Royal Palace of Aranjuez
The Royal Palace of Aranjuez is a former Spanish royal residence. It is located 50km south of Madrid in the town of Aranjuez, it was established around the time. Aranjuez became one of four seasonal seats of government. Thereafter, the court wintered in Madrid. Several international treaties were signed there and several members of the royal family died there, including: 1568 Elizabeth of Valois queen consort of Philip II 1758 Barbara of Portugal queen consort of Ferdinand VI 1766 Elisabeth Farnese the widow of Philip V 1806 Maria Antonia of Naples first wife of Ferdinand VII the Felon 1818 Maria Isabel of Portugal second wife of Ferdinand VII 1828 Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony third wife of Ferdinand VIIIn 1931, during the Second Spanish Republic, the area was declared an Artistic Historical Monument and opened to the public; the palace and associated buildings are part of the Aranjuez Cultural Landscape, declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Cultural Organization in 2001. It is open to the public as one of several Spanish royal sites in the Community of Spain.
Management is entrusted to the Spanish Patrimonio Nacional, which does not allow private photography of its interior for security reasons. However, licenses may be available for specific purposes upon application; the area around Aranjuez enjoys a mild climate, a verdant and varied landscape with excellent game hunting and has long been inhabited. In the 12th century the Order of Santiago created an exclusive hunting reserve alongside the river Tagus near its junction with the river Jarama, its history as a royal site began in the 16th century, when the order's grandmaster Lorenzo I Suárez de Figueroa directed the construction of a grand hunting lodge designed for the recreation of members of the order and their royal and noble patrons, known as the Raso de Estrella The site today is an open festival park. In 1523 Charles I of Spain took possession of the area, designated Real Bosque y Casa de Aranjuez, in order to entertain his guests during the springtime hunting season. In 1551, he established a botanical garden to catalog the newly catalogueed species of plants brought from the Americas.
Due to distractions elsewhere, this mission was not successful. Philip II became aware of the fertile meadows of Aranjuez, designated that a portion of land to the north of the river Tagus should be devoted to pottager and general agriculture in 1561. In an adjacent plot to the south of the river, the King began construction of the first palace, on the same site as the existing building. Philip engaged the services of architect Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, they ere responsible for the palace of The Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo. After Philip's death in 1598, the works were still in progress with only the royal apartments, the chapel, the south tower and part of the western facade completed. An economic and political crisis and the fall of the royal house of Habsburg resulted in the project being abandoned. In 1700, the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V, decided to resume the work, intending to make Aranjuez a rival to the grand palace of Versailles. Subsequently, this imposing style would be applied to La Granja de San Ildefonso.
Philip V added a new north tower, completed the west facade and defined the structure that would shape the current palace. Little used, in the palace was destroyed by fire in 1748. Ferdinand VI rebuilt the palace. Although still respecting the original foundations, the new structure was to reflect the prevailing late baroque style and 18th century aesthetic, of an imposing and ostentatious exterior accommodating a series of sumptuously furnished spaces within; the building is due to Charles III in his reforming work for the capital city and modernization of the Spanish state. The architect of the modern palace was the Italian Francesco Sabatini, he designed the two west wings, which provide the main building enclosing the courtyard, thus defining three sides of the cour d'honneur square that faces the original entrance. It is near the Raso de Estrella at the confluence of the two rivers. At one end of this complex was the chapel and opposite was designated as a theater, although it was never completed.
