! (S) Golden Highlights Library i • 1^^ ''UmL m j. t « - tWd J: Geoffrey Hindley £ « « <* i ... i ——— . , » MM m H I 1 j§ jS $ if) jnw3|- » ^ N .^ ."> JL_it l! li >} ff <i Ml i i > ; i 01 ti I ii il I . r*t»- Si : . : 100 romantic settings o; / $ power i i ^ . I | ;i i ii i : ! I SiSl Golden Highlights Library Great Castles & Palaces Geoffrey Hindley Golden Press 1 Published in 1973 by Golden Press, New York, Contents a division of Western Publishing Company Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-81306 4 The Vatican Palace Created, designed and produced for 6 Windsor Castle Western Publishing Company Inc. by 9 Buckingham Palace Trewin Copplestone Publishing Ltd, London 1 Edinburgh Castle Printed in Italy by Ofncine Grafiche Arnoldo Mondadori, Verona 13 Caernarvon Castle Filmset by Photoprint Plates Ltd, Raylcigh, Essex 15 Chillon Castle World rights reserved by Western Publishing Company, Inc. 16 Neuschwanstein golden and golden press ® are trademarks 20 The Alcazar, Segovia of Western Publishing Company Inc. 23 The Tower of London ISBN: o 307 43 1 11 8 26 Chateau Gaillard 29 Krak des Chevaliers 31 The Doge's Palace 36 The Villa d'Este 38 Nymphenburg Palace 40 Blenheim Palace 43 Versailles 47 Fontainebleau 49 Schonbrunn 5i The Royal Palace, Madrid 53 The White House 54 The Kremlin 58 The Winter Palace 58 Tsarskoye Selo Acknowledgments 63 The Alhambra, Granada The photographs in this book were provided by: Aerofilms, London: 23, 29b; Lala Aufsberg: i8t, b, 66 Topkapi Palace J 1 * 33b, 34b, 50b, 65, 66; Barnaby's Picture 9> 3 35, 68 Dolmabahce Palace Library: 53t; Bavaria Verlag: 1, 32, 39, 45t, 48, 49b, 56t, 57b, 64t, 66, 69b, 77, back cover (t) ; British 72 Malmaison Museum: 24t; British Tourist Authority: 3, 7b, 8b, 74 Drottningholm 9b, 10b, 12, 13, 24t, 25, 4K, 51, 79; Bulloz: 43; Camera Press: 6, 13b; J. Allan Cash: 9t, 1 3t, 14, 20, 76 Hampton Court 26, 63; Colour Library International: 17; Trewin 78 Compton Wynyates Copplestone: 56b; Photographie Giraudon: 71, 72, 73; Godfrey Goodwin: 70t, b; Sonia Halliday: 67, 68; Michael Holford: 8t, 21, 27, 28, 40, 44, 45b, 49; R. Hood: 33t, 34t; Victor Kennett: 58, 59t, b, 62; A. F. Kersting: 7t, iot, 11, 29t, 30, 38, 42, 47, 54, 56-7, 78t, 80; Emily Lane: 36; MAS: 22; Novosti Opposite The procession of the Knights of the Press Agency: 55, 6ot, b, 61 ; Picturcpoint: 41b, 46, Garter entering the great West Door of St 6ot, 76, 78b, back cover (b); Royal Swedish Embassy: George's Chapel, Windsor. Members of Europe's 75t, b; Scala: 5, 52; Toni Schneiders: sot; Spectrum: oldest order of chivalry, the Garter knights each 1(r> 4- - 37, 53b, 64b, front cover; Swiss National have their own stalls in the choir of the Chapel Tourist Office: is with their banners hanging over them. Pomp and pageantry THE world's great palaces and castles are cent colorful panoply that lived in them in the monuments of a bygone age of kings and days of their greatness belongs to the past. princes; of an age when in theory, and often Security guards and ticket clerks have taken enough in practice, the destinies of whole the place of ceremonial guards and powerful peoples might be subject to the whim and chamberlains. Instead of being conducted into power of a single man. In this book we shall a royal presence by costumed flunkies the visit a few of the greatest mansions, palaces visitor is taken on a conducted tour by uni- and fortresses of the old world -and one in the formed guides. But there are still palaces new. Some remind us of war, some speak of occupied by the successors of the rulers that past political greatness, some are grand homes, built them and where the ceremonial of the others are treasure houses of art. past is still alive. In this chapter we discuss five Today they are for the most part massive such places, and we begin with one which is the curios, visited by tourists and studied by residence of an autocratic ruler, which indeed historians and connoisseurs of art. The magnifi- is actually ail independent state. The first papal election or conclave at the Vatican was held in the same year, when Gregory died. But the papacy had many troubled years ahead. The conclave elected an Italian pope, but the French party would not give up, and four astonishing decades followed during which Europe had two popes and at times even three. Some popes went in fear of their lives-one even built a passage linking the house at the Vatican to the Castle of Sant' Angelo nearby. Eventually the scandal of a divided Church was settled at the Council of ConstanceconvenedbytheEmperorSigismund in 1415. The election of Martin V two years later gave the Church a