Royal Palaces of Spain

by Albert Frederick Calvert

In 1830, when Ferdinand VII. lay ill at La Granja, and his heir and brother, Don Carlos, was holding himself in readiness to assume the responsibility of sovereignty, Queen Cristina, anxious for her three-year-old daughter’s interest, induced the king to abolish the Salic law and declare his daughter Isabel to be his successor. Three years afterwards, Ferdinand died, and three years later the king’s abrogation of the constitution was revoked by a mob of common soldiers, led by Sergeant Garcia, who compelled the queen to renounce her royal rights and proclaim the Cadiz constitution of 1812. George Borrow, who was in Madrid at the time these events were taking place, had the story of the revolution of La Granja from eye-witnesses, and it is related here in his words. ‘Early one morning,’ he writes—‘it was the morning of 12th August 1836—a party of these soldiers, headed by a certain Sergeant Garcia, entered her apartment, and proposed that she should subscribe her hand to this constitution, and swear solemnly to abide by it. Cristina, however, who was a woman of considerable spirit, refused to comply with this proposal, and ordered them to withdraw. A scene of violence and tumult ensued, but the Regent still continuing firm, the soldiers at length led her down to one of the courts of the palace, where stood her well-known paramour, Muñoz, bound and blindfolded. “Swear to the constitution, you she-rogue,” shouted the swarthy sergeant. “Never!” said the spirited daughter of the Neapolitan Bourbons. “Then your cortejo (lover)—he was in reality her husband—shall die!” replied the sergeant. “Ho! ho! my lads; get ready your arms and send four bullets through the fellow’s brain.” Muñoz was forthwith led to the wall and compelled to kneel down, the soldiers levelled their muskets, and another moment would have consigned the unfortunate wight to eternity, when Cristina, forgetting everything but the feelings of her woman’s heart, suddenly started forward with a shriek, exclaiming, “Hold! hold! I sign! I sign!”’

Still more recently, it will be remembered, Alfonso XIII. carried his English bride from the wedding festivities of Madrid to spend their honeymoon amid the natural beauties of the scenery of Segovia. The Royal Palace consists of a large rectangular building, in the centre of which is preserved the ancient cloister of the friars’ hospitium, now called the Patio de la Fuente. The idea for the central façade of the palace originated with the Abbé Juvara, the Italian architect who was summoned to Spain to assist Philip V. in his palace-building operations, but it was his pupil, Sachetti, who prepared the finished designs. It was carried out in 1739 at a cost of 3,360,000 reals. The general façade of the edifice at the back, overlooking the Palace Square, recalls the Roman-Spanish style created at the Escorial by Herrera. One of the best views of the palace is from the back, where the building with its slate-covered towers at the sides, and the Collegiate Church in the centre, surmounted by its elevated cupola and the simple towers accompanying it, compose an agreeable picture. The principal entrance to the edifice is in this façade facing the Palace Square, and leads to the vestibule of the principal staircase. This is of simple construction, and is composed of two flights of stairs which meet at the top landing-place. The steps are of granite, as well as the pillars of the balustrade which support a small iron banister painted white and gold. The whole well of the staircase is surmounted by a semicircular vault finished by a lantern, in which are the windows. This staircase did not exist in the time of Charles IV., as may be ascertained by examining the plans of the palace made at that time, and its construction should be attributed to Ferdinand VII.

The palace is a structure of two stories. On the ground floor are the ‘Galeria baja de estatuas’ (lower gallery of statues), one of the rooms in which is the dining-room, the High Court of Halberdiers, the offices of the Lord High Steward, and other dependencies; while the upper floor consists of the ‘Galeria oficial’ (Official Gallery), used for receptions, audiences, and councils of ministers, and the private apartments of their Majesties and Royal Highnesses. The ‘Galeria de estatuas’ is open to any one provided with a permit supplied by the Administration Patrimonial when the Court is absent. The apartments are generally decorated in good style. Most of the furniture is in the Empire style, especially that in the Official Gallery; but there is also some in Louis XIV., Regency, and Louis XV. style.

The collection of pictures, especially of the Flemish and Dutch schools, was very fine, for Queen Isabella Farnese acquired in Rome for this palace in 1735, through the Venetian painter G. B. Pittoni, and on the recommendation of the Abbé Juvara, a considerable number of very notable pictures of these schools. On the creation of the Royal Prado Museum in 1829, the best were taken there by order of Ferdinand VII., and there are at present in its catalogue three hundred and fifty-one pictures which came from this palace, among them three by Correggio, two by Luca Giordano, four by Il Guido, one by Paul Veronese, six by Tintoretto, one by Claudio Coello, sixteen by Murillo, two by Ribera, four by Velazquez, four by Van Dyck, fourteen by Rubens, and twenty-four by Teniers.

