THE PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS

WITH DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS, THE AUTHOR TAKES US ON A FASCINATING JOURNEY ROUND THE PRINCIPAL CATALAN GOTHICBUILDINGS: THE PALACEOF THE mNGS OF MALLORCA-OR PERPINYACASTLE-, BELLVERCASTLE IN PALMADE MALLORCA, THE EXCHANGEIN VALENCIA, THE uC~~~~~~~~~vIN NAPLESAND THE ROYALSHIPYARDS AND THE CHURCH OF SANTAMARIA DEL MARIN . THE VALENCIA EXCHANGE

I dels -Reis de Mallorca Southern French model (Episcopal Pal- built well into the fourteenth century, (The Palace of the Kings of ace of Narbona, 1273-1 2761, but is a contains the king and queen's quarters, Mallorca) (Perpinya) unique case in the Paisos Catalans, which communicate with the chapel. oPerpiny-a Castle, or the Palace of the which can only in part be related to the The castle was the residence of the Kings of Mallorca, is situated on a hill castle-palace of Bellcaire d'Emporda, Kings and Queens of Mallorca until the ovirlooking the old city from the south. of the same period. The characteristics occupation by Peter II of - It was built at the end of the thirteenth of the two chapels of Perpinya Castle are Aragon in 1344. Peter ordered the century as a royal residence, when Per- identical, though the lower one is smaller. construction of a large ceremonial hall, pinya became the mainland capital of In both cases, the nave is rectangular, in now called the Sala de Mallorca, in the the short-lived kingdom of Mallorca two sections covered with ribbed vaults castle's southern wing. Its construction (1276-1 344). resting on brackets, and the poly- made it necessary to destroy almost the The construction, which was begun in gonal. The change to the five-sided whole of the upper floor on this side of 1274, is a vast quadrilateral formed by floor-plan of the apse is resolved by the castle, including the defensive four buildings surrounding a large means of the construction of a funnel in towers. The hall is constructed with a courtyard. The whole, surrounded by a each corner below the line of brackets. ridged wooden ceiling supported on moat, is further strengthened by six This solution, which is reminiscent of Ro- resting on corbels placed half- quadrangular towers (originally there manesque , clashes slightly way up the wall. The double windows to were eight, one at each corner and one with the fully Gothic configuration of the be found throughout the palace were halfway along each side). Access to the chapels, visible in the roof structure, the replaced here by the present neo- courtyard is vio the keep, in the middle of the windows or the key- Gothic windows in 1850. of the western wall. stones of the upper chapel. In the fagade, Ruled by a governor from the end of the On the opposite wall is the Torre Major, which alternates rows of white and red fifteenth century, the castle formed part where there are the superimposed cha- marble, there is a gate in the Roman- of the Ciutadella de Perpinya and took pels of la Santa Creu and of Santa esque tradition. on military functions which it has still not Magdalena, probably the work of Pong Two open staircases lead to the first entirely given up today. In 1948 it was Descoll ( 1295- 1309). floor, where they give onto a porticoed purchased by the Department of the The location of the two palatine chapels gallery with pointed arches on the right Eastern Pyrenees and has been partly in a fortified tower follows the typical and square pillars on the left. This floor, restored. THE CASTFüNOü IN NAPtES PERPINYA CASTLE

El Castell de Bellver By 13 14 the castle was practically corn- Generalitat. His best-known work is the (Palma de Mallorca) plete and was the occasional residence Llotja, begun in partnership with the Bellver Castle stands on a pine-covered of King Sang. Following the fall of the master Joan lvarra (d. 1486). hill dorninating the city and bay of Pal- Kingdom of Mallorca, the castle was The Exchange in Valencia follows the ma. It was built in 1300 by the architect given to the Carthusian rnonastery of sarne concept as that of Palma, al- Pon$ Descoll, by order of King James II Valldernossa by Martin l. Following the though the decoration is richer becaure of Mallorca, as a fortress and roya1 re- occupation of the island by the Bour- it dates from a later period and belongs sidence. bons (17171, it had a rnilitary garrison to late Gothic. The hall is conceived as a It is a building of vast proportions, sur- and was turned into a prison. In 1931 single space, with three naves covered rounded by an impressive systern of moats. the state gave it to the Palma City Coun- with a ribbed , in this case in five Its circular floor-plan and the ele- cil, who in 1932 installed the municipal sections, resting on eight helicoid pil- gance of its lines make it an exceptional museum of art and local history there. lars. The cylindrical pillars, with fluted construction. Set on two concentric shafts that twist from the base to the walls, its perirneter is broken by three La Llotja de Valencia point where the begins, are en- semicircular towers joined to the principal (The Valencia Exchange) riched with grooves lined with beading, structure. At the fourth corner, the circu- The Exchange in Valencia, with the ad- instead of the plain fluting of the Ex- lar keep stands by itself, connected to joining building of the Consolat de Mar, change of Palma. The idea of continuity, the rest of the building by a bridge. is the last of the great constructions of of upward rnovement, is stressed by the The large parade ground is surrounded Catalan . The Ex- absence of capitals, so that the pillars by a gallery on two levels, with serni- change was raised by order of the Va- are directly attached to the arches circular arches below and interlaced lencia City Council (14801, which in this which rnerge to forrn the vault. pointed arches above. Outstanding way was fulfilling previous agreernents The vaults are more cornplex than those amongst the different roorns leading off (1469). The Exchange was built be- of Palma, with the introduction of addi- the galleries is the chapel. tween 1482 and 1498 by the Girona tional ribs and secondary keystones. The exterior stands out for its arched architect Pere Cornte, who based him- Another novelty is the use of half col- double windows, similar to those of the self on the Mallorca Exchange, the work urnns set against the interior of the peri- Palau dels Reis de Mallorca (Perpinyb) of Guillern Sagrera [ 1426-14471. Pere meter walls, which gather the ribs of the or the Alrnudaina (Palau de Mallorca), Comte had settled in Valencia, where vaults and avoid exterior buttresses. buildings to which it is obviously re- he worked on the extension to the nave The smooth walls are embellished with lated. of the and on the Palau de la a sculptural design that ernphasises the DOSSIER 1

