20 February 2013
Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series
STATELY AND PALATIAL ARCHITECTURE OF PAMPLONA
Rediscovering the Romanesque Episcopal Palace of Pamplona
Mr Javier Martínez de Aguirre.
Complutense University of Madrid
Not very explicit documentary information, such as the reference letter to the palace of bishop Pedro de Roda in a diploma of 1177, gave evidence of the existence of an episcopal residency program in Romanesque Pamplona. Throughout the 20th century, several scholars, including Leopoldo Torres Balbás and José Goñi Gaztambide, devoted their attention to analysing the documentation and the possible remains still standing of this construction. When the time came to convert the canonical buildings for use as the Diocesan Museum, it was believed that only the stone façade enclosing the courtyard annexed to the refectory on its southern side remained of the old palace.
The finding of the old royal palace of La Navarrería, on the occasion of its transformation into file General of Navarre, gave rise to a research search for all traces of Romanesque buildings in the cathedral complex, which led to the identification of a palace typologically related to the royal palace, as it also consisted of two naves with an L-shaped ground plan. The main difference was that the royal residency program included a tower on the corner, which was missing in the prelates' palace. Both had wooden porticoes on the façades facing inwards.
Episcopal Palace
The bishop's palace was organised into two wings. The larger one, accessed through the Puerta Preciosa in the cloister, seems to have been the great conference room for audiences and celebrations. It had transverse arches to support the wooden gabled roof. Its main doorway, sparsely decorated, still opens on the western façade. It had a large window in the southern gable. Around 1270, a dormitory for canons with numerous small windows was attached to the eastern façade. At the beginning of the 15th century, the vicar Don Lancelot decided to replace this unhealthy dormitory with a new one, located in the large conference room. To do so, he built an intermediate wooden floor on transverse arches decorated with his coat of arms. It remained in use until the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the canons decided to locate a new chapter house there, conference room , which had to be demolished due to construction defects.
What we assume to be the domestic wing was somewhat smaller and was divided from the beginning into two storeys, with wooden forging on corbels still visible. It had a door to the wooden portico and at least two windows to the north. Its southern façade has been greatly altered by additions (the house of the archdeacon of Usún in the 14th century and Library Services in the 18th century). Its interior has also suffered the ups and downs of history: it was converted into a house for canonical dignitaries and later into a residential residence for Don Lacelot, who endowed it with Gothic belvederes. It then housed a daily refectory, later reused for recreational activities (the "little theatre" mentioned in the documentation).