single head, but the papacy resolved that never again should a General Council have such power. Martin and his successors set about the restoration of papal authority and the splendors of the papal court. Nicholas V (1447-55) This is the Vatican Palace in Rome. It is transformed the house at the Vatican into a bounded on one side by the huge basilica of palace, and in 1473 Sixtus IV commanded the St Peter's and the colonnade of its piazza, and building of the Sistine Chapel. The popes the palace is encircled by walls which enclose became great patrons of the Renaissance an area of approximately one-sixth of a square s cholars and artists, and when the ancien t mile. This is the independent state of Vatican basilica of St Peter's showed signs of collapsing City, set up in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty they seized the opportunity to rebuild on the between the government of Italy and the magnificent scale we see today ; the work took papacy. Here the pope is absolute ruler, the more than a century. Much other building was last one in the western world. The state has a put in hand at the same time, but the Vatican, resident population of about 1000, but is the with its great schemes of painting, provides place of work of many more, for this is the one of the most magnificent sights of the age. headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, The first of these schemes was the decoration one of the largest international organizations of the Sistine Chapel, begun in 1481. The in the world today. The security ofthe territory building is 133 feet long and 43 feet wide, and rests with various bodies of which the most down each of the long sides seven frescoes famous is the historic Swiss Guard, recruited depicted episodes from the lives of Christ and from the Catholic Cantons. This, the personal Moses. This work was done by such great bodyguard of the pope, was founded in 1505 artists as Botticelli and Pinturicchio. Then, by Julius II. Its colorful uniform, traditionally from 1508 to 1 5 12, Michelangelo decorated claimed to have been designed by Michel- the simple barrel-vaulted ceiling with an epic angelo, is a regular part of the scene at Vatican series of masterpieces on themes from the City, and the Guards play a prominent part in book of Genesis beginning with the creation the ceremonies of the papal court. of the world. Yet more great work was still The Emperor Constantine the Great built to come. the first St Peter's in the early fourth centurvT In 1534, at the command of Paul III, the It was a large basilica modeled on the admini- great artist embarked on his majestic altarpiece strative hall of j ustice of a Roman town. Two of the Last Judgment. It covers the end of the hundred years later a house was built beside the chapel; before the work could be started two great church for distinguished visitors; the windows had to be walled in and two of the popes themselves lived at the Lateran Palace side wall frescoes, both by Perugino. were at this time. Then at the beginning of the painted out. It is some measure of the seemingly fourteenth century a line of French popes limitless talent of Renaissance Italy that the moved the papal court to Avignon. In 1378 work of such a master could be obliterated to Gregory XI returned to Rome; finding the make room for something even finer. The Lateran in ruins he took up residence at the decoration of the scries of rooms known as the Vatican. Stanze and Loggia provides a still more Opposite Behind the great basilica of St Peter's Below The Sistine Chapel, looking towards and the walls of Vatican City lie the gardens of Michelangelo's great masterpiece The Last the papal palace. Judgment. The halberds that the Swiss Guards carry were the historic weapons that once made the Swiss the most feared soldiers in Europe. startling instance. Many magnificent frescoes by Perugino, Lorenzo Lotto, Picro della Francesca and others were already completed when the brilliant young Raphael Sanzio arrived in Rome. The work of his predecessors was simply blanked out and Pope Julius II gave him the sole commission to decorate the apartments throughout. Raphael's Disputation of the Holy Sacrament and the School of Athens are regarded among the purest expressions of the Renaissance spirit. Many more great artists are represented in the picture gallery, the Pinacoteca, while the Museo Pio Clementino contains a host of famous classical sculptures, among them the renowned Laocobn group. The Vatican also boasts one of the world's greatest libraries, with some 60,000 rare manuscripts and hundreds of thousands of priceless printed books.