This fourth volume of the Cuadernos de la Chair de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro is dedicated, like the previous ones, to a monographic topic : the stately homes and palaces of the Comunidad Foral. Its pages contain most of the lectures which, under the same title degree scroll, were grouped together in a series which took place between February and April 2009, with a large audience attendance and the participation of various specialists from other universities and centres research. It was organised with the support of partnership of the Fundación de Casas Históricas y Singulares, represented at the inauguration of the series by Ricardo Martí Fluxá, its president. 

The opening lecture was position by Letizia Arbeteta Mira, curator of the Museo de América, under the title degree scroll "Casa y posición social. Architecture and its social significance", in which she presented the characteristics of Spanish castles, palaces and stately homes, from the Middle Ages average, where the houses combined the basic needs of habitation with the defensive function, to the arrival of the 16th century, with the transformation of castles into palaces. The second part of his talk focused on the study of interiors and household furnishings.
The following workshop was given by Professor Javier Martínez de Aguirre, from the Complutense University of Madrid, who analysed the medieval palaces of Navarre, particularly that of Olite. Juan José Martinena, from the file General de Navarra, in a second session, spoke on the palaces of the armoury as a singularity of the kingdom of Navarre, highlighting their character as noblemen's houses, mostly of medieval origin, considered to be the head of lineage and the oldest noble estates, of which examples have been preserved from different periods and styles.

The third group of talks focused firstly on the study of Navarre's Town Halls, at position by Professor Javier Azanza López, of the University of Navarre's department de Arte, who analysed their morphology and typological evolution from the first preserved 16th-century houses to those of the Baroque centuries, those influenced by Academicism and Eclecticism, as well as the avant-garde in contemporary architecture. Next, Mr. José Luis Molins Mugueta, archivist of Pamplona City Council, presented the case of the Pamplona Town Hall, illustrating his intervention with numerous original traces conserved in the city's file . 

The next session dealt with the restoration of historic buildings. position The first part was given by Gabriel Ruiz Cabrero, from the School of Architecture of Madrid, who spoke on the principles and criteria of restoration throughout history. Subsequently, a roundtable focused on the restoration of three stately homes in Navarre, with the presence of Mariano González Presencio -School of Architecture of the University of Navarre -, and the architects Jaime Gaztelu and Fernando Tabuenca, analysing landmark cases in the restoration of buildings in Pamplona and the surrounding area.

Another workshop was devoted to the relationship between Navarrese stately architecture and that of the neighbouring communities of Aragon and the Basque Country. Professor Javier Ibáñez Fernández, from the University of Zaragoza, dealt with Aragonese palatial architecture of the Renaissance, highlighting its brick and plaster constructions, topped by the repeated gallery of arches and wooden eaves, characteristic of the middle Ebro valley, in a panorama very similar, in all senses, to the rich architecture of the Ribera Tudelana. internship To develop the points of relation with the Basque Country, Juan Manuel González Cembellin, from the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art of La Encarnación in Bilbao, spoke about the palaces and town halls in the Basque Country and their similarities and differences with those of Navarre, pointing out that all the palace typologies found in the Basque Country also exist in Navarre, and pointing out the references in both cases: in Navarre the influence of France and the middle Ebro valley, while in the Basque Country the reference letter is usually Castile.

position The two sessions of the following workshop were given by Professor Pilar Anduela Unanua, from the University of Navarra's department de Arte. In the first, devoted to Navarrese stately architecture during the Ancien Régime, she analysed the great examples of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the latter being a time when outstanding buildings with façades opened by balconies with rich latticework and which articulate their interiors by means of wide stairwells covered with magnificent and suggestive vaulted solutions can be dated. The second intervention was dedicated to the urban and monumental renovation that the capital of Navarre underwent in the Age of Enlightenment, when the historic quarter was enriched with large mansions, at the same time as the Episcopal palace and the city council building itself were being built.

The last session was devoted to the 19th and 20th centuries with two further lectures. The first, at position by Ignacio J. Urricelqui Pacho, on the palace of the Provincial Council, the most outstanding example A of 19th-century civil architecture in Navarre, paying special attention to the decorative programme of the Throne Room, which includes a series of paintings by foreign artists who helped to bring the capital of Navarre up to date with national and international trends. In the second, Professor Azanza López closed the course with a lecture dedicated to the mansions built for the urban bourgeoisie of the 19th and 20th centuries, in which the architectural trends of the time are manifested on the national scene, from Historicism, Eclecticism, Modernism and the architectural Regionalism of the first third of the 20th century.

Ricardo Fernández Gracia
Director of the Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art
University of Navarra