Palace of the Guzmanes

The palace of the Guzmanes is a Renaissance palace from the XVI century located in the square de San Marcelo next to Casa Botines in the city of León, Spain. Its layout is due to the master Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, although Juan de Ribero Rada was in charge of its execution. Despite being unfinished, it became the most prominent palace in the city. At the end of the XIX century, the León Provincial Council took charge of finishing it to house its new offices, a function that it performs until the present.

It was declared a Historical Monument (BIC) in 1963.

History

The Renaissance Palace

It was ordered to be built by D. Ramiro Núñez de Guzmán, a former community leader, on the plots that occupied the manor houses of his lineage. The Guzmanes family was one of the oldest Leonese lineages. At the beginning of the XVI century they were lords of Guzmán, Aviados, Toral and Valle de Boñar. the most influential noble houses with the greatest prominence in León where they were introduced into the organs of local power.

D. Ramiro wanted to take advantage of the location of his old houses in one of the main areas of the city to build a new palace that would stand out and stand out from the urban environment due to its dimensions and for adopting the typology and aesthetics of architecture "in the Roman style". ” or Renaissance. For this, he commissioned the design of its layout to one of the most prestigious masters in Castile at that time, Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón. He designed a rectangular palace with a central patio, exempt on all four sides, which needed to be nestled between streets lined with regular layout and whose main façade had to open onto the existing square in order to be seen from it. Regarding its structure and internal distribution, the building had to combine the private sphere as the family's residence with the public sphere in which the noble parts of the palace were the reflection of the category and nobility of its owners.

Immediately the ambitious project had to face the existing limitations. The available plots were irregular in shape, as were the streets with which they bordered, and their size was smaller than that necessary for the new building. This needed to incorporate an area occupied by an inner section of the old wall and by other buildings.

In 1559, the Leonese City Council authorized the demolition of the cubes and canvas of the wall and the occupation of that land. Likewise, authorization was requested for the execution of various works aimed at achieving the alignment of the streets. This same year the works began. The person in charge of its execution as a quantity surveyor was the master Juan Ribero de Rada who made notable contributions to the design of Gil de Hontañón.

In 1566 the main façade facing the current Plaza de San Marcelo was erected. In the years 1586 and 1587 private houses were purchased and demolished to continue the work and to expand the space of the public square. It was sought that the palace could be fully contemplated from it as a manifestation of the dominant position that the Guzmanes lineage occupied in the city. To this end, an agreement was reached with the City Council so that these lands would henceforth remain free of buildings and be incorporated into the existing square.

At the end of the XVI century, work was interrupted and the palace was left incomplete. Two of the four wings had been built, those facing the square and the current Ancha street, and the central patio. Despite this, it was the main residence of the city and as such it hosted Felipe III and Margarita of Austria in 1602.

But in this century the palace will cease to be regularly inhabited as it ceases to be the main residence of the family and it will begin to deteriorate. Already in the years 1654 and 1656, repair works and reforms were necessary on the roofs, cornices and in the patio, among others. Without continued use, we had to wait for the century XIX so that it began to limit the process of decadence in which it had entered. In the 40s of that century, the Provincial Government rented part of the building to install its offices, carrying out partial repairs. Later, in 1881, the Provincial Council of León bought the building from the owners at that time, the counts of Peñaranda de Bracamonte.

Restoration and completion of the building

Palace before the reforms. Between 1860 and 1886. Photo Laurent

With its acquisition by the deputation of Leon, an intervention was proposed in the building to adapt it to its new functions and restore its original appearance. Previously, in the 1840s, the architect Miguel Echano had topped the towers by removing one floor, closed the balconies of the second floor of these and propped up the angular windows of the third to guarantee their stability.

Throughout the following years, projects and reforms were always marked by economic restrictions. As was the case at that time with the León cathedral, the restoration of the palace was the subject of debate between the conservative school, which advocated that the interventions be limited to the recovery of the damaged areas, producing "minimal alterations", and the restorative school. which proposed to recover and complete the palace under the criteria of "unity of style", as Gil de Hontañón was supposed to have concluded.

The most outstanding interventions were the following:

• 1890: The staircase is reformed and finished. Among others, the stone balustrade currently counted.
• Year 1892: The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando authorizes the reconstruction of the towers contained in the Blanch and Pons project which followed the model of palatial towers used by Gil de Hontañón in Salamanca.

• Year 1892: Despite the opposition of the Diputación, the license is granted for the construction of the Casa de Botines in front of the palace. His promoter, the Fernandez and Andrés society (Mariano Andrés and Simón Fernández), had bought the plot to the Dukes of Uceda and Counts of Peñaranda de Bracamonte in 1886.

• Year 1930: The heating system is installed.

• In the 1960s-1970s the building was completed. The need to expand the available space given the new services entrusted in those years to the Diputación, and the climate conducive to the most interventionist historical thesis in the conservation of the historical buildings, favor the approval of the project presented by the architect Felipe Moreno Medrano, project that was approved by the Directorate General of Fine Arts. It contemplated the enlargement and conclusion of the palace by leaving it exempted by the four sides what made necessary the demolition of existing adjacent houses in the current streets Cid and Ruiz de Salazar. The works, which were carried out from 1975, consisted of the construction of the northern facades and the termination of the east following the design of the existing ones, the elevation of the fourth floor of the towers and the modification of the practice all the interior units.

Description

Night view.

View of the palace courtyard.

The palace has a trapezoidal floor plan articulated around an interior patio and is towered in its four corners. Its main façade has a marked horizontal development, it is of three heights separated by imposts, the lower one has barred windows, the central body balconies of which those close to the doorway and those located in the corners are crowned with triangular and semicircular pediments, and the upper one has a gallery that runs along the façade to the towers formed by semicircular arches separated by Corinthian pilasters. On these and protruding from the cornice are a set of gargoyles.

The towers are one more height, the last one was rebuilt in the 1975 restoration seeking to return them to the appearance they had before being topped in 1840. Three of them have angular windows and the southwest one has a spiral staircase attached to it.

The southern façade facing Calle Ancha is more classicist in style. He is related to Juan del Ribero Rada, who is also credited with the angular windows of the southeast tower decorated with Doric pilasters and Ionic and Corinthian columns, and the doorway opening onto Calle del Cid.

The main doorway opens off-center following the Hispanic medieval tradition. Its design is characteristic of the style of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón. Formed by a semicircular arch, it is framed by Ionic columns on which rests the entablature that supports a balcony topped by a decorated triangular pediment. At their sides following the vertical of the columns, two warriors carry the family coats of arms.

Crossing the hall leads to the colonnaded courtyard. It has two floors, the ground floor formed by inset arches supported by Ionic columns that present the particularity that their capitals are shown in profile. The upper one has carpanel arches on Corinthian columns. Between these the parapets are carved with the shields of the Guzmanes. The holes are covered with stained glass. Gargoyles finish off the set as on the façade. As for its authorship, its attribution is doubtful, ruling out that it is due to Gil de Hontañón.

In the southern area of the courtyard is the cloistered staircase with three sections on rampant vaults. Although its structure is from the time the building was built, what we can see owes its appearance to the restorations of the XIX and XX.

Regarding the interior rooms, they have been totally modified in the successive works carried out in the past centuries. Of the original elements, the fireplace based on models by Serlio that presides over the main hall has survived. The current decoration based on paintings, tapestries and stained glass windows of allegorical themes of Leonese history corresponds to the stage in which the deputation has taken over of the building.