On November 30th, the ARPA (Association for the Recovery of the Archbishop’s Palace) officially presented this video in the Corral de Comedias of Alcalá de Henares. This video has been designed and developed by ARPA in collaboration with the Telefónica Foundation in its efforts to remember and spread the importance of this building, wich was even bigger than the Cisnerian University itself.
In it you will see how this fantastic building was before its partial destruction, product of the large fire which destroyed two thirds of its length in 1939, and subsequent looting and neglect.
A little bit of History
The origin of the Archbishop’s Palace in Alcalá comes from the thirteenth century, with the Archbishop Jiménez de Rada. Successive Toledo prelates reformed and magnified it to transform it into one of the finest Renaissance palaces in Spain. After years of ruin and destruction, the Palace was assigned in 1859 to the State, which restored it to host the General Archives of the Kingdom of Spain.
During the Civil War received no serious damages, although it was headquarters of the Republican army and workshop, use the victorious army remained. On August 11, 1939 it suffered a major fire that destroyed the building and its documents, the causes of the fire were never clarified. Then there was only looting and neglect.
The Palace has been the scene of important events in the history of Spain. It was inhabited by almost all the kings of Castile. Here King Juan I died, and born Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England, and Ferdinand of Habsburg, German Emperor.
In the Archbishop’s Palace, Aragon and Castile concluded the conquest of the kingdom of Granada, in its rooms the process against the Templars was initiated, and councils and courts were celebrated, such as those in 1348 wich enacted the Ordinance of Alcalá, original compilation of laws of Castile. And in the Palace the first interview between Queen Elizabeth and Christopher Columbus was held.
Screensohts extracted from the video produced by Jon Uriarte and ZCoorp company
[gdl_gallery title=»recreacion-palacio-arzobispal» width=»275″ height=»200″]
This virtual recreation was made to rescue the image and memory of the Archbishop’s Palace, making it known to the present generation. Well aware of its historical and artistic importance, its potential will be conceived and their recovery will be possible.
This video was promoted, designed and developed by the Association for the Recovery of the Archbishop’s Palace of Alcalá de Henares (ARPA), in collaboration with the Telefónica Foundation.
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