page_title: Aljafería
section_title: Palace of the Catholic Monarchs
hierarchical_section_title: Aljafería / Palace of the Catholic Monarchs
caption_attribution_description: Español: Olympus digital camera This is a photo of a monument indexed in the Spanish heritage register of Bienes de Interés Cultural under the reference RI-51-0001033.
context_page_description: The Aljafería Palace is a fortified medieval palace built during the second half of the 11th century in the Taifa of Zaragoza in Al-Andalus, present day Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. It was the residence of the Banu Hud dynasty during the era of Abu Jaffar Al-Muqtadir. The palace reflects the splendour attained by the Taifa of Zaragoza at the height of its grandeur. It currently contains the Cortes of the autonomous community of Aragon.
  The structure holds unique importance in that it is the only conserved testimony of a large building of Spanish Islamic architecture of the era of the Taifas. The Aljaferia, along with the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba and the Alhambra are three of the best examples of Hispano-Muslim architecture. In 2001, the original restored structures of the Aljafería were included in the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon, a World Heritage Site.
  The solutions adopted in the ornamentation of the Aljafería, such as the use of mixtilinear arcs and springers, the extension of arabesque in large area, and the schematisation and progressive abstraction of the yeserias of a vegetal nature, decisively influenced Almoravid and Almohad art in the Iberian Peninsula.
context_section_description: In the last years of the 15th century the Catholic Monarchs ordered to construct a palace for royal use on the north wing of the Al-Andalusian enclosure, configuring a second plant superposed to the one of the existing palace. The building broke the high parts of the Taifal stays, where inserted the beams that would support the new palace.
  The works are dated between 1488 and 1495 and were followed by Mudéjar masters, maintained the tradition of Mudéjar bricklayers in the Aljafería.
  The palace is accessed by climbing the noble staircase, a monumental building composed of two large sections with geometric yeserias gables illuminated by half-angled windows of small decoration of leaves and stems of Gothic roots and Mudéjar influences, topped in crochet on the key of the arches.
  The grandiose ceiling, as in the rest of the palace buildings, is covered with superb cross-vaulted vaults arranged between the jácenas, and they are decorated with tempera painting with iconographic motifs related to the Catholic Monarchs: the yoke and the arrows alternate with squares of decoration in grisao of grotesques and candelieri, that announces the typical decoration of the Renaissance.
  The stairs give access to a corridor in the first floor that communicates with the palatial dependencies proper. It opens to a gallery of columns of torso stem that rest on shoes with anthropomorphic reliefs at their ends. To support this viewpoint and the rest of the new dependencies it was necessary to section the high areas of the Taifal halls of the 11th century and to have before the north portico five powerful octagonal pillars that, next to some archways pointed behind them, form a new antepartum that unites The two Al-Andalusian perpendicular pavilions above.
  It emphasizes the main entrance to the Throne Room: a trilobed recessed arch with a five-lobed tympanum, at the center of which is represented the coat of arms of the monarchy of the Catholic Monarchs, which includes the coats of arms of the kingdoms of Castile, León, Aragon, Sicily and Granada, supported by two lieutenant lions. The rest of the decorative field is finished with a delicate vegetal ornamentation of stamped invoice, which reappears in the capitals of the jambs. The entire portal is made of hardened plaster, which is the predominant material in the interior of the Aljafería, as Mudéjar craftsmen perpetuate the materials and techniques that are common in Islam.
  In the same wall, two large windows of triple mixtilineal arc with shutters on their keys are escorted by the entrance, thanks to which the inner space of the royal rooms is illuminated.
  Once the space of the gallery is crossed, several rooms are arranged that precede to the great Throne Room, that are denominated "rooms of the lost steps". These are three small rooms of square plan communicated to each other by big windows shut with lattices that give to the Patio de San Martín, and that served as waiting rooms for those who were to be received in audience by the kings.
  In our days only two are visible, because the third one was closed when replacing the dome of the mosque. Its roof was moved to a room adjoining the Throne Room.
  One of the most valuable elements of these rooms are their floors, which originally were square azulejos and hexagonal ceramic alfardones glazed in colors, forming capricious borders. They were made in the historic pottery of Loza de Muel at the end of the 15th century. From the preserved fragments has been set to restore the entire floor with ceramics that mimics the shape and layout of the former floor, but not its quality glazed reflections.
  The other remarkable element is its excellent Mudéjar-Catholic Monarchs style roofs, constituted by three magnificent taujeles of Aragonese Mudéjar carpenters. These ceilings present geometric reticules of wood later carved, painted and gilded with gold leaf, whose moldings show the well-known heraldic motifs of the Catholic Monarchs: the yoke, the arrows and the Gordian knot united to the classic motto "Tanto monta" (both mounts to undo the Gordian knot), bo
caption: Roof of the Hall of los Pasos Perdidos, Palace of the Catholic Monarchs. The works of the Catholic Monarchs halls are dated approximately between 1488-1495.[12]
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