In his magisterial work Building the Escorial, George Kubler (1982: 42) noted that “[w]herever a King builds, Solomon comes to mind.” The eighteenth-century Bourbon monarchs in Spain certainly built a great deal, and yet, whenever they renovated existing royal palaces or put up entirely new ones, they did so in an unexpectedly restrained manner. The royal sites (reales sitios) situated in and around Madrid were the political and cultural symbols of Spanish majesty, and so the new Bourbons were determined early on to transform the image of these palaces from Hapsburg properties to national ones (Sancho 1995). More than simply royal residences, they were the main symbols of the Bourbon monarchy’s new spirit of crowned majesty. The royal collection of antiquities, ancient and modern sculptures and paintings, and the decorative arts that were housed in the various royal sites were central to conveying to the public the Bourbon’s commitment to the continuity of imperial imagery, virtue, magnificence, and grandeur (Allende 2010). But the War of Spanish Succession limited Philip’s resources and the many palaces that already existed made it unnecessary to construct any new ones. Renovation was Philip’s initial strategy. To that end, Philip V relied to a great extent on Spaniards, employing such Late Baroque and Rococo architects as Teodoro Ardemans, Pedro de Ribera, Jose Benito de Churriguera and others to work on the royal sites and other projects during the first three decades of his reign (Tovar Martin 1994; Blasco Esquivias 2002b). While a handful of French and Italian artists and architects graced the early court of Philip V, it was not until the mid-1730s that a significant number of foreigners began to arrive in the capital. Yet despite this mix of national and foreign influences, Roman architectural tendencies remained the paradigm.
Like his Hapsburg predecessors, Philip V set up a regular pattern of movement throughout the various royal sites according to the seasons and religious holidays, a pattern that would continue under his successor Ferdinand VI (Kamen 2001: 138). The Alcazar and Buen Retiro palaces in Madrid were the principal residences of Philip V and the court (Bottineau 1986a: 291 ff.), though the various suburban and rural residences surrounding the capital accommodated his private interests, as well as those of his wives. As noted by Pablo Vazquez Gestal (2013: 300 ff.), Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese in particular used the royal sites as a way of maintaining their privacy from the court and from their official duties as monarchs, a policy that served them particularly well after Philip’s abdication in 1724 and his return to the throne after the unexpected death of his first son Luis, who had succeeded him only briefly.
The Alcazar of Madrid
The winter months were typically spent at the Alcazar in Madrid, the Muslim fortress originally built in the ninth century and transformed by Charles V in 1536 and Philip II in 1559 into the “seat and heart” of the monarchy (Bottineau 1986a: 300; Checa Cremades 1994; Barbeito 1992). In 1636, Philip IV ordered Juan Gomez de Mora to reconfigure its exterior, enclosing the composite whole with classical orders and a central portal, making it seem like a unified whole in the style of Juan de Herrera’s Escorial. In the first decade of the eighteenth century, Philip V and his first wife Marie Louise commissioned significant renovations to the palace’s interiors to accommodate their immediate needs and tastes, as well as those of the princess of Ursins, the Queen’s head of the household (Bottineau 1956; Sancho 1994, 2002b). These were carried out under the supervision of the Spaniard Teodoro Ardemans, with the assistance of the French diplomat, architect, and amateur painter, Antoine du Verger, and the French architect Rene Carlier (d. 1722), both of whom had come to Spain to work on royal commissions. In 1712, Philip initiated plans to make the palace more French in taste and character, commissioning designs by Carlier and the Parisian architect Robert de Cotte (1656/7-1735), though these remained unexecuted and, in any event, De Cotte refused to move to Spain (Bottineau 1986a: 300 ff.). The Alcazar would suffer from a tragic fire on Christmas Eve 1734 that left it in total ruin. Its replacement, the new Royal Palace, would occupy the efforts of every eighteenth-century Bourbon monarch, and nearly every single architect and artist in the capital. The new palace though would not be occupied until December 1, 1764, when Charles III made it the permanent royal residence in the capital. From 1734 to 1764, the palace of the Buen Retiro would have to fulfill the early Bourbon ambitions.