The decoration was enriched in the 19th centuries with paintings by various artists. Many of these unique pieces adorn the halls and spaces; the Salón de Porcelana was the favorite retreat of Charles III. Charles III took refuge there from Spanish politics for some time following the Esquilache Riots, he chose Aranjuez to be his spring and summer residence at a period of history when the Royal Court used to move from Madrid in the spring and did not return to the capital until October. The King embraced physiocracy. Charles, who enjoyed the palace and its rural environment, established the Cortijo de San Isidro as an experimental farm and divided the palace gardens into the intimate Jardín del Parterre and the wider Jardín de la Isla, he held lavish parties and sometimes sailed along stretches of the Tagus in rich artistically decorated and golden painted Falúas. Charles' son, Charles IV and his wife Maria Luisa of Parma erected a pavilion known as the Casa del Labrador, which
Valldemossa
Valldemossa is a village and municipality on the island of Majorca, part of the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. It is famous for one landmark: the Royal Charterhouse of Valldemossa, built at the beginning of the 14th century, when the mystic and philosopher Ramon Llull lived in this area of Majorca. Since the 19th century Valldemossa has been promoted internationally as a place of outstanding beauty as a result of the affection of distinguished traveller and cultural writer, the Austrian Archduke Ludwig Salvator. Valldemossa is a attractive tourist destination, as it shows early Spanish culture. There are many restaurants to indulge in Spanish culture. In the 1830s the Spanish government confiscated monasteries and the historic estate was sold to private owners, who have since hosted some prominent guests; these have included the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and his lover the pioneering French writer Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, better known by her pseudonym George Sand, who wrote a notable account of A Winter in Majorca, describing their 1838–39 visit and praising the island's natural beauty, but criticizing what she perceived as the prejudice and vices of the natives.
The Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío was guest of the Sureda y Montaner families who own the Chartreuse estate. To fight his own nightmares Rubén Dario would sleep in monk habits, however his drinking habits caused a rift with his private hosts and thus his departure from the former monastery and from Majorca. Jorge Luis Borges lived in the town with his parents and his sister Norah, after the First World War let them free from their refuge in Geneva. Borges passionate friendship with the young artist Jacobo Sureda Montaner, son of the painter Pilar Montaner, was decisive for Borges writing in Spanish. In 1956 British composer Joseph Horovitz visited the island, with his wife Anna, on their honeymoon, named a clarinet piece, based on Spanish folk-tunes he had heard there, after the village; until the elections of 2007 the town's mayor was the only one in the democratic Kingdom of Spain to remain in office from the times of the Francoist dictatorship, which disappeared as the current Spanish Constitution of 1978 was passed.
Valldemossa is the birthplace of Mallorca's patron saint. Valldemossa is a popular tourist destination in the Balearic Islands of Spain; some main attractions include the 13th century monastery, where the musician Frederic Chopin spent a winter. The monastery was built as a royal palace, however in 1399 it was converted into a monastery. There are many spectacular festivals. For example, Takes place during July 28. Celebrates the Saint of Valldemossa. Many parades take place on the streets during this festival. During the 24th of August, celebrates the Patron Saint of Valldemossa. There is magnificent performances in the Cloisters of the Monastery. During this time there is performance exhibitions, it is during the end of July. In Valldemossa, one should enjoy the setting in the views. However, there are hikes, rock climbing and horseback riding, available in the near vicinity. Ca'n Mario and Es Roquissan are good options; the restaurant in the hotel Valldemossa is a restaurant where the food is a mixture of Spanish and modern food.
For seafood, head down to the Port of Valldemossa. Official website French text of George Sand's A Winter in Majorca at the Gutenberg Website International Foundation Can Mossenya - Jorge Luis Borges
Spain
Spain the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located in Europe. Its continental European territory is situated on the Iberian Peninsula, its territory includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country. Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are part of Spanish territory; the country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar. With an area of 505,990 km2, Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the fifth in the European Union. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Spn or Spania.
At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe, invaded the Iberian peninsula and established independent realms in its western provinces, including the Suebi and Vandals. The Visigoths would forcibly integrate all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces, into the Kingdom of Toledo, which more or less unified politically and all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was documented as Hispania. In the early eighth century the Visigothic Kingdom fell to the Moors of the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate, who arrived to rule most of the peninsula in the year 726, leaving only a handful of small Christian realms in the north and lasting up to seven centuries in the Kingdom of Granada; this led to many wars during a long reconquering period across the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the creation of the Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Navarre as the main Christian kingdoms to face the invasion.
Following the Moorish conquest, Europeans began a gradual process of retaking the region known as the Reconquista, which by the late 15th century culminated in the emergence of Spain as a unified country under the Catholic Monarchs. Until Aragon had been an independent kingdom, which had expanded toward the eastern Mediterranean, incorporating Sicily and Naples, had competed with Genoa and Venice. In the early modern period, Spain became the world's first global empire and the most powerful country in the world, leaving a large cultural and linguistic legacy that includes more than 570 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. During the Golden Age there were many advancements in the arts, with world-famous painters such as Diego Velázquez; the most famous Spanish literary work, Don Quixote, was published during the Golden Age. Spain hosts the world's third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state.
