Pena National Palace

Pena Palace is the most notable example of Portuguese architecture in the Romantic period

Fanciful to an extreme, the architectural fabric of Pena finds much of its inspiration in the Moorish, Gothic and Manueline motifs of Portuguese art (red buildings), as well as in the Wagnerian spirit of the Schinkel Castles of Central Europe (yellow buildings).

It stands on one of the rocky peaks of the Serra de (Mountain of) Sintra and blends in a fortunate manner with its natural background of greenery and crags.

History

A pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages, the chapel of Our Lady of Penha was replaced by a Hieronymite monastery whose foundation was authorised in 1503 by King Manuel I (1469-1521), the monarch during the great Portuguese discoveries.

The monastery was greatly damaged by the 1755 earthquake and finally abandoned after the nationalisation of the monasteries in 1834.

In 1838, German Ferdinand Saxe Coburg-Gotha (1816-1885), King Consort of Queen Maria II , bought the ruins of the monastery, the woods and the Castle of the Moors, 0.80 square mile (200 hectares) all together, and initiated the construction of a road that would link the palace to Sintra.

The remodelling of the old monastery (red buildings) began in 1840 and, around 1845, Ferdinand extended it by building another complex (yellow buildings) which was known as the "New Palace" inspired by the palaces and castles of Bavaria.

The German architect Baron von Eschwege was in charge of the remodelling and the new construction.

It became the summer residence of the Royal family.

Under his explicit command, the monastery was painted in red and the new building in yellow.

In 1994 the original colours, which disappeared with time, red for the former monastery and yellow for the new palace were restored.

Styles

This astonishing castellated building standing on rocks beautifully portrays the Romantic esprit of the 19th century. Combining national decorative elements (Neo-Romanesque , Neo-Gothic , Neo-Manueline with the Oriental styles (Neo-Moorish and Indo-Gothic ), its eclectic medley of drops, towers, small turrets, terraces and others creates a harmonious whole that is unique in South Europe.

Features

Among the countless striking features of the palace :

The Park

This shady park, covering an area of some two hundred hectares round the Palace, was planted with trees in the third quarter of the 19th Century.

Created by King Ferdinand II, it is a natural prolongation of Pena Palace itself, with its thirty-odd constructions and an enormous variety of exotic plants from the farthest corners of the earth, which mingle with the autochthonous vegetation in an exuberance of greens and scents.

It is one of the most attractive places on the Serra de (Mountain of) Sintra, owing to the spell of romanticism that emanates from its greenness and the wide stretches of countryside that can be glimpsed from it.

The way that the trees have been arranged in contrasting clusters, setting off to advantage the delicate note of the gardens, the graceful curve of a path, or the sudden view of a pond, all show the artistic intent that governed the planting of this park.

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