Buen Retiro
The Buen Retire was a suburban palace in the east of Madrid built from 1630 on the site of the monastery of San Jeronimo el Real, adjacent to the Prado de San Jeronimo, a long thoroughfare that was lined with trees and fountains forming a buffer between the town and countryside (Brown and Elliott 1980). As its name suggests, the palace was built as a kind of villa for retreat and recreation, its proximity to the Alcazar making it an ideal place to escape from the official duties of court. The palace with its vast gardens and two large open squares in front was a popular site for royal processions, funerals, and religious festivals. In 1712-13, Philip V attempted to renovate the palace and gardens along the ambitious lines of Versailles and Marly, but the designs by Rene Carlier and Robert de Cotte were abandoned as being Too extravagant (Bottineau 1986a: 292 ff.; Tovar Martin 1989; Garms 2002). Nevertheless, the Buen Retiro was remodeled internally in a French Rococo style to meet Philip’s and his successor Ferdinand’s tastes.2 BOth the Alcazar and Buen Retiro clearly demonstrate the early architectural aims of Philip V and his wife, Marie Louise, supporting the existing Spanish residences and introducing an element of French and antique taste without spending vast sums of money. After all, the War of Spanish Succession had yet to subside and the idea of diverting funds to the royal properties seemed conspicuously inappropriate. The presence of Teodoro Ardemans alongside the French architects Robert de Cotte and Rene Carlier also underlined the king’s dual allegiances.
Aranjuez
Spring was usually spent away from the city, in nearby Aranjuez, the royal residence originally built in 1387 and extensively transformed by Philip II in the 1570s by Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera (Palacio Real de Aranjuez 1987). The work continued under Juan Gomez de Mora maintaining the austere style of the sixteenth-century palace. After the War of Spanish Succession had ended in 1714, Philip V added the north wing according to plans by the military engineer Pedro Caro Idogro (d. 1732), an addition that respected the schemes of Juan Gomez de Mora, Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera (Bottineau 1986a: 452-54; Sancho 2002b: 336). Caro Idogro was followed by two French military engineers, Etienne Marchand and Leandre Brachelieu, who were assisted after 1731 by Giacomo (Santiago) Bonavia (1705-59), an Italian architect, painter, urban planner, and stage designer from Piacenza. Originally summoned to Spain by Elizabeth Farnese and the Marchese Annibale Scotti (Elizabeth’s secretary), to work on royal projects that were already under way and to supplant the French style that had been in place with a new Italian influence, Bonavia immediately began to shape the palace’s architecture and decorative arts (Tovar Martin 1997). In 1735, he conceived of a new entry vestibule and honorific triple-flight staircase for the palace. The central section of the palace’s main facade can also be attributed to him. Bonavia also worked at the Buen Retiro as well as designing in 1739 the church of the Saints Justo y Pastor in Madrid, an elliptically planned structure that recalls Guarino Guarini’s design for Santa Maria della Divina Provvidenza in Lisbon.
After a fire in June 1748, Bonavia was ordered by Ferdinand VI to restore the palace and to conceive of a new town plan to surround the royal residence, and provide lodging space for followers of the court as well as visiting dignitaries (Chueca Goitia 1987: 173-5; Lozano Bartolozzi 2011: 560-3). Bonavia was assisted by the French architect Jaime Marquet (d. 1782) and the Spaniard Alejandro Gonzalez Velazquez (1719-72), whose brother Antonio had worked at the church of Santissima Trinita degli Spagnoli in Rome. Though Alejandro had previously declined a pension to travel and study in Italy, his work at Aranjuez under Bonavia would perhaps approximate the experience better than anywhere else in Spain. The new town was laid out in a perfectly regular grid, with a triple avenue that extended the axis of the palace gardens in a manner resembling the tridents of Rome and Versailles. A large plaza was aligned perpendicular with the avenue, and to the south the oval church of San Antonio (Figure 6.1), also by Bonavia, was linked to the palace by a long covered passageway that also connected the Casa de Oficios (administrative offices) and Casa de Caballeros (office of the knights). A solution typical of Spanish plazas, the covered gallery was repeated on the opposite side of the plaza with the Casa de Infantes (house of the Princes), a structure Charles III commissioned to Juan de Villanueva in 1773.
