Custom Search

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Visit the Episcopal Palace of Castelo Branco

The Episcopal Palace of Castelo Branco, located in the Parish of Castelo Branco, today the Francisco Tavares Proença Júnior Museum, is an example of residential, Renaissance, baroque and rococo religious architecture.
At the end of the 16th century, Bishop Nuno de Noronha, bishop of Guarda, ordered the construction of the Episcopal Palace of Castelo Branco. Through the lapidary and emblazoned engraving we can verify that the building work began in May 1596, concluding two years later. The building was intended for the temporary residence of the prelates, during the winter periods, since the climate of Castelo Branco was a little milder than that of Guarda. In 1771, with the creation of the diocese, the Palace of Castelo Branco became, then, permanent episcopal residence.
It was only in 1711 that the residence of Castelo Branco was the object of rebuilding, by D. João de Mendonça. At that time the garden was built, and a garden garden.
From the date of his inauguration, in 1782, the second bishop of Castelo Branco, D. Frei Vicente Ferrer da Rocha, soon realized works of improvement in the palace and some interventions in the gardens and the spatial organization of the forest. With the collaboration of the Dominican architect and friar Daniel da Sagrada Família, interventions were made in the body erected to the north that includes the staircase and the noble door, the balcony, the colonnade and the entrance hall, which gave the palace a greater capacity.
In 1786, there was a great increase to the purchase of ornamental pieces that populated the entire palace.
Antecede the palace a large walled courtyard, to where it is facing the main facade. This is two stories, all the upper floor features noble floors, by the use of bay windows topped by countercurved pediments, as opposed to the single, quadrangular windows of the ground floor.
The façade facing the garden is poorer, and still features elements of the old sixteenth-century building, where a loggia is evident. Also in the interior one can still see structures of the 16th century, now occupied by exhibition halls and already very impoverished, the old chapel with gilded carved ceiling with paintings, from the XVIII century, which represent the Litanies of the Virgin and other allegories to the Weapons of Chastity.
The constructive typology of the palace influenced many of the constructions of the time and later, having become a reference for the architecture of that zone.

No comments:

Post a Comment