Episcopal Palace of Astorga
The Episcopal Palace of Astorga is a neo-Gothic building located in the Spanish city of Astorga (León). It was designed by the modernist architect Antoni Gaudí, one of the few works of his carried out outside of Catalonia. Its construction was carried out between 1889 and 1915.
This work belongs to Gaudí's neo-Gothic period (1888-1898), a stage in which the architect was inspired above all by medieval Gothic art, which he assumed freely and personally, trying to improve its structural solutions. Neo-Gothic was at that time one of the most successful historicist styles, especially as a result of the theoretical studies of Viollet-le-Duc. Gaudí studied Catalan, Balearic and Roussillon Gothic in depth, as well as Leonese and Castilian in his stays in León and Burgos, coming to the conviction that it was an imperfect style, half resolved. In his works, he eliminates the need for buttresses by using ruled surfaces and suppresses excessive cresting and fretwork.
Since 1962, the palace has housed the Museo de los Caminos, dedicated to the Camino de Santiago. The building was listed as an Asset of Cultural Interest on July 24, 1969 with the reference RI-51-0003827. It is part of the European Route of Modernism.
In 2015, in the approval by Unesco of the extension of the Camino de Santiago in Spain to «Caminos de Santiago de Compostela: French Camino and Caminos del Norte de España», Spain sent as documentation a «Retrospective Inventory - Associated Elements » (Retrospective Inventory - Associated Components) in which the Archiepiscopal Palace is listed in no. 1709.
History
The old episcopal palace was probably built in the 12th century thanks to a land donation made by Queen Urraca. It was an ancient quadrangular mansion, with a large patio and numerous rooms that in the middle of the XIX century was in a dilapidated state. This building was completely destroyed by fire on December 23, 1886. Since the city did not have a diocesan architect, Bishop Joan Baptista Grau i Vallespinós decided to entrust the construction of the new episcopal palace to his friend Gaudí. The friendship between the two had begun years before while Grau —from Reus like Gaudí— was Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Tarragona and inaugurated the church of Jesús-María, whose altar Gaudí had designed.
Gaudi's project
When Gaudí was commissioned to build the episcopal palace, he was busy with various projects such as the Güell palace, the Güell pavilions, the Teresianas school and the Sagrada Familia, so he could not travel to Astorga to study the land and the environment of the new building. In order not to delay the project, he asked the bishop to send him photographs, drawings and other information about the place, which would allow him to start designing the palace so that it would harmonize with the surrounding buildings. Once he had studied all the material received, Gaudí prepared the plans for the project and sent them to Astorga. Grau was satisfied and began the procedures to obtain the administrative permits since, being a public building, it had to have the approval of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.
After having introduced some modifications, the project was approved in February 1889. That spring, after finishing his work on the Güell Palace, Gaudí paid a visit to Astorga and, after visiting the site, made some small changes to the blueprints. Gaudí visited the works twice in 1890, three in 1892 and four in 1893. projects in various rural churches of the diocese, especially in relation to the liturgy.
On June 24, 1889, the bishop's name day, the first stone was laid. The work was budgeted at 168,520 pesetas. The works were awarded by public auction to the Astorgan contractor Policarpo Arias Rodríguez. However, Gaudí decided to use Catalan workers and masons in the project who had already worked for him so that during his absence the work would continue precisely according to his ideas. In 1893, when Policarpo Arias died, Saturnino Vilalta Amenós took over the management of the works. Bishop Grau also died that year, to whom Gaudí paid homage by designing his funerary catafalque.
After the death of the bishop, on November 4, 1893 Gaudí resigned due to disagreements with the council, for which the works were stopped for several years —the upper floor and the roof remained to be finished. This circumstance deeply hurt to Gaudí, who commented on the matter: «they will not be able to finish it, nor will they be able to leave it interrupted». Years later, when the Infanta Isabel de Borbón, during a visit to the Sagrada Família, asked Gaudí why she had resigned, he replied: "Ma'am, I didn't leave, they kicked me out."
Subsequent interventions
In substitution of Gaudí, Francisco Blanch Pons, diocesan architect of León, was appointed, who hardly intervened, for which reason the works were paralyzed again in 1894. In 1899, Manuel Hernández y Álvarez Reyero, diocesan architect of Santiago de Compostela who was in office until 1904 although with few advances. In 1905, the new bishop of Astorga, Julián de Diego Alcolea, tried to return Gaudí to whom he even went to visit the works of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, although without success. Finally, it was finished between 1907 and 1915 by Ricardo García Guereta, a diocesan architect from León, who followed Gaudí's layout but with a more conventional seal. In Guereta's intervention, Viollet's influence is denoted, especially in the spiers that crown the side towers. The change in direction was also due to the fact that some sculptures of angels that were going to crown the building according to the original project were finally placed free-standing in the palace garden.