The new composite whole underlined Ferdinand VI’s artistic priorities of developing a more cosmopolitan and Italian presence in the Spanish royal sites (Bottineau 1986b: 257-68). During Ferdinand’s reign, a number of important
Figure 6.1 Santiago Bonavia, church of San Antonio, Aranjuez. Photo by author.
Italian artists arrived in Spain, including the painter Corrado Giaquinto (Perez Sanchez 2006), and the singer and stage designer Carlo Broschi Farinelli, whose presence at Aranjuez was famously celebrated (Sancho 2000; De Martini and Morillas Alcazar 2001). Ferdinand was also responsible for the official opening of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid, which was named in honor of his patron saint in 1752, with the aim of educating young Spaniards along the lines of the Italian and French academies in Rome. Yet as previously noted in Chapter 3, the design and construction of the new Royal Palace in Madrid would contribute more to the establishment of an academic program of architecture than any other royal site.
New royal palace in Madrid
Of all the royal projects commissioned by the Bourbons in the eighteenth century, the case of the new Royal Palace in Madrid (Figure 6.2) deserves the greatest attention, for the building, described by Fernando Chueca (quoted in Kubler 1959: 44) as “the chalky bone enclosing the marrow of Spain,” mirrors the history of the Bourbon monarchy. After the great fire, it was inconceivable that Philip V would do anything other than make the reconstruction of the palace the focus of his artistic patronage (Plaza Santiago 1975; Sancho and Suffield 2004). However, Philip’s aim was not limited to repairing the damages caused by the tragedy, or simply reconstructing the previous building. As noted by Yves Bottineau (1986a: 548), Philip wanted to build the seat and symbol of an international monarchy following the model of Versailles. Consequently, the commission for the design of the new Royal Palace could only be given to an architect of seminal importance and international prestigE.3 The task was awarded to the Piedmontese architect Filippo Juvarra, who in 1735 came to Spain at the age of 57 to prepare designs for the new palace (Bottineau 1986a: 531-601; Bonet Correa and Blasco Esquivias 1994).
Figure 6.2 Facade, Royal Palace, Madrid. Photo by author.
Juvarra’s remarkable scheme consisted of a vast four-court structure that would have exceeded any other palace in Europe (for example Blenheim, Versailles, Berlin) in scale and magnificence (Garms 1994: 239-49). The large rectangular “Patio Principal” was flanked by smaller square “Patios Colaterales y de Oficios” and followed by a “Patio de los Consejos,” creating a dominant central axis throughout the scheme. Unfortunately, Juvarra died unexpectedly within a year of his arrival in Madrid. His pupil and successor Giovanni Battista Sacchetti (1690-1764) began working on the plans for the new Royal Palace in 1738, substantially reducing Juvarra’s vast scheme into a more manageable centralized single-court structure. His altered scheme followed Philip’s decision that Juvarra’s design was too costly and that an adapted version on the site of the old palace be built instead (Sancho and Suffield 2004: 21). The decoration of the building was entrusted primarily to Corrado Giaquinto, Giovanni Domenico Olivieri, and other Italian and Spanish artists during the reign of Ferdinand VI, who continued the Late Baroque manner of Juvarra and Sacchetti (Sancho 2002a). The construction of the new palace, built entirely out of masonry to avoid future fires (with the exception of windows, doors and other interior finishes), lasted until Charles III established it as his principal residence in 1764. Charles’ preferred architect, Francesco Sabbatini (1721-97), worked at the palace 1773-78 adding a new south-east wing and completing the chapel as well as the great central staircase in a more austere classicizing manneR.4 Anton Rafael Mengs and Giambattista Tiepolo succeeded Corrado Giaquinto on the interiors, introducing a more academic and classicizing sensibility to the palace’s decoration. Work on the interiors continued under Charles IV, and the surrounding park and entrance court (Plaza de Armas) would not be complete until the late nineteenth century.
