Palace of the Kings of Majorca - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Palace of the Kings of Majorca, or Palais des Rois de Majorque in French, is a palace and a fortress with gardens overlooking the city of Perpignan

Perpignan

-Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...

in Pyrenees-Orientales

Pyrénées-Orientales

Pyrénées-Orientales is a department of southern France adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. It also surrounds the tiny Spanish enclave of Llívia, and thus has two distinct borders with Spain.- History :...

, Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.-Geography:The region is...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

The Kingdom of Majorca (1276-1349)

In 1276, the king James II of Majorca

James II of Majorca

James II was King of Majorca and Lord of Montpellier from 1276 until his death. He was the second son of James I of Aragon and his wife Violant, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary...

made Perpignan

Perpignan

the capital of the Kingdom of Majorca

Kingdom of Majorca

The Kingdom of Majorca was founded by James I of Aragon, also known as James The Conqueror. After the death of his first-born son Alfonso, a will was written in 1262 which created the kingdom in order to cede it to his son James...

. He started to build a palace with gardens on the hill of Puig del rey on the south of the town, the architects were Ramon Pau, Pons Descoll, and Bernat Quer with completion in 1309.

Ending the Western Schism

In 1415, the Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

, Sigismund of Luxemburg

Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...

, organised a European summit in Perpignan, to convince the Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

Antipope Benedict XIII

Benedict XIII, born Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor , known as in Spanish, was an Aragonese nobleman, who is officially considered by the Catholic Church to be an antipope....

to resign his office and take to an end the Western Schism

Western Schism

The Western Schism or Papal Schism was a split within the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. Two men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. Driven by politics rather than any theological disagreement, the schism was ended by the Council of Constance . The simultaneous claims to the papal chair...

through the Council of Constance

Council of Constance

The Council of Constance is the 15th ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, held from 1414 to 1418. The council ended the Three-Popes Controversy, by deposing or accepting the resignation of the remaining Papal claimants and electing Pope Martin V.The Council also condemned and...

. On 20 September 1415, the Emperor met with Pope Benedict XIII at the palace with the King Ferdinand I of Aragon

Ferdinand I of Aragon

Ferdinand I called of Antequera and also the Just or the Honest) was king of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica and king of Sicily, duke of Athens and Neopatria, and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya...

and the delegations of the Counts of Foix, Provence, Savoy, Lorraine, the embassy of the Roman church for the Council of Constance

Council of Constance

, and embassies from the Kings of France, England, Hungary, Castille and Navarre. The pope refused to resign and to recognise the Pope that the Council had chosen, clashing with the emperor who left Perpignan on 5 November.

The Franco-Spanish wars

Part of the northern wing of the palace was destroyed in a siege in 1502.
Following the Treaty of the Pyrenees

Treaty of the Pyrenees

The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed to end the 1635 to 1659 war between France and Spain, a war that was initially a part of the wider Thirty Years' War. It was signed on Pheasant Island, a river island on the border between the two countries...

in 1659, France gained Roussillon

Roussillon

Roussillon is one of the historical counties of the former Principality of Catalonia, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales...

, and proceed to develop the defensive features of the palace.

The General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales

General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales

The General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales is the assembly elected for 6 years by the 31 Cantons of the Pyrénées-Orientales and its executive...

bought the Palace and the gardens in 1958, to the Ministry of Defence

Minister of Defence (France)

The Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs is the French government cabinet member charged with running the military of France....

who keeps the Vauban

Vauban

Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marquis de Vauban , commonly referred to as Vauban, was a Marshal of France and the foremost military engineer of his age, famed for his skill in both designing fortifications and breaking through them...

bastions and 19th century buildings and courts as a garrison.http://www.cg66.fr/culture/patrimoine_catalanite/monuments/palais_majorque/index.html

Architecture

The Palace of the Kings of Majorca is a fortified Palace in the Gothic style. It is organised around three courtyards 60 metres square. The first foremen on the site were Ramon Pau and especially Pons Descoyl, very active in Perpignan

Perpignan

and the Baleares.
It has two chapels, one above the other: the lower is the Queen's Chapel, while the upper is Holy Cross with a pink marble door.

Here we have together in the “Great Hall“, the seat of political power, the chapel and the royal residence. The position of the chapel in the heart the royal apartments, opposite the throne room, indicates the importance of the spiritual over the temporal. The plan of the palace was inspired by those of Majorca, and the chapel is like that of the earlier Sainte-Chapelle

Sainte-Chapelle

La Sainte-Chapelle is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval...

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

The walls, built with uncut stones and bricks bound with mortar, were coated with lime and painted.

Doors, corridors, stairs, armatures and the main towers are all made of cut stone : ochre

Ochre

Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...

stone from Les Fonts, Baixas Blue, Sandstone, Red Marble from Villefranche-de-Conflent

Villefranche-de-Conflent

Villefranche-de-Conflent is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in south of France.-The Capital of Conflent:The original town dates from 1098 and is fortified because of its strategic position in lands that changed hands between French and Spanish occupation.* 1374, Villefranche...

, White and Blue Marble from Ceret

Céret

Céret is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. It is the capital of Vallespir historical Catalan comarca.-Geography:...

Guitares au palais

The Guitare au Palais, a free three-day guitar music festival

Music festival

A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...

, is held in the last weekend of August in the Palace and the gardens.

The festival's art director is Pedro Soler and opens the stage to an eclectic stream of guitar enthousiasts with performances in traditional acoustic guitar

Acoustic guitar

An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

, flamenco

Flamenco

Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....

, classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, gypsy music, pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

.

International guests includes the Rosenberg Trio

Rosenberg Trio

The Rosenberg Trio are two guitarists and one bassist—Stochelo Rosenberg , Nous'che Rosenberg and Nonnie Rosenberg from the Netherlands. Their inspiration is Django Reinhardt, the legendary gypsy guitarist of the 1930s...

, Tekamali and Paco Ibáñez

Paco Ibáñez

Francisco "Paco" Ibáñez is a Spanish singer and musician born in Valencia on November 20, 1934, before the Spanish Civil War.He went to France in 1952 during the Franco dictatorship in Spain and recorded his first album in 1964....

in 2004, Montserrat Figueras

Montserrat Figueras

Montserrat Figueras García was a Catalan soprano who specialized in early music....

, Rolf Lislevand and Manolo Sanlucar

Manolo Sanlúcar

Manolo Sanlúcar is a flamenco composer and guitarist born in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1945. He is considered one of the most important Spanish composers of present times, and together with Paco de Lucía, Serranito, and Vicente Amigo, one of the main figures in the evolution of the flamenco...

in 2005, The National

The National (band)

The National is an indie rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1999 and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. The band's lyrics are written and sung by Matt Berninger, a baritone...

and Sergio Lopez in 2006, Caetano Veloso

Caetano Veloso

Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso , better known as Caetano Veloso, is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo which encompassed theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s,...

in 2007, and the Rumberos Catalans, Bernardo Sandoval, Peter Finger and Aaron and Bryce Dessner

Aaron and Bryce Dessner

Aaron and Bryce Dessner are twin brothers and members of the rock band The National. Aaron Dessnerwrites the majority of the music for The National. The brothers are co-founders, alongside Alec Hanley Bemis, of Brassland, a label that is home to artists including The National, the Clogs, catalog...

in 2008.

The Kingdom of Majorca (1276-1349)

Ending the Western Schism

The Franco-Spanish wars

Architecture

Guitares au palais

See also