It is a major developed country and a high income country, with the world's fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations, the European Union, the Eurozone, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Schengen Area, the World Trade Organization and many other international organisations. While not an official member, Spain has a "Permanent Invitation" to the G20 summits, participating in every summit, which makes Spain a de facto member of the group; the origins of the Roman name Hispania, from which the modern name España was derived, are uncertain due to inadequate evidence, although it is documented that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians referred to the region as Spania, therefore the most accepted etymology is a Semitic-Phoenician one.
Down the centuries there have been a number of accounts and hypotheses: The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning "city of the western world". Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term span is the Phoenician word spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged", it may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning "island of rabbits", "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean. The word in question means "Hyrax" due to Phoenicians confusing the two animals. Hispania may derive from the poetic use of the term Hesperia, reflecting the Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" (Hesperia
West Bank
The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, bordered by Jordan to the east and by the Green Line separating it and Israel on the south and north. The West Bank contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore; the West Bank was the name given to the territory, captured by Jordan in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, subsequently annexed in 1950 until 1967 when it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Oslo Accords, signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, created administrative districts with varying levels of Palestinian autonomy within each area. Area C, in which Israel maintained complete civil and security control, accounts for over 60% of the territory of the West Bank; the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2017 it has an estimated population of 2,747,943 Palestinians, 391,000 Israeli settlers, another 201,200 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. The International Court of Justice advisory ruling concluded that events that came after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank by Israel, including the Jerusalem Law, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords, did not change the status of the West Bank as occupied territory with Israel as the occupying power; the name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. This annexation was considered illegal and was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan; the term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this river. The neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian.
The name West Bank, has become the standard usage for this geopolitical entity in English and some of the other Germanic languages since its creation following the Jordanian army's conquest. In English, the name Cisjordan is used to designate the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean in the historical context of the British Mandate and earlier times; the analogous Transjordan has been used to designate the region now comprising the state of Jordan, which lies to the east of the Jordan River. From 1517 through 1917, the area now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine; the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the British proclaimed Abdullah ruler of the three districts, known collectively as Transjordan.
Confident that his plans for the unity of the Arab nation would come to fruition, the emir established the first centralized governmental system in what is now modern Jordan on 11 April 1921. The West Bank area was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was subsequently designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine; the resolution recommended partition of the British Mandate into a Jewish State, an Arab State, an internationally administered enclave of Jerusalem. The resolution designated the territory described as "the hill country of Samaria and Judea" as part of the proposed Arab state, but following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War this area was captured by Transjordan. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the interim boundary between Jordan. Following the December 1948 Jericho Conference, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River in 1950, naming it "West Bank" or "Cisjordan", designated the area east of the river as "East Bank" or "Transjordan".
Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordan's annexation was never formally recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. A two-state option, dividing Palestine, as opposed to a binary solution arose during the period of the British mandate in the area; the United Nations Partition Plan had envisaged two states, one Jewish and the other Arab/Palestinian, but in the wake of the war only one emerged at the time. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were granted Jordanian citizenship and half of the Jordanian Parliament seats. In June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no man's land, the West Bank was not annexed by Israel but came under Israeli military control until 1982. Although th
Mallorca
Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The native language, as on the rest of the Balearic Islands, is Catalan, co-official with Spanish; the capital of the island, Palma, is the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Balearic Islands have been an autonomous region of Spain since 1983. There are two small islands off the coast of Mallorca: Dragonera; the anthem of Mallorca is "La Balanguera". Like the other Balearic Islands of Menorca and Formentera, the island is an popular holiday destination for tourists from Germany and the United Kingdom; the international airport, Palma de Mallorca Airport, is one of the busiest in Spain. The name derives from Classical Latin insula maior, "larger island". In Medieval Latin, this became Maiorica, "the larger one", in comparison to Menorca, "the smaller one". Little is recorded of the earliest inhabitants of the island. Burial chambers and traces of habitation from the Neolithic period have been discovered the prehistoric settlements called talaiots, or talayots.