Over the course of nearly forty years, the Royal Palace of Madrid was the principal hub of artistic patronage in Spain, occupying nearly every eighteenth-century architect in the Bourbon court, and a number of distinguished foreign architects and artists as well. The atelier employed over two hundred and forty Italian craftsmen and specialists as the core of the working force, and thus schooled a new generation of Spanish architects and artists in Italian architectural traditions (Plaza Santiago 1975: 47 ff.). More importantly, since the day that Charles III occupied the palace for the first time, the Royal Palace in Madrid has been the principal residence of the King of Spain and a symbol of the nation’s monarchy.
Shortly after the foundation stone of the new Royal Palace had been laid in 1738, Sacchetti’s design was brought to the attention of a tribunal from the Roman Accademia di San Luca, with the Spanish Cardinal-ambassador Troiano Acquaviva, and the noted architects Ferdinando Fuga, Nicola Salvi, and Luigi Vanvitelli all intervening in the project (Sancho 1991a). We have already seen in Chapters 4 And 5 How design committees in Rome contributed to the debates on the structural integrity of the dome at Saint Peter’s (1743), with Nicola Salvi, and Luigi Vanvitelli serving on a review committee, as well as the completion of the church of Santissima Trinita degli
Spagnoli, with Ferdinando Fuga inaugurating the critique of Emanuel Rodriguez Dos Santos’ scheme (1748). Sacchetti was indeed fortunate to be given the task of completing the new Royal Palace, but his lack of experience and recognition made him an easy target, especially for Annibale Scotti, the unofficial guardian of Italian taste in Bourbon Spain. As secretary and confidante of Elizabeth Farnese, Scotti began to question Sacchetti’s scheme in 1741-42, sending drawings of the palace to Cardinal Aquaviva in Rome with the aim of having architects from the Roman academy review them. Scotti’s criticisms were based on the functional distribution of spaces within the plan as well as the overall visual composition.
The dictamen from Rome, received on July 5, 1742, was largely insubstantial, as Fuga, Salvi, and Vanvitelli approved of the scheme in general, making only minor criticisms regarding the thickness of the exterior walls, and the two staircases flanking the entrance, which they suggested should be enlarged. The placement of the Chapel between the two staircases on the piano nobile was also discussed with the suggestion that it be moved to an external location with a separate atrium entrance or vestibule. A more contentious point concerned the excessive number and scale of columns on the principal fagade, as they were deemed too costly and unnecessary. Perhaps the most damaging remark by the three Roman architects was that they felt Sacchetti’s scheme was too small and that it lacked sufficient grandeur for a royal palace. A single courtyard for a palace of that magnitude was simply insufficient, particularly considering Juvarra’s earlier scheme. The critiques certainly made Sacchetti’s task increasingly challenging, particularly in light of Philip’s insistence that Juvarra’s scheme be reduced. The solution would prove to be both less and more, keeping in mind that the foundation stone noted that the new Royal Palace was constructed to last for eternity (Plaza Santiago 1975: 91).