Among the pictures of the original collection which exist at the present time, there are none of great merit; but the large number painted by Michel Ange Houasse, of the French school, who was born in Paris in 1675, and died in Spain in 1730, being the chief painter of Philip V., are of no little merit. The marble statues that enrich the Lower Gallery, some of them Greek ones of great merit, like the Castor and Pollux group, form the greater part of the sculptures of the Madrid Museum. They were acquired in Rome through the celebrated Venetian sculptor Camillo Rusconi, and came from the collection made by Queen Christina of Sweden. Their cost, 12,000 doubloons, or 36,000 dollars, was defrayed by Philip V. and Isabella Farnese equally.

The lower gallery of statues were painted al fresco by Bartolomé Ruscha, and with them were placed, under the direction of Don Domingo Sanni, and by order of the royal founders, the statues of the collection formed by Queen Christina of Sweden and acquired by them in Rome. The sculptors Fremin and Thierri, who at the time were doing work for the gardens, restored many of them and added some others by themselves, but the majority of the best statues were removed in 1829 to the sculpture room in the Madrid Museum, where they are still preserved and constitute almost its only statuary wealth. At present there are in these rooms very few marble statues, and nearly all those forming their decoration are copies in plaster of the original ones, and they have therefore lost the great artistic value which the pure Greek sculpture in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden conferred on them. Among them the most valuable pieces to be seen here are the group of Castor and Pollux; two colossal statues of Julius Cæsar and Augustus in alabaster, with heads, arms, and legs of gilded bronze; a fine urn which it is believed contained the ashes of Caius Caligula; the representations of Day and Night; a very handsome Apollo; a Daphne; a Venus coming out of the bath; a Faun leaning on the trunk of a tree; another Venus with her knee on a tortoise; many handsome busts of deities and Roman emperors; the nine Muses; two superb heads of Antinous and Alexander; the recumbent statue of Ariadne, a replica of the one in the Museum of the Vatican; a copy of the Venus de Medici; an excellent small statue representing Seneca; Leda with the swan; a head of Homer; a colossal head, in bronze, of Queen Christina of Sweden; and Ganymede attacked by the eagle. With this array of sculpture and antiquities, the Palace of Ildefonso may be said to be more like a museum than a home; and in truth, apart from the Royal Chapel which contains the tomb of Philip V. and his queen, Elizabeth Farnese, and boasts some superbly embroidered vestments and mantles of the Virgin, the visitor must seek the beauties of the palace in its church and in its gardens and fountains.

In order to enhance the splendour of the worship that should be conducted in the Palace Chapel, Philip V. obtained from Pope Benedict XIII. a bull, Dum Infatigabilem, dated 20th December 1724, making it a collegiate church. Among other provisions in this bull it conceded that the new collegiate church should be the mother-church of all the churches and chapels of the town and its abbey; that it should have a chapter composed of an abbot, four officiating prebendaries, eight canons, six prebendaries, and four chaplain-acolytes; that the abbots should be a royal appointment with exclusive ecclesiastical jurisdiction throughout the district to be marked out by the Pope’s Nuncio, and at liberty to use the pontifical insignia and dress; that the abbot and canons should devote half the masses celebrated to the royal founders during their lifetime, and for their souls after their death, and that the canons should wear the choral dress of those of St. Peter’s in Rome. The same bull contained the king’s promise to endow the new collegiate church with the sum of 8625 gold ducats (276,000 reals of present Spanish money), to be distributed as follows: 5764 ducats for the fabric and its dependents, and the remainder, 2861, for the abbot and prebendaries.

In the reign of Charles III. the collegiate church was renovated at the expense of the royal treasury and under the direction of Marshal Sabatini, the vaults were painted with frescoes by Bayeu and Maella, and the mouldings and reliefs were decorated by Vega. By the decree of Joseph Bonaparte, given in Madrid on May 30, 1810, the collegiate church was suppressed, and it was reduced to a simple private chapel of the Royal Palace, uniting its parish with that of the Cristo Church, and adding the territory of the abbey to the bishopric of Segovia. The church was only closed four years, and on June 24, 1814, Ferdinand VII. restored things to their original condition, this event being celebrated by four days of public rejoicing and fêtes.

The church is in the shape of a Latin cross, the ends of the four arms being occupied by the high altar, choir, and two principal doors.

The ‘platillos’ of the four vaults, surrounded by a moulding, were painted al fresco by Maella, and all the paintings on the cupola are by Bayeu, brother-in-law of Goya. Some of the studies for these paintings were purchased by Queen Isabel II., and are now in the Madrid Museum.