They raised Bronze Age megaliths as part of their Talaiotic culture. A non-exhaustive list is the following: Capocorb Vell Necròpoli de Son Real Novetiforme Alemany Poblat Talaiòtic de S'Illot Poblat Talaiòtic de Son Fornés Sa Canova de Morell Ses Païsses Ses Talaies de Can Jordi S'Hospitalet Vell The Phoenicians, a seafaring people from the Levant, arrived around the eighth century BC and established numerous colonies; the island came under the control of Carthage in North Africa, which had become the principal Phoenician city. After the Second Punic War, Carthage lost all of its overseas possessions and the Romans took over; the island was occupied by the Romans in 123 BC under Quintus Caecilius Metellus Balearicus. It flourished under Roman rule, during which time the towns of Pollentia, Palmaria were founded. In addition, the northern town of Bocchoris, dating back to pre-Roman times, was a federated city to Rome; the local economy was driven by olive cultivation and salt mining. Mallorcan soldiers were valued within the Roman legions for their skill with the sling.
In 427, Gunderic and the Vandals captured the island. Geiseric, son of Gunderic, governed Mallorca and used it as his base to loot and plunder settlements around the Mediterranean, until Roman rule was restored in 465. In 534, Mallorca was recaptured by the Eastern Roman Empire, led by Apollinarius. Under Roman rule, Christianity thrived and numerous churches were built. From 707, the island was attacked by Muslim raiders from North Africa. Recurrent invasions led the islanders to ask Charlemagne for help. In 902, Issam al-Khawlani conquered the Balearic Islands, ushering in a new period of prosperity under the Emirate of Córdoba; the town of Palma was reshaped and expanded, became known as Medina Mayurqa. On, with the Caliphate of Córdoba at its height, the Moors improved agriculture with irrigation and developed local industries; the caliphate was dismembered in 1015. Mallorca came under rule by the Taifa of Dénia, from 1087 to 1114, was an independent Taifa. During that period, the island was visited by Ibn Hazm.
However, an expedition of Pisans and Catalans in 1114–15, led by Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, overran the island, laying siege to Palma for eight months. After the city fell, the invaders retreated due to problems in their own lands, they were replaced by the Almoravides from North Africa, who ruled until 1176. The Almoravides were replaced by the Almohad dynasty until 1229. Abú Yahya was the last Moorish leader of Mallorca. In the ensuing confusion and unrest, King James I of Aragon known as James the Conqueror, launched an invasion which landed at Santa Ponça, Mallorca, on 8–9 September 1229 with 15,000 men and 1,500 horses, his forces entered the city of Medina Mayurqa on 31 December 1229. In 1230 he annexed the island to his Crown of Aragon under the name Regnum Maioricae. From 1479, the Crown of Aragon was in dynastic union with that of Castile; the Barbary corsairs of North Africa attacked the Balearic Islands, in response, the people built coastal watchtowers and fortified churches.
In 1570, King Philip II of Spain and his advisors were considering complete evacuation of the Balearic islands. In the early 18th century, the War of the Spanish Succession resulted in the replacement of that dynastic union with a unified Spanish monarchy under the rule of the new Bourbon Dynasty; the last episode of the War of Spanish Succession was the conquest of the island of Mallorca. It took place on 2 July 1715. In 1716, the Nueva Planta decrees made Mallorca part of the Spanish province of Baleares the same to present-day Illes Balears province and autonomous community. A Nationalist stronghold at the start of the Spanish Civil War, Mallorca was subjected to an amphibious landing, on 16 August 1936, aimed at driving the Nationalists from Mallorca and reclaiming the island for the Republic. Although the Republicans outnumbered their opponents and managed to push 12 km inland, superior Nationalist air power, provided mainly
Peter IV of Aragon
Peter IV, called the Ceremonious, was from 1336 until his death the King of Aragon and King of Sardinia and Corsica, King of Valencia, Count of Barcelona. In 1344, he made himself King of Majorca, his reign was occupied with attempts to strengthen the crown against the Union of Aragon and other such devices of the nobility, with their near constant revolts, with foreign wars, in Sardinia, the Mezzogiorno and the Balearics. His wars in Greece made him Duke of Athens and Neopatria in 1381. Peter was born at Balaguer, the eldest son and heir of Alfons IV Count of Urgell, his first wife, Teresa d'Entença. Peter was designated to inherit all of his father's title save that of Urgell, which went to his younger brother James. Upon succeeding his father he called a corts in Zaragoza for his coronation, he crowned himself, disappointing the Archbishop of Zaragoza and thus rejecting the surrender Peter II had made to the Papacy, in an otherwise traditional ceremony. According to his own reports, this act caused him some "distress".