In 1913, when the Bishop of Diego was transferred to Salamanca, the palace was abandoned, although the basement was provisionally converted into an archaeological museum.
During the Civil War it served as an artillery barracks and headquarters of the Falange. Between 1943 and 1955 the damage caused during the war was restored.
In 1956, Bishop Josep Castelltort began the restoration to convert the building into the bishop's residence, which should have been its initial function and which was never consummated. After his death in 1960, the new bishop, Marcelo González Martín, finally renounced the episcopal function of the palace and promoted its conversion to what it is today, the Museo de los Caminos, dedicated to the Camino de Santiago.
In 2014, an extensive restoration of the palace began with an investment of 1.8 million euros contributed by the Junta de Castilla y León and the Ministry of Public Works. The reform lasted until 2017.
Description
The Episcopal Palace of Astorga is a building that has a medieval air, since Gaudí designed it in neo-Gothic style, a constructive current that came from the historicist architecture in vogue at that time and that the architect used in the Teresianas school, in Bellesguard and in the Botines house, as well as in Astorga. He conceived the palace as a castle on the outside and a church on the inside.
The stone used for its construction —granite from Bierzo— is respectful of the environment, especially with the cathedral that is in the immediate vicinity, as well as with nature, which in Astorga at the end of the century XIX was more present than it is today. However, the building also incorporated some of the elements that would characterize Gaudí in his future works, such as the arches of the main entrance and the volume located above it, or the large chimneys that are ostensibly integrated into the side façades.
Outside
The palace has a Greek cross plan, on which a square plan is superimposed, with four cylindrical towers in the corners, and surrounded by a moat. In the towers is the shield of Bishop Grau, with the legend Pax Christi in cordibus vestris and the Greek letter tau, for Tarragona. On two of the sides it presents outstanding rectangular bodies, while on the other two are the entrance tower and the chapel: the first has a square base and has a porch leading to the palace; the second is also rectangular and is topped with an apse and three apses.
The main façade is accessed by a circular staircase located on a bridge over the moat. The entrance portico has three large flared arches, made of ashlar stones separated from each other by inclined buttresses, with long voussoirs reminiscent of Catalan farmhouses from the century. XV. Inside there is a vault supported by pointed arches on pendentives. On the second and third floors of the façade there are many openings, decorated with stained glass windows, and the coat of arms of Bishop Alcolea, made of granite, finishes off this façade. The structure of the building is supported by pillars with decorated capitals and ribbed vaults on arches glazed ceramic ogives. It is topped with a Mudejar-style crenellation.
In the palace garden there are three sculptures of angels initially intended for the roof of the building, but they were finally placed as free-standing sculptures. They were made in 1913 by the Real Compañía Asturiana de Minas according to an original design by Gaudí and were moved to their current location in 1963, two in front of the main door and another on the opposite side, on pedestals. They are made of zinc; one of the angels holds a processional cross, another a crosier, and the third an episcopal miter.
Portico de entrada
Side view
Abside
Statue of Angel
Inside
Inside there are four levels: a semi-basement, the ground floor —for administrative offices—, the main floor —with the bishop's room, the throne room and the chapel—, and the attic. The ornamental richness stands out achieved with various materials (granite, brick, plaster, mosaic, ceramics, sgraffito, stained glass), as well as the spatial fluidity and luminosity that the architect managed to confer on the palace. A good example of this decorative richness is the variety of capitals that Gaudí designed for the various columns of the palace complex, in which various styles are combined, from Gothic and Mudejar to naturalist motifs so much to the architect's taste, through some starred abacus capitals inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
Basement and ground floor
The basement is austere, with a medieval castle atmosphere more apparent than the rest of the building. It is occupied by a single room, with cylindrical and rectangular rough stone columns, arranged to form three naves —five in the center as a transept—, with capitals reminiscent of those of Mycenaean art, and with Gothic-style arches and vaults, the latter are very lowered, with brick nerves placed at the point of a diamond —that is, with a pyramidal shape. Here is the Diocesan Archive and the Astorgano Epigraphic Museum.
The ground floor contains a large hall from which the noble staircase starts, which acquires a great height that allows the opening of large triangular-shaped windows, which provide great light; this scheme is somewhat reminiscent of the one used in the Güell palace. This hall is decorated with fourteen paintings by Modesto Sánchez Cadenas. The central hall is supported by six monolithic granite columns with Mudejar-style capitals. Both the lobby and the lounge are decorated with ceramic pieces by Jiménez de Jamuz and heraldic shields of bishops and marquises of Astorga. The secretariat, the secretary's residence, is also on this floor —with a rotunda corresponding to one of the towers that gives access to an interior staircase—, the provisorate and the stay of the provisor, the butler's room, the porter's office and a store. The provisional plan corresponds to the apse of the upper chapel, which is why it has a series of small chapels decorated with stained glass windows and polychrome rose windows; at the end of this there is a door that communicates with the cathedral by means of a bridge over the moat of the palace. Following the spiral staircase there is a mezzanine where the kitchen, pantry and laundry room were located.