Shortly thereafter on August 3, 1745, Fuga and his Roman colleagues reviewed a new sectional drawing of the royal staircase produced by Sacchetti, after Annibale Scotti and his preferred architect Santiago Bonavia - who at the same time was developing the principal staircase at Aranjuez - insisted that the design be further reconsidered (Sancho 1991b). Juvarra’s original proposal consisted of a magnificent double staircase flanking the cross axis, in a rectangular three flight configuration typical of Spanish Imperial staircases (Wilkinson-Zerner 1975). Sacchetti proposed two theatrical twin-facing staircases flanking the central axis of the palace, the one on the right leading to the King’s quarters and the one on the left to those of the Queen (an idea proposed by Scotti based on Juvarra’s earlier proposal). Each staircase would have a nine-bay configuration with a central landing and symmetrical switchbacks leading to nine exit points each, all beneath a great vaulted space pierced by oval windows. Though the Roman architects viewed Sacchetti’s staircase favorably, debates continued, and in 1746 Philip V requested a competition to determine a conclusive solution. This time the arbiter of taste would be the directors of the soon-to-be-established academy in Madrid, Gian Domenico
Olivieri, Giacomo Pavia, and Frangois Carlier, following the pattern of the Roman academy. Even Vanvitelli submitted his own scheme for the project around this time, though his sketch drawing is undated and is not mentioned in his letters until 1758 when he was already well established in Naples as Carlo di Borbone’s principal architect for the Royal Palace at Caserta (Sancho 1991b: 221). The directors of the Real Accademia de Bellas Artes reviewed the various schemes and settled on Sacchetti’s proposal and Ferdinand VI approved the decision on December 2, 1746.
The magnificent twin stairwells were slowly executed and the individual flights were installed temporarily in wood so that the King could appreciate the results. Nevertheless, by the time of Ferdinand VI’s death in 1759, the stairs remained incomplete. Strangely, Charles III was dissatisfied with the configuration of the stairs and ordered his architect, Francesco Sabbatini, to construct a single triple flight stair like the one Luigi Vanvitelli had constructed for him at Caserta. Charles stipulated that the stair be on the left of the palace’s central axis and that a guard room be located at the top of the stair, leading to a great ballroom that would occupy the well of the twin stair. The guard room would also provide access to the King’s audience room overlooking the main fagade of the palace. Charles IV flipped the stair to the right of the central axis and turned the guard room into a ballroom (the Halberdiers hall), a solution which remains today. This space in turn led to a monumental hall of columns in the empty well of the twin staircase which would have led to the Queens quarters in Sacchetti’s original proposal. The royal staircase was flanked on the ground floor by a great niche containing a monumental statue of Charles III dressed in Roman military victory (Sancho and Suffield 2004: 61-3; Allende 2010: 8-9). The larger than life statue of Charles standing contrapposto was carved by the French sculptor Pierre-Joseph Michel, the brother of Clodion (Claude Michel), in 1791, and reminds the viewer how much the new Royal Palace in Madrid, like the Escorial, is indebted to Greco-Roman antiquity.
El Escorial and El Pardo
The royal monastery and palace of the Escorial built by Philip II in 1563-84, which later served as a pantheon for the Spanish Hapsburg dynasty, remained an important property under the Bourbons, and in the late summer and autumn, the entire court moved there for about six weeks (Kamen 2001: 138).5 Neither Philip V nor Ferdinand VI patronized the Escorial in any meaningful way; the great monastery would have to wait until the reign of Charles III before a new town would complete the site. The palace and hunting lodge of El Pardo just outside of Madrid was the popular hunting park for both the Hapsburgs and Bourbons. Philip V commissioned Frangois Antoine Carlier (1707-50), the son of the French architect Rene Carlier to design a new royal chapel for the palace and adjoining town. Expansion of the town of El Pardo commenced at this time, though it was not until
Charles III that the majority of the work was completed. In the meantime however, Philip began to build his own private retreat in 1720, the new palace of San Ildefonso “La Granja” in the hills south of Segovia near Valsain, replacing the Pardo as the preferred destination in late summer and autumn.
The Palace of San Ildefonso La Granja
In 1720, Philip V ordered the purchase of a site just north of Madrid in the foothills near Segovia that served as a recreational granja (grange) for the Jeronymite Order of El Parral, to build a small retreat dedicated to San Ildefonso (Bottineau 1986a: 417 ff.; Rodriguez Ruiz et al. 2000; Callejo Delgado and Lorrio 1996). As early as 1717, the new monarch had become increasingly more religious. The tireless duties of managing his kingdom after an exhausting war had depleted him of his youthful energy, and like many of his Hapsburg predecessors, salvation became his most persistent obsession (Vazquez Gestal 2013: 279 ff.). That, coupled with the deaths of his father Louis, the Dauphin of France (1711), his wife Marie Louise (1714), his brother Charles, Duke of Berry (1714), and grandfather, Louis XIV (1715), increased his desire for privacy and prayer. Therefore, the original plan was to occupy the rustic farm structure of the Jeronymite monastery of El Parral and transform its rectangular plan and courtyard into a modest residence.
