It was a Granada and an. Alhambra where Moorish music and dances shared the scene with Christian processions against a horizon formed by the peaks of Sierra
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2Located in the south-east corner of the Iberian Peninsula, Granada belongs to what is now the autonomous region of Andalusia, and since the times of Islamic dominion has been the political centre of the eastern half of this region, known in Roman Antiquity as Baetica.Its success as a capital stems largely from its remarkable location at the foot of the highest mountain peaks in the Iberian Peninsula, snow-covered for half the year, while around it is a fertile plain, La Vega, where farming was centred in Roman times on large numbers of outlying villas. Novel irrigation systems were introduced during the period of Islamic rule, with the creation of a network of channels that remains in use today. This agricultur -al land conditioned the city™s urban growth, with neighbourhoods spilling outside the city walls to form a transition zone between the urban centre and the rural surroundings. Such a peculiar combination has always drawn the attention of European travellers, especially the Romantics, who saw Granada as evoking the great oriental cities like Damascus or Is -tanbul. Within the city itself, it is largely the course of the River Darro that articulates the urban landscape connecting the Alhambra with some of the stops on this itinerary. Added to the picturesque natural landscape, with its orientalist features, was the strong impression made by an equally picturesque mediaeval city, half Islamic and half Chris -tian, dominated by a palace and fortress that still preserved its oriental air, counterpointed by outstanding modern additions such as military bastions and a Renaissance palace that is unique in the history of Spanish architecture. In the city itself, the superb Renaissance rotunda of the cathedral likewise stood alongside the remains of the high mosque and the former Nasrid madrasa, or Koranic school. It was a city where the aristocratic and international court of Charles V had to lodge in uncomfortable houses and walk through a maze of narrow streets where squares were still being cleared and roads widened. It was then still possible to come across the residual Moorish population in their distinctive costumes, as drawn by the German artist Christoph Weiditz or by J. Hoefnagel for his celebrated Civitates Orbis Terrarum. In the Granada of the 16th century, these people still signed their names on notarial documents in Arabic characters. It was a Granada and an Alhambra where Moorish music and dances shared the scene with Christian processions against a horizon formed by the peaks of Sierra Nevada. LANDSCAPE. GRANADA and ALHAMBRA INTRODUCTION
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31. Palace Of Charles V 2. Apartments Of Emperor Charles V: Queen™s Rooms And Closet 3. Church Of Santa María De La Alhambra 4. Convent Of San Francisco (Now Parador Nacional) 5. Generalife (Renaissance Gardens) 6. Walled Precinct (Bastions Œ Tendilla Cistern Œ Gate Of The Seven Floors And Gate Of Justice) 7. Basin Of Charles V 8. Gate Of The Pomegranates Œ Russet Towers And Ravelin 9. Plaza Nueva Œ Chancellery 10. Church Of Santa Ana 11. Castril House 12. Monastery Of Santa Isabel La Real Œ Palace Of Dar Al-Horra 13. Hospital Of San Juan De Dios 14. Royal Monastery Of San Jerónimo 15. Cathedral 16. The Madrasa 17. Ecclesiastical Curia 18. Plaza De Bibarrambla, Alcaicería And Zacatín 19. Imperial Church Of San Matías 20. Casa De Los Tiros 21. Royal Chapel And Merchants™ Exchange 22. Royal Hospital LIST OF SITES
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41. PALACE OF CHARLES V In June 1526, after their marriage in Seville, the future Emperor Charles V and his wife, Isabella of Portugal, arrived in Granada with their whole court and lodged at the Alhambra, which was immediately seen to be took great pleasure in living in the heart of the Islamic palac, as his grand -parents had before him, political reasons soon prompted him to construct a new palace intimately connected with the old Nasrid one. The fiNew Royal Housefl, as it was known at the time, served as an entrance hall or vestibule to the fiOld Royal Housefl, and the new building was to be above all an fiimagefl of Christian power. As such an fiimagefl, the most up-to-date architectural language had to be chosen for the new palace. This was the Renaissance classicism produced in Rome by Raphael during the decade from 1520 to 1530, and which was disseminated by the Italian treatise writers of the 16th century, Serlio in particular, in the form of a suburban villa organised around a central courtyard inserted in a square plan. The combination of the square, the vestibule) shows that the design was attuned to those produced in Italy by the followers of Raphael, such as Peruzzi and Giulio Romano. It was cer -tainly a complete