value of the doors (one at either end of with ogee arches, , In 1447 the king called for the presence the axis and two more in the lateral etc. The Renaissance influence is only in Naples of the Maiorcan architect Gui- walls) and of the large windows, which clearly visible in the parapet on the fa- llem Sagrera. His appointment as mas- are linked by moulding. The composi- gade, with clypeus surrounded by ter of the works of the castle (1448) tion of the doorways is reminiscent of crowns of leaves containing paired involved the adoption of a new plan religious buildings, though as well as busts. The cornice of the fagade, with its designed by the Maiorcan master buil- religious motifs the decoration contains curious merlons bearing the royal der. In 1451 the works of the castle highly erotic elements. crown, is a continuation of that of the received a new boost, and on 1 Jan- In one corner of the hall there stands a Exchange. uary 1453 Guillem Sagrera embarked square tower which housed the chapel. on the construction of the Sala dels Ba- This tower now occupies a central posi- The Castellnou in Naples rons, which was not finished until 1457, tion following the construction of the The Castellnou in Naples was built by after his death (1454). adioining building of the Consolat de King Alfons IV the Magnanimous in the The king also called for the sculptor Mar, with which, in fact, it forms a single mid-fifteenth century. In 1442, Alfons IV Pere Joan, who was active in Naples unit. of Catalonia and Aragon conquered between 1450 and 1458, the year of The building of the Consolat de Mar Naples, where he established his defini- the king's death. The work then stopped was begun in 1500 by the same Pere tive residence. The king made the city a and was not taken up again until 1465, Comte, who raised the walls of the hall brilliant Renaissance court and the cen- this time with a maiority presence of and the staircase in the "pati dels ta- tre of an empire extending throughout Italian experts. Between 1471 and rongers", or court of the orange trees. the Mediterranean. 1474, though, the master of the works Following his death in 1506, Joan Cor- Work on the castle started in 1443 on was the Maiorcan stone-mason Mateu bera took charge of the continuation of the site of the old ruined Angevin castle Forcimanya. the work, which was not completed until and without a fixed plan. There are The building doubles as a military forti- 1548. written references to Catalan experts in fication and royal residence. Built in It is a rectangular construction with a the works from the very first moment, stone from Santanyi, it is a solid, mas- ground floor and two upper floors with such as the Maiorcan stone-mason Bar- sive construction, with walls and five cir- wooden-beamed ceilings. The composi- tomeu Vilasclar, who, along with Barto- cular towers with battlements. The tion of the walls faithfully follows Cata- meu Prats, was responsible for the star- triumphal entrance arch, with reliefs lan Gothic models, but the decorative shaped vault in the hall leading to the alluding to the entrance of the King of elements belong to a late Gothic style, courtyard (1446). Naples, leads onto a large courtyard, THE VALENCIA EXCHANGE SANTA MARlA DEL MAR