Main floor
The main floor contains a vestibule that gives access to all the other rooms, with a ribbed vault supported by four granite columns and profuse ceramic decoration. To the left is the Throne Room, with an access formed by three doors with intricate arches, with ceramic and granite decoration in whimsical shapes (crosses, owls), as well as multiple stained glass windows; the throne chair is framed by a canopy designed by Gaudí himself, made of granite, which forms a body with the outer wall of the façade, decorated with palmettes and crosses; The fireplace is also noteworthy, located in a portico under a pointed arch, with a latticework of eight pointed windows. The bishop's room is made up of an anteroom, the chamber that houses the bedroom and a rotunda with the bathroom. The dining room stands out for its light and colour, and gives access to the terraces on the first floor; It has stained glass windows decorated with flowers and fruits, as well as the Latin inscription «BENEDIC, DOMINE NOS ET HAEC TVA DONA QVAE DE TVA LARGITATE SVMVS SVMPTVRI. PER CHRISTVM DOMINUVM NOSTRVM. AMEN". In the office, its richly colored stained glass windows with representation of heraldic shields and some columns with Nasrid-style muqarnas stand out.
In addition to two other rooms, the main floor is closed by the chapel, which is a room without columns with access in the form of two pointed arches; On the walls there are frescoes by Fernando de Villodas, with various biblical themes (Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Adam and Eve, David, Solomon, Jesus Among the Doctors, Abraham and Isaac, The Birth of Jesus and various Latin inscriptions); the altar is made of white marble with an image of the Virgen de la Azucena; The small chapels located in the apse house four statues of Spanish saints (San Isidoro, Santo Toribio, San Genadio and San Ildefonso), the work of Enrique Marín Higuero. The stained glass windows in the apse contain scenes from the lives of Jesus and Mary as well as the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and the Coronation of the Virgin by God the Father, by J. H. Maumejean. Above the entrance to the chapel there are two balconies in the form of a choir decorated with mosaics in blue tones and with inscriptions that indicate the beginning and end of the work on the temple: on the left, "INCHOATVM XXIV JVNII MDCCCLXXXIX EPISCOPO GRAV ARCHITECT GAVDI»; on the right, «PERFECTVM XII OCTOBRIS MDCDXIII EPISCOPO ALCOLEA ARCHITECTO GVERETA».
Chapel
throne room
Detail of the interior
Picture of the basement
Upper floor and deck
Between the second and third floors there is also a mezzanine where the bishop's servant's and page's rooms are, as well as toilets and a wardrobe. The third floor, used as an attic, has the same layout as the lower floors and It is divided into various dependencies; it also contains the bishop's library. In the 1950s it was reformed to place a kitchen and bathrooms. From here you access the upper terraces, which stand out for their openwork balustrades. The building is finished off with slate slabs and wrought iron crests with geometric and plant motifs and gabled roofs.
Museum of Roads
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The palace was converted into a museum in 1962, dedicated to the Camino de Santiago. It collects various pieces of religious art from the diocese, deposited in the museum for better conservation or storage, most of them related to the pilgrimage. Several Romanesque carvings stand out, such as the Crucified of Poibueno, by Gregorio Español (end of the XVI century century), or the Altarpiece of Saint Bartholomew (end of the XV century) as well as a collection of gold and silverware from the 15th century to the XVIII, of which the processional cross of the sanctuary of Castrotierra de la Valduerna stands out, as well as chalices, censers and other liturgical objects.
In the basement there is a collection of archaeological objects from Roman and medieval times, including various epigraphic inscriptions found in the subsoil of the Astorgan town, as well as in León, Lugo, Orense and Zamora. On the ground floor there are various polychrome wood carvings as well as paintings in the international Gothic style. In room III there are various images of the Apostle Santiago represented as a pilgrim, praying, warrior, etc. On the main floor there is a collection of processional crosses, among which it is worth mentioning that of Poibueno, of Sebastián de Encalada, and that of Castrotierra, attributed to Michelangelo. The Navianos altarpiece attributed to Berruguete is also on this floor. On the upper floor, fitted out in 1975, there is an exhibition of contemporary artists from León such as Demetrio Monteserín, Andrés Viloria, Manuel Jular, Modesto Llamas, Mariano Ciagar, Eloy Vázquez, José Sánchez Carralero, Miguel Ángel Febrero, Marino Amaya, José Manuel Chamorro and Jesús Pombo, among others.
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