novelty for Spain, where no palace like it has been built before or since, but the emperor never lived to see it. The construction, begun in about 1535 under the direction of Pedro Machuca, was inter -rupted in 1568 by the Moorish uprising and subsequent war, since the heavy tax paid by the Morisco minority to preserve some of their customs. Contextual Commentary The open circular form of the palace courtyard has prompted compar -isons with the closed circular form of the high chapel of the Cathedral. While the chapel was to be a dwelling for the afterlife, the palace could be viewed as a complementary dwelling for the living. They thus denote two as the possible centre or seat of the Emperor of the Christian West. Such a notion was truncated by the religious wars in Europe and the rebellion of the Granadine Moors, but was nonetheless to be preserved for posterity by the two monumental constructions of the Cathedral and the palace. 4 Emperor™s naval victories against the Turks South gate or Serlian gate, traditionally known as the Gate of Empress Isabella, wife of Charles V
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5There are numerous allusions to the imperial concept, ranging from the circular courtyard evoking Hadrian™s Villa in Tivoli, a work of Roman Antiquity built by an emperor of Spanish origin, to the octagonal chapel, which recalls Charlemagne™s Palatine Chapel in Aachen, and the direct references to Charles V™s military victories in reliefs on the west front, with allegories of Peace and War, History and mythological heroes (Hercules) urban development, but the outlying areas were graced with the construction of major monuments like the Clos Lucé and the Château Gaillard. Hoping to distinguish themselves, wealthy local bourgeois responded with the Hôtel Morin and the Hôtel 5 designed by the architect Pedro Machuca reign of Philip II to designs by Juan de Herrera
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62. APARTMENTS OF EMPEROR CHARLES V: QUEEN™S ROOMS AND CLOSET During Emperor Charles V™s stay with Isabella of Portugal at the Royal House of the Alhambra in Granada in 1526, it was decided to undertake various rebuilding projects in this sector of the Nasrid palaces, which had already been refurbished in part by Ferdinand and Isabella in order to adapt them to the new Castilian customs. The rebuilding, accomplished between 1528 and 1539, involved the application of a new scale and -ings with Renaissance-style ornamentation. An example is the so-called Emperor™s Bureau, which was refurbished in 1532 by Pedro de Machuca, responsible for the design of the Palace of Charles V. The walls must have been decorated with rich tapestries that have not been preserved. The rest of the imperial apartments, designed to house the monarchs™ bedchamber and rooms for private rest, were arranged around the Lindaraja garden. two-headed eagle upon a globe, a symbol of the spread of the dominions of the Spanish and Portuguese Empire across the Old and New Worlds. Y (for Charles and Isabella). The next two rooms, known as the fiHalls of the Fruitsfl, contain one of the most outstanding iconographic pro -grammes of the Spanish Renaissance. The ceilings were painted by Julio Aquiles and Alejandro Mayner, pupils of Raphael Sanzio and Giovanni da Udine, in about 1537. These works may be considered the earliest set of still lifes to be found in Spain, alternating with the anagrams K and I (believed by some to be the initials of Charles and Isabella, while other specialists see them as referring to the Emperor alone in his attribute of ‚KAROLUS IMPERATOR™). Their peculiarity is that they incorporate as motifs the species of fruit from the orchards of the Generalife, and they are stylistically linked with those found in other residences of Italian princes contemporary with these rooms. Regrettably, the Emperor and Empress were never able to occupy these rooms, since the historical and political events which took place after their stay in Granada were to pre -vent them from doing so. The Queen™s Closet, so called because it was later put to this use, original – 6Nasrid Tower of Abu-I-Hayyay, which contains a belvedere overlooking the surrounding countryside construction and decorated with Renaissance paintings inspired by Raphael™s decorations for the Vatican Loggie
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8This was therefore a practical solution to the need for greater accommodation space for a hypothetical occu -pation of the palaces by the imperial court, whether permanent or temporary, but at the same time it was an exponent of the image of Christian power that respected and integrated the cultural values of the vanquished through the architecture of the so-called fiOld Royal Housefl. Lindaraja Court, with apartments around it that were specially prepared for the Emperor™s visit in 1526 Detail of a still life on the ceiling showing fruit from the orchards of the Generalife