around which are distributed the dif- a result of a fire in 1919. A columned the same system of building was main- ferent rooms. An open staircase, in the gallery runs round the octagon at the tained, thanks to its functional and Catalan style, leads to the main floor, point where the vault starts. At the top structural rationality. where there are a series of rooms, of the vault, at a height of 28 metres, a Begun during the reign of Peter the amongst them the Sala dels Barons. circular oculus, which has caused the Great (1276-1 2851, their construction The Sala dels Barons was conceived by hall to be compared to the Pantheon of was promoted by Peter III with the col- Guillem Sagrera as a large space, 26 Rome, lets the light in from the exterior. laboration of the city of Barcelona and metres square, and is possibly the lar- Finally, Sagrera's contributions in the the Generalitat. By 1381, under the di- gest vaulted square space in European field of defence are materialized in the rection of the master of works Arnau Gothic architecture. The vault is a dar- steep bases of the walls and towers, Ferrer, eight large parallel naves had ing construction forming an eight- which we have already seen in the cas- been built (later extended with the ad- pointed star, a developrnent of the sim- tle of Bellver, but this time treated with dition of eight further naves), with semi- ple cross with the addition of chains new textures, and in the presence of the circular diaphragm arches resting on and secondary ribs. As in the chapter ravelin, which was used for placing the quadrangular pillars and covered with houses of the of Barcelona artillery pieces. a ridged roof on wooden beams. and Valencia, the transition from the Following the death of Martin 1, respon- square floor-plan to the octagonal vault Les Drassanes de Barcelona sibility for the upkeep passed to the city is achieved with corner vaults, in this (The Barcelona Shipyards) of Barcelona, then to the Consolat de case placed at the bottom of the arch. The Barcelona Shipyards, located at Mar ( 1470) and, from the sixteenth cen- The corners of the resulting poly'gon are one end of the old, fourteenth-century tury, to the ~i~utaciódel~eneral, which the starting point for the four arches walled enclosure, almost on the shore, between 1612 and 1618 added three forming the basic network, which is are the largest medieval building for the large naves on the side nearest the complemented with chains that go from construction of seagoing craft still Rambla. Following the "Guerra dels Se- the central oculus to the secondary standing today in the Western world. gador~",it was taken over by the crown keystones and by secondary ribs that They are also one of the finest exam- (16631. In 168 1 John of fortified go from these to the starting point of ples of civil Gothic architecture in the the eastern bastion. After the War of the arches. Pai'sos Catalans. Succession (171 41, naval construction in Halfway up the walls there are galleries Their present appearance is the result Barcelona declined and the shipyards for the musicians, with flattened arches, of various stages of construction, in became a barracks (17921. The main whose rich decoration disappeared as which, in spite of the long time-span, work carried out on this occasion was to guer de Montagut and Rarnon Despuig on the site of the old church of Santa Maria de les Arenes or de la Mar, which appears in records dating back to 998 and which stood in the suburb of Vila- nova de la Mar, close to the old port. The growing irnportance of this district, , thanks to the cornrnercial de- veloprnent of the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries, gave rise to the urba- nization of the Correr de Montcada as a centre of the new merchant aristo- cracy, and favoured the erection of the new church of Santa Maria, known as the "cathedral of the sea". Indeed, in the same way that was the centre of the old county city, the church of Santa Maria was the cen- tre of the new city, that of the creators of an ernpire of rnerchants and ship- owners extending throughout the Me- diterranean. Built in a very short time, the last stone being- laid in 1383, the new church shows great unity of style. It is forrned by three naves of almost equal height, covered with a groined vault. The cen- tral nave, which is thirteen rnetres in width, and the lateral naves, each of six and a half rnetres in width, are separa- ted by slender octagonal pillars, which are eighteen metres high. This config- ures an open and unified interior space in which al1 reference to the has been elirninated and the nurnber and thickness of the supports of the vault have been reduced. The apse has an arnbulatory with nine radial chapels, which are continued between the but- tresses of the lateral naves. On the exterior, which is predorninated by horizontal lines and full spaces, the chief elernent is the principal fagade, flanked by two octagonal towers [fin- ished in 1496 and 1902, respectively), with an ornamental porch with gablet join the two central naves to rnake a naves [converted to three in the eigh- and carvings, and with a large rose single, taller nave. In 1935 the army teenth century) and the three seven- window, destroyed by. the earthquake abandoned the Drassanes, which were teenth century naves. of 1428 and reconstructed in a florid returned to the city the following year. Gothic style in 1459. In 1941 they becarne the horne of the Santa Maria del Mar (Barcelona) The interior decoration, darnaged dur- Maritime Museurn of Barcelona, at the The church of Santa Maria del Mar, built ing the siege of 1714, disappeared sarne time as work continued on their in the fourteenth century, is the rnost completely as a result of the fire the restoration, which was completed in noteworthy example of Catalan Gothic church suffered in 1936, which des- 1966 under the direction of the archi- religious architecture, which is character- troyed the Baroque altarpiece ( 1 772- tect Adolf Florensa. ized by the predorninance of rnass 83) and the late-eighteenth-century The rernains of the large architectural over void, a rnarked horizontalism, sev- presbytery. The restoration undertaken cornplex still standing today consist of ere lines, harrnony of proportions, sirn- after the civil war was completed in two of the towers, sorne sections of the plicity of structure and the absence of 1967 with the construction of a walls, with the gate of Santa Madrona, superfluous ornamentation. and the new presbytery. At present, the and the ten principal naves, corre- The work of the new church was started Generalitat de Catalunya is carrying sponding to the eight fourteenth century in 1329 by the master-builders Beren- out further restoration work.