Palace of the Kings of Mallorca
The Palace of the Kings of Mallorca ( Catalan Palau dels Reis de Mallorca , French Palais des rois de Majorque ) is a fortress and a royal palace with gardens in the French city of Perpignan in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in the Occitania region .
history
This building marks the time when this city was the capital of the Kingdom of Mallorca . On August 21, 1262, James I of Aragón transferred the Balearic Islands to his second son, James II of Mallorca, along with the counties of Rosselló and Cerdanya and the dominion of Montpellier (a maternal inheritance of Jacob I).
James II ordered the construction of the palace in 1276 on a hill south of the city of Perpignan. A palace with a palace garden, menagerie and two overlapping chapels were built around the fortress . The final construction work was not completed until 1309. The builders and architects were first Ramon Pau and later Pons Descoll and Bernat Quer .
The entire complex was built around the courtyard. The entrance is protected by a gate tower , a habitable building with loopholes. The architectural style is a mixture of Arabic and Spanish cultures as well as elements of Gothic . Opposite the entrance to the lower chapel, the so-called Queen's Chapel, there were entrances to the king and queen's apartments on both sides. On the adjacent sides are the outbuildings, stables and servants' sheds. The upper chapel, called St. Croix , with a marble portal is provided with Gothic window arches inside. Hidden in a niche is a green frieze that bears the inscription “There is no god but God” in Arabic script. Next to the chapel are the throne room and the chancellery, which are connected to the main facade by elegant porticoed halls and galleries.
This palace has seen some changes over time, when the kings of Aragon took it over after the rulers of Mallorca and the Spanish Siglo de Oro began in the 15th century .
Period of the Kingdom of Aragon and the Habsburg Empire (1349–1659)
From 1414 to 1418 the palace was one of the most important places in the negotiations between the Roman-German Emperor Sigismund von Luxemburg and the antipope Benedict XIII. when it came to making the Council of Constance possible and ending the Western Schism .
A large part of the north wing of the palace was destroyed during a siege in 1502. Philip II of Spain had a red brick wall built around the building in 1587 and the destroyed wing renewed, which ultimately resulted in the shape of a hexagon. After the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs through the death of Charles II , the Bourbons claimed the Spanish throne on the basis of the Peace of the Pyrenees . Philip V took over the palace as the new king.
At the beginning of 1700, after the area was annexed by France, the French fortress builder Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban changed the fortress system outside and inside and received a reinforced defense system.
20th century
The Palace of the Kings of Mallorca has been a monument historique since August 20, 1913 . The palace was renovated in the 1940s and opened to the general public in 1958. In 2004, an archaeological study of the complex was commissioned by the General Council of the Pyrénées Orientales to complete the chronology of its construction. In 2009, following excavations, the archaeological department restored the pavement and the carriageway of the large inner courtyard, and several grain silos and a network of pipes and tanks for the water supply to the palace were excavated, documented and restored. After four years of work, accompanied by archaeological excavations, the monument is largely open to visitors every day.
today
The building complex with the palace garden is now the venue for numerous concerts , exhibitions , theater performances and festivals . The Festival Eté 66 is the largest music festival in the Pyrénées-Orientales, it is organized by the Conseil général des Pyrénées-Orientales and lasts over 40 days.
literature
- Jean Reynal, Jean-Philippe Alazet et Michel Castillo: Le palais des rois de Mallorca. Canet-en-Roussillon, Trabucaïre, 2010, ISBN 978-2-84974-113-9 .
- Palais des rois de Majorque à Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales). Etude du bâti global de l'édifice, Document final de synthèse, 9 volumes, Agnès Marin, Bureau d'étude HADES, 2007.
- Antoine de Roux: Perpignan, de la place forte à la ville ouverte. Perpignan Archives Histoire, 1996.
Web links
- Palais des Rois de Majorque on the website of the Conseil Général des Pyrenées Orientales (French)
Coordinates: 42 ° 41 '38.1 " N , 2 ° 53' 44.4" E