He did, affirm the liberties and privileges of Aragon. While he was at Zaragoza an embassy from Castile had met him and asked that he promise to uphold the donations of land his father had made to his stepmother Eleanor, but he refused to give a clear answer as to the legitimacy of the donations. After the festivities in Zaragoza, Peter began on his way to Valencia to receive coronation there. En route he stopped at Lleida to affirm the Usatges and Constitutions of Catalonia and receive the homage of his Catalan subjects; this offended Barcelona, at which the ceremony had been performed, the citizens of that city complained to the king, who claimed that Lleida was on his way to Valencia. While in Valencia he decided on the case of his stepmother's inheritance, depriving her of income and outlawing her Castilian protector, Peter Ponce of León and Jérica. However, Jérica had enough supporters within Peter's domains that Peter was unable to maintain his position and in 1338, through papal mediation, Jérica was reconciled to the king and Eleanor received her land and jurisdictional rights.
Peter was forced to capitulate by a new invasion from Morocco aimed at Castile and Valencia. In 1338 he married second daughter of Philip III and Joan II of Navarre. In May 1339 he allied with Alfonso XI of Castile against Morocco, but his contribution of a fleet had no effect at the pivotal Battle of Río Salado. Early on in his reign, a thorn in Peter's side had been James III of Majorca, his brother-in-law, the husband of his sister Constance. James had twice postponed performing the ceremony of homage to Peter, his feudal overlord, when he performed it in 1339 it was on his terms; the rising economic star of Majorca, whose merchants were establishing independent markets and gaining trading privileges in the western Mediterranean, threatened the supremacy of Barcelona. The gold coinage of Majorca and the diplomatic equality granted it by the powers of France and Italy irked Peter further, while James allied with Abu Al-Hassan, the king of Morocco and Peter's enemy. Peter's outrage, was given no outlet until 1341, when James, threatened with invasion by the French over disputed rights to the Lordship of Montpellier, called on his suzerain Aragon for aid.
In order not to offend France nor to support James, Peter summoned the king of Majorca to a cort at Barcelona, to which he knew he would not come, when James or a representative of his failed to appear, Peter declared himself free from the obligations of an overlord to James. Peter opened a legal process against James, with the intent of dispossessing him of his kingdom, he alleged that the circulation of James' coinage in the Counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne to be an infringement on the royal right of monopoly of coinage. This was open to question, considering the ancient customs of Roussillon and Cerdagne, but Peter was prepared to move forward anyway; the interference of Pope Clement VI, granted James a hearing in Barcelona in front of papal delegates. Peter, for his part, spread rumours. James, fearing that Peter would stoop to invading Majorca and seizing it by force, returned to the island to prepare its defence. In February 1343 Peter declared James his kingdom and lands forfeit; the legal process being terminated, Peter went to war, on the advice that the islanders were burdened by taxes and would rise in his support.
In May a fleet, blockading Algeciras landed at Majorca and defeated James' army at the Battle of Santa Ponça. Peter received the submission of all the Balearics and confirmed the privileges of the islands as they had been under James I. Though James sued for peace and Pope Clement attempted to mediate it, Peter returned to Barcelona prepared to invade Roussillon and Cerdagne. After these were conquered in 1344 James surrendered on a safe conduct, only to find himself ignominiously reduced to the status of a petty lord. In March Peter had declared his realm incorporated into the Crown of Aragon in perpetuity and ceremoniously had himself crowned its king. By the Pact of Madrid, Peter was constrained to aid Alfonso XI of Castile in his successful attack on Algeciras and his failed attempt on Gibraltar by defending against a Moroccan counterattack; as Peter had no male issue, his brother Count James of Urgell was the presumptive heir to the Aragonese throne. Peter grew to mistrust the intentions of James over time.