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93. CHURCH OF SANTA MARÍA DE LA ALHAMBRA The location of the church of Santa María in the centre of what was once the city of the Alhambra, next to some Arab baths between the Nasrid palaces and the town houses, denotes that there must have been a mosque there previously. Nevertheless, the discovery of an ancient in -scription from the Visigothic period above the door of the sacristy adds credence to the tradition that a Christian religious building stood there before the Islamic invasion. Although the current building dates from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the space had been enclosed since the early 500s. Proof of this was the disagreement between Emperor Charles V and the Archbishop of Granada when the Renaissance palace was constructed, since if this had been built parallel to the Nasrid palaces in order to join onto them perfectly, it would have invaded part of the space of the church, some -thing the archbishop was not prepared to tolerate. The imperial palace was therefore built obliquely to the Islamic palaces. Apart from its architectural form and volume, the fact that the building was the parish church of all the citizens who lived inside the precinct of the Alhambra made it the most evident sign of the Christian Alham -bra. Kept inside it were such venerated images as that of Our Lady of the Anguishes, the patroness of the city of Granada, which is carried in procession during Holy Week in one of Granada™s most beautiful religious festivities. Contextual Commentary The construction of the church of Santa María in the heart of the Alhambra is another example of the process of Christianisation of the territory conquered from Islam, with an added symbolic charge in this case owing to its situation at the centre of the political and military power of the Nasrid kingdom, and to its vindication of a Christian presence on the spot that pre-existed Muslim dominion. Although its architectural form and type are those characteristic of the Counter-Reformation church (single aisleless nave, large crossing and austere decoration), the materials employed for the walls and roofs belong to the Islamic tradition, as was usual in Granadine churches. The climate of the Counter-Reformation was also responsible for the plaque set up on a column in front of the church in 1590, which alludes to the martyrdom of two Franciscans on that spot in 1397 at the hands of the Muslims. 9Exterior of the church of Santa María de la Alhambra, built on the site of the former Royal Mosque of the Alhambra, with a plan and design indebted to Herrera Memorial plaque to the martyrdom of the Franciscan friars Juan de Cetina and Pedro de Dueñas upon this spot in the times of Al-Andalus
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114. CONVENT OF SAN FRANCISCO (NOW PARADOR NACIONAL) The former convent of San Francisco was established by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1494 on the premises of a Nasrid palace, the Palace of the -munity of Clarissine nuns before passing later to monks of the same pro – fessed order of St Francis. It is worth noting that the construction of the Calle Real Alta was adapted to circumvent the convent and the adjoining terrain was turned into kitchen gardens for the community. After the disentailments of Mendizábal and Madoz, the Franciscans abandoned the monastery in 1835, and it was used in the 19th century as a barracks. The architect Leopoldo Torres Balbás saved it from ruin between 1927 and 1936, converting it into a residence for landscape painters. In 1949 it was excavated by Francisco Prieto Moreno, who found the hammam of the Muslim palace. This was integrated into the new building that houses the Parador de Turismo, a state-run hotel. The convent is articulated around a two-storey Renaissance cloister with arches supported by marble columns. Preserved in it is part of the earlier Nasrid palace: the so-called Arab Hall and a belvedere with views over the Generalife, in front of which a cupola with stalactite work is preserved. It was beneath this cupola that the provisional tombs of Ferdinand and Isa -bella were laid, since the Catholic Monarchs were buried in this place un -til 1521, when they were transferred to the Royal Chapel. This increased of San Francisco. The Mendoza family, patrons of the convent, used it to bury some of its members. Owing to the formal similarities of the plasterwork with that found in the Two Sisters and Abencerrajes halls, some scholars have dated this decora -tion to the time of the monarch Mohammed V. It is in any case one of the most important examples of the survival of Nasrid motifs in 16th century architecture. Contextual Commentary The occupation of one of the several Nasrid palaces in the Alhambra by a religious community is palpable proof of the reuse of sumptuous 11Atrium, porch and tower of the convent church
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