page_title: Belém Palace
section_title: Exterior
hierarchical_section_title: Belém Palace / Architecture / Exterior
caption_attribution_description: English: Durante a visita de estado do Presidente do Mexico a Portugal, 2014.
context_page_description: The Belém Palace, formally the National Palace of Belém, is the current official residence of the President of the Portuguese Republic, the head of state of Portugal. Located in the Belém District of Lisbon, the palace's main façade fronts the Praça Afonso de Albuquerque, facing the Tagus River. A former residence of the Portuguese Royal Family, the Belém Palace complex is made up of various buildings, wings, courtyards, and gardens, built variously from the 18th to 21st centuries.
context_section_description: Belém Palace is a "L" shape building, with the main space located in a rectangular three-volume space in the south façade.  This front, which faces the formal gardens, presents a space of five bodies, flanked by wedges surmounted by pinnacles.  A combination of Mannerist and Baroque styles, has a central body with floor level arcades, over a colonnade gallery surmounted by a triangular pediment decorated in stucco.
  The two outside blocks are farther in front then the main building, forming a terrace delimited by balusters and accessible by lateral staircases. The top of these lateral walls are topped by twelve panels of monochromatic azulejo tile. On the veranda are 14 azulejo panels representing figures from mythology, with many showing the "Labours of Hercules", including "Plutão e Cérbero" (Pluto and Cerberus), "Vénus" (Venus), "Neptuno" (Neptune), "Hércules" (Hercules), "Hércules e a égua de Diómedes" (Hercules and the Mares of Diomedes), "Figura masculina" (Masculine figure), "Figura masculina com arco e flechas" (Masculine figure with bow and arrow), two panels of "Figura feminina" (Female figure), "Hércules e a ave de Estinfália" (Hercules and the Stymphalian birds),  "Figura masculina com machado" (Masculine figure with hoe), "Hércules e a serpente de Ládon" (Hercules and the serpent Ladon), "Hércules e o touro de Creta" (Hercules and the Cretan Bull), "Hércules e a Hidra de Lerna" (Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra). There are also two rows of tiles with geometric patterns and acanthus leaves.
  The eastern façade, which fronts the Pátio das Damas (Lady's Patio), features two levels of windows and portal.  The western wing is served from the Pátio dos Bichos (Animals' Patio), where a gated entrance and ramp provides access to the principal staircase via an elevated space that overlooks the Jardim da Cascata (Falls Garden). The space was resurfaced and re-paved with stone at the beginning of the 21st century.
  Immediately in front of the palace, fronting the Rua de Belém, are the formal gardens. Of an 18th-century design, they consist of a terrace enclosed by a balustrade adorned with statues and intersecting pattern of hedges around three circular ponds. In the Jardim da Cascata (in the northwest corner of the grounds) there are three pavilions (greenhouses) of capstone topped by a decorative railing, with vases and statues.  Inserted within a rounded-arch is a waterfall featuring a statue of Hercules. 
  In the central pavilion are six azulejo panels forming a figurative composition, completed in the 19th century.  The central composition is in black and white, while the trim is polychromatic: yellow, green and manganese plant ornamentation. These panels include: an "Outdoor Scene", "Two female figures and a male figure in the park, with fruit basket", "Standing female figure gives an apple to a male figure", a "Backgammon game", "Music in the Garden" and "Music in the Garden, with harpsichord and violin".
caption: The Pátio dos Bichos, during a review of the Presidential Guard.
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