Peter decided that he would instead name his daug
Alcázar of Seville
The Alcázar of Seville is a royal palace in Seville, built for the Christian king Peter of Castile. It was built by Castilian Christians on the site of an Abbadid Muslim residential fortress destroyed after the Christian conquest of Seville; the palace, a preeminent example of Mudéjar architecture in the Iberian Peninsula, is renowned as one of the most beautiful. The upper levels of the Alcázar are still used by the royal family as their official residence in Seville, are administered by the Patrimonio Nacional, it is the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe, was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Seville Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies. The term Alcázar comes from the Arabic al-qaṣr, itself derived from the Latin castrum; the Real Alcázar is situated near the Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies in one of Andalusia's most emblematic areas. This plot was occupied from the 8th century BC. In the 1st century AD the collegium was built.
The early Visigothic Christian basilica of Saint Vincent was built on its ruins. For the construction of the Palace of Peter of Castile some shafts and capitals of this building were reused, the only Visigothic vestige that has survived to this day; the tombstone of the bishop Honorato, in this church, is in the cathedral. Seville was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate in the year 712. At that time the basilica was demolished to build the first military work, it seems that it was a quadrangular enclosure and annexed to the walls. During the period of the first Taifa kingdoms, various constructions were carried out, such as stables and warehouses, which should not have altered the building as a whole; the citadel began to gain importance in the first half of the 12th century, under the Abbadid dynasty, when the space doubled due to the construction of a large palace called Al-Muwarak, under the current Patio de la Monteria, of which only some archaeological remains are preserved. Under the Almohads, during the caliphate of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, new buildings for the residence of the Caliph and his court were erected.
With the exception of the walls, the previous buildings were demolished, were carried out up to a total of twelve palaces. In the place where the Patio de la Montería is located, on the foundations of the Abbadid palace, a large building was built, which seems to be organized around a patio that followed the same scheme of the courtyard of the Aljafería of Zaragoza. Today, a sabat, or private passage, remains next to the south façade of the cathedral, which coincides with the Quibla wall of the mosque; that palace had its royal room. A small courtyard, the Patio del Yeso, served as the residence of Pedro I in 1358 before the construction of his new palace; the rest of the architecture of the palace, which includes its most flamboyant parts, covers the whole set built by Alfonso X of Castile and Peter of Castile, with Mudéjar and Mannerist halls and courtyards. Some gardens have Renaissance statues. After damage by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, that façade of the Palacio Gótico overlooking the Patio del Crucero was renovated in Baroque style.
The palace was the birthplace of Infanta Maria Antonietta of Spain, daughter of Philip V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese, when the king was in the city to oversee the signing of the Treaty of Seville which ended the Anglo-Spanish War. The main entrance to the Alcázar takes its name from the 19th century tile-work inlaid above it, a crowned lion holding a cross in its claws and bearing a Gothic script; the name, meaning "The Courtyard of the Maidens", refers to the legend that the Moors demanded 100 virgins every year as tribute from Christian kingdoms in Iberia. The lower level of the Patio was built for King Peter of Castile and includes inscriptions describing Peter as a "sultan". Various lavish reception rooms are located on the sides of the Patio. In the center is a large, rectangular reflecting pool with sunken gardens on either side. For many years, the courtyard was paved in marble with a fountain in the center. However, historical evidence showed the gardens and the reflecting pool were the original design and this arrangement was restored.
However, soon after this restoration, the courtyard was temporarily paved with marble once again at the request of movie director Ridley Scott. Scott used the paved courtyard as the set for the court of the King of Jerusalem in his movie Kingdom of Heaven; the courtyard arrangement was converted once more after the movie's production. The upper story of the Patio was an addition made by Charles V; the addition was designed by Luis de Vega in the style of the Italian Renaissance although he did include both Renaissance and mudéjar plaster work in the decorations. Construction of the addition began in 1540 and ended in 1572; the "Baths of Lady María de Padilla" are rainwater tanks beneath the Patio del Crucero. The tanks are named after the mistress of Peter the Cruel; the Salon de Embajadores, meaning The Ambassadors Reception Room", was the main room that King Peter of Castile used for his stay at the Alcazar. This room was the most richly decorated within the entire Alcazar Palace, in keeping with its role of power.
In 1526, Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal celebrated their marriage in this room. Patio de las Muñecas Patio de la Montería (Courtyard of the Monte
