholic Monarchs. From the stuttering examples of Salamanca at the end of the 15th century, the Renaissance was consolidated in the following century thanks to the patronage of the Mendozas, Medinaceli, Enriquez de Ribera, Monterrey and other great noble families, who built their urban palaces as true objects of representation, with facades/emblems that extolled their lineage. Elejemplo made the monarchs succumb to the modernity of Italy, finally crystallizing in the Golden Age an aulic architecture of extraordinary singularity and grandeur, in which "the Italian" merges without complexes with the Hispanic tradition to formulate an architectural model based on the royal palaces: block building, with a square floor plan and angular towers with a façade/emblem of great figurative power and a complete and complex heraldic and symbolic meaning, as evidenced by the exemplary cases of the Ducal Palace (Lerma, Valladolid) and the Palace of Uceda (Madrid). The tour "Palaces and Manor Houses, Mirror of Greatness" takes us from the 15th to the 18th century through several palaces and manor houses in a journey that covers various locations in Castile (Guadalajara, Cogolludo, Salamanca, Viso del Marqués, Yuxte and Lerma), Andalusia (Calahorra, Seville, Granada), the Court of Madrid, Galicia, Valencia and Catalonia.

City of Lerma. Aerial view