On July 27, 1720, Philip and Elizabeth signed a joint document declaring their intention to renounce the throne as early as 1723, and retire to a life of modesty and piety. In 1724, Philip would abdicate in favor of his eldest son Luis (1707-24) from his first marriage to Marie Louise of Savoy. Unfortunately the young prince would only last seven months on the throne, dying prematurely from smallpox (Kamen 2001: 147-50). After that, Philip resumed the throne and remained in place until his death in 1746. At this point, a significant change in the character of La Granja emerged. The modest retirement residence that Philip began in 1720 slowly evolved into a vast pleasure palace with gardens and a town to house the royal retinue and workers on the future estate.
The original construction of the royal residence began to a design by Teodoro Ardemans (Corral 1974; Moya 1984). His plan, a gridiron with a main central court, corner towers and a chapel along the central axis, recalls the schema of sixteenth-century Spanish Habsburg alcazars, if not more conspicuously the nearby Jeronymite monastery of the Escorial (Chueca Goitia 1983 [1966]: 222). The plan is certainly curious, as Philip V inherited the monarchical ideal from his grandfather Louis XIV, and implemented a political program in Spain that was decisively French from the beginning, a contrast to the prevailing Hapsburg model (Bottineau 1986a: 181-225; Rodriguez Ruiz 2000: 313-2). That the Escorial served Philip better than Versailles not only underscored the Spanish predilection for Royal monasteries over palaces, but also signaled a shift in the perception of the Escorial from a Hapsburg monastery and residence to a national icon and appropriate symbol for the new Bourbon dynasty. It also highlights how culturally
Spain was not France, nor would she yield to French taste in matters of art and architecture. In any event, the alcazar-monastery hybrid fitted Philip’s desire for restraint much better than the idea of a new Versailles.
Between 1724 and 1734, a second stage of construction initiated by Elizabeth Farnese came under the direction of the Roman painter and architect Andrea Procaccini, who converted the old-fashioned alcazar into a scenic Late Baroque palace, open to newly-planned gardens with courtyards and loggias (Bottineau 1986a: 450 ff.; Garms 2000). Procaccini had trained at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome as a painter, though he would have been familiar with contemporary trends in Roman architecture. His scheme for the palace expansion, including the notable horse-shoe-shaped Patio de la Herradura and the oval terminus to the collegiate chapel, brought an eclectic mix of late seventeenth - and early eighteenth-century architectural trends to the distinctively Spanish alcazar (Garms 2000). The central section of the Patio was modeled on Serlio’s treatment of the courtyard at Ancy-le-Franc, and incorporated decorative details that would have easily been found in Domenico de Rossi’s recently published Studio d’architettura civile (Rome 1702-21), combining both Berninian and Borrominian influences with those of the more recent architects Carlo Fontana and Filippo Juvarra (Figure 6.3). Procaccini also transformed Ardemans’ basilican church into a Greek cross with an apsidal terminus flanked by twin towers and an octagonal dome above the crossing (Figure 6.4). The new apsidal fagade - recalling Bernini’s treatment of the apse of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome - was also similar to the more recently published proposal for the collegiate church in Salzburg by Johann Bernhard Fisher von Erlach. Additionally, a large rectangular plaza flanked by administrative buildings was laid out in front of the palace creating a much more monumental court of honor arrival, and providing a decidedly religious face to the otherwise secular palace (Callejo Delgado and Lorrio 1996: 28-33). If Ardemans’ scheme was Spanish Hapsburg to the core, the new additions departed from radically different models, combining French and Italian urban, architectural, and landscape typologies with ornate classical decorative vocabularies to create a composite new whole. The new synthetic palace perfectly captured the Bourbon family’s dynastic and nationalistic intentions, marrying Hapsburg precedent with international style to create a seamless transition from one century and monarchy to the next, however fragmented and contradictory it may have appeared in reality.
