Castell Palau d’Arbeca: A Renaissance Castle-Palace in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Aragon, Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Castell Palau d’Arbeca is a castle-palace in Arbeca, Spain, rebuilt in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in the final Gothic and early Renaissance periods. It stood on the summit of the hill above the town, at the southeastern edge of the Garrigues region, and became the habitual residence of the powerful House of Cardona.
From barony to the House of Cardona
In 1156, Berenguer de Tarroja, counsellor to Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona, obtained jurisdiction over Arbeca, probably through a grant from the count. The castle is first mentioned in 1225, in the will of Guillem Roca. Berenguer’s son Ramon inherited the fief as a barony and later left it to his son Hug, lord of Solsona.
Hug eventually transferred the baronies of Arbeca and Tarroja to his niece Agnès de Tarroja. Her marriage in 1218 to Ramon Folc IV of Cardona, son and successor of Viscount Guillem de Cardona, brought the lordship of Arbeca into the possessions of the House of Cardona. The Cardonas made Arbeca their regular residence and remained there until the seventeenth century. The dukes of Medinaceli then succeeded them as lords of Arbeca and retained the lordship until the end of the old regime.
The Cardona castle-palace
The castle-palace that survived into the nineteenth century was constructed during the transition from the final Gothic period to the Renaissance. Work began in 1475 on the orders of Count Joan Ramon Folc III of Cardona and continued through the first third of the sixteenth century. The Montblanc stonemason Master Miquel worked on the project in 1497, followed by the stonemason Domènec Llopis in 1501. Repeated construction, remodelling, and rebuilding involved master builders, stonemasons, carpenters, and other craftsmen, including a continuous presence of builders from France.
A detailed inventory compiled in 1553 listed the rooms and working areas within the fortress. The castle hosted important figures, among them Archduke Philip the Fair and King Philip II. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, travellers and nobles praised its scale and beauty. A legendary tradition claimed that it had as many windows as there were days in the year, each fitted with a gilded grille.
Warfare, decline, and demolition
The castle’s military importance continued during the War of the Reapers, a mid-seventeenth-century revolt and war in Catalonia. Arbeca was fortified during the conflict and was conquered in 1646 by the Marquis of Leganés on behalf of King Philip IV. The castle also appears to have played an important part in the War of the Spanish Succession, the European conflict of 1701 to 1714 over the Spanish crown.
The castle began to deteriorate after the dukes of Medinaceli acquired the lordship, although it remained standing until the mid-nineteenth century. In 1845, the politician and geographer Pascual Madoz described its surviving walls, towers, and other structures as still being in good condition. The Duke of Medinaceli sold the castle in 1851, after which it was almost entirely demolished so that its regularly cut stone blocks could be reused.
Later construction further damaged the surviving remains. Municipal water tanks were built on the site in 1898, followed by a village school in 1945. The castle’s layout is preserved in mid-seventeenth-century engravings by the French military engineer and draughtsman Sébastien de Pontault de Beaulieu and in a 1919 plan by the architect Josep M. Vives i Castellet for the Mancomunitat de Catalunya’s Monument Cataloguing and Conservation Service. Castell Palau d’Arbeca is protected as a Cultural Asset of National Interest and as a Spanish cultural-interest monument under reference RI-51-0006240.
Remains
The castle was a large Renaissance complex arranged around a central quadrangular core. Circular towers occupied its four corners, while a large square keep, the principal fortified tower and a major defensive and residential element, stood at the centre. Several quadrangular spaces surrounded a large central courtyard, and another series of buildings extended along the entire western side. The principal entrance crossed a moat by a drawbridge, a movable bridge used to control access, and led through the Portal of the Three Kings.
Towers and perimeter walls
Northeastern tower
The best-preserved structure is the northeastern tower, a large circular tower with a battered base, meaning that its lower wall slopes outward to strengthen the structure. It is built of carefully worked limestone ashlar, or regularly shaped dressed stone blocks, bonded with mortar. The tower preserves the beginnings of the northern and eastern walls forming the castle’s central perimeter.
Southern towers and surviving wall sections
Only limited remains are visible elsewhere. They include parts of the foundations of the southern towers, a section of the wall joining them, the base or plinth of another tower, and portions of the lower walls, whose battered form survives in places. Part of the perimeter wall also remains. Some sections have been pierced, while sheds and storage buildings have been inserted into or built against the wall.
Interior spaces and parish church
Castle rooms
The 1553 inventory gives a picture of the complex’s internal organization. It lists chambers, storerooms, stables, ovens, cellars, a wardrobe, a kitchen, a dining room, a chapel, and other rooms within the fortress. All visible fortification remains belong to the sixteenth-century phase or to periods immediately before or after it.
Church of Sant Jaume
One of the quadrangular spaces around the central courtyard contained the Church of Sant Jaume. It served as Arbeca’s parish church until its destruction in the early eighteenth century during the War of the Spanish Succession.
