Description
The peculiar stylistic diversity of this space, which harmoniously combines Gothic, Mudejar, Renaissance and Romanesque elements, is the result of successive interventions on a rectangular courtyard, with an axis in the chapel and porticoed only on its short sides, built at the end of the 15th century by Pedro Enriquez y Catherine of Ribera. Your child FadriqueHe enlarged its dimensions, making it quadriform, opened galleries on all four sides, replaced the brick pillars with Genoese columns and placed the marble fountain, also acquired in Genoa, at its centre. Fadrique was inherited by his nephew in 1539. Per AfánIn addition to enriching its corners with the four main pieces from his sculpture collection (see no. 4), he also arranged a gallery of busts of antique figures around it to reinforce the idea of continuity between the foundation of Rome and the new empire of Charles V, as a historical mirror. In the 19th century, new features were introduced in the Romanesque style, such as the opening of an entrance in the centre, the replacement of the terracotta floor with marble and the installation of new pseudo-Nazari mullioned windows.