In 1735 Filippo Juvarra, who had come to Spain to work on the new Royal Palace in Madrid, completed the eastern fagade of La Granja facing the gardens by designing a monumental, scenic frontispiece (Bottineau 1986a: 556 ff; Ortega and Sancho 1994; Bonet Correa 1998: 17-63). The construction of the new fagade, completed by Juvarra’s successor Sacchetti, continued the additive and incremental pattern of design at the palace, resulting in the demolition of the two eastern towers of Ardemans’ alcazar, as well as the modernization and decorative embellishment of the gardenfacing suites (Figure 6.5). Therefore, when seen in its entirety, La Granja
Figure 6.3 Andrea Procaccini, Patio de la Herradura, Palace of San Ildefonso, La Granja. Photo by author.
Figure 6.4 Andrea Procaccini, Colegiata, Palace of San Ildefonso, La Granja. Photo by author.
Figure 6.5 Filippo Juvarra et al., garden facade, Palace of San Ildefonso, La Granja. Photo by author.
Accurately lives up to its well-known description by George Kubler (1957: 201) as “Spanish in its nucleus, French in its landscape setting, and Italian in its decoration and ornament.”
Riofrto
With Philip V’s death in 1746, Elizabeth Farnese’s privileged position was quickly restricted by Ferdinand VI and his wife Barbara of Braganza. The dowager Queen retired to the palace of San Ildefonso La Granja. However, as Philip’s mausoleum was being erected within the collegiate chapel at La Granja, it was necessary for the new monarchs to visit the royal palace on occasion. It is well-known that the widowed Queen’s relations with Ferdinand and Barbara were poor. This spurred Elizabeth to build her own private retreat nearby in Riofrio from 1752, to designs from the Italian architect Virgilio Rabaglio, a project approved by Ferdinand VI (Bottineau 1986b: 268-72; Sancho and Aparicio 2000: 86-93). The palace (Figure 6.6) Was in many ways a product of the Queen’s secretary, the Marchese Scotti, who had previously intervened at Aranjuez and the new Royal Palace in Madrid. Its square plan with a courtyard is similar to the palace in Madrid, but also recalls the parmesan equivalents of Colorno and Piacenza. But here the twin flight staircases facing each other, and the placement of the chapel at the far wing opposite the stairs, are a reflection of what Scotti had originally intended for the new Royal Palace in Madrid and which Sacchetti ultimately provided. Elizabeth never resided at Riofrio as her son Carlo di Borbone assumed the throne of Spain as Charles III in 1759 before the palace was complete and, moreover, her new position as Queen Mother allowed her to return to the capital triumphantlY.6 Despite its limited use, the palace of Riofrio remains perhaps the best example of an Italian palazzo in Spain.
Figure 6.6 Virgilio Rabaglio, Palacio Real de Riofrio (1752-59). Photo by author.
While it would be a stretch to draw any politically overt associations with King Solomon in any of the Bourbon palaces, or with Philip V and Ferdinand VI as father and son kings similar to the Hapsburgs Charles V and Philip II, the similarities can at times seem uncanny. Philip V, who reigned twice, was a David-like ruler in his first term and Solomonic wise king in his second. Similarly, Philip V started the new Royal Palace in Madrid, a project that his son Ferdinand VI completed during a reign marked by peace and prosperity. Finally, both monarchs would patronize many works of art in which Solomonic imagery was conspicuous, however much it may have been associated with the previous Hapsburg dynasty. So Kubler’s assertion that royal building is in itself characteristic of Solomon continued to resonate throughout the eighteenth century, and here too the link with Rome was unmistakable.
World History
