Palacio de la Conquista: A Renaissance Pizarro Palace in Trujillo, Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Spanish
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page10 sections
History
Palacio de la Conquista is a sixteenth-century Spanish Renaissance palace in Trujillo, Spain, built for the Pizarro family on the site of Captain Gonzalo Pizarro’s ancestral house. Gonzalo was the father of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador who led the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru. The palace reflects the family’s position after that conquest and occupies a prominent place in Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor.
Foundation and construction
Hernando Pizarro, Francisco’s brother, and his wife and niece, Francisca Pizarro Yupanqui, acquired two adjoining properties for the project. Francisca was Francisco Pizarro’s daughter. The undertaking followed Francisco’s instructions in his will to establish a church and chaplaincy in Trujillo, the city of his birth. Work began in 1562, while the initial building phase is dated 1561 to 1571. A substantial part of the palace stood by June 1571, but litigation suspended construction for eight years. The complex was completed in 1580, two years after Hernando Pizarro’s death.
The arcades along the former Carnicerías street, now Hernando Pizarro Street, accommodated butcher stalls on market days. Their maintenance became the subject of prolonged disputes between the Pizarro family and the municipal council. The palace was valued at 20,000 ducats. Its later name came from the marquisate of La Conquista, a title revalidated under that name in 1631 and granted to the Pizarro family for its leading role in the conquest of Peru.
Later use and preservation
By the eighteenth century, the palace had deteriorated so severely that it threatened to collapse. Architect Manuel de Lara Churriguera restored the building, including important changes to the gallery facing the square. The marquises of La Conquista lived there until Jacinto Orellana Pizarro y Díaz died in 1899. Their relatives, the counts of Trespalacios, then occupied the palace until 1910.
During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the building housed a secondary school. In the Spanish Civil War, the conflict that divided Spain between 1936 and 1939, it served as barracks for several army units. It was later occupied by the Women’s Section of the Falange Española Tradicionalista, the ruling political organization under Francisco Franco. In the 1970s, the Directorate-General of Fine Arts repaired the roof and part of the upper floor, after which the palace acquired various cultural and social uses. It was declared a monument and placed under Spanish cultural-heritage protection on November 27, 1987, as Casa-palacio del Marqués de la Conquista.
Remains
Facades and corner balcony
Palacio de la Conquista is a robust Renaissance civil building made from regularly cut granite blocks, known as ashlar. It has four floors and an attic, with two principal open facades. The north facade faces the Plaza Mayor, while the east facade faces Hernando Pizarro Street, formerly Carnicerías. A smaller south facade also survives. Horizontal projecting bands, or stringcourses, divide the two lower floors, and the windows have lintels. Wrought-iron grilles with elaborate detailing and heraldic finials, dating from the building’s construction, enclose numerous openings.
The north facade has a porticoed gallery opening onto the square. Its five semicircular arches originally rested on columns, which Manuel de Lara Churriguera reinforced and converted into the present granite piers. Twelve granite statues stand on brackets and bases along the cornice. Their subjects have been interpreted as virtues and vices or as the months of the year.
Corner balcony
The palace’s most prominent feature is a large corner balcony in the richly ornamented Plateresque manner, a Spanish style developed during the transition from Gothic to Renaissance architecture. Its opening has Renaissance coffering and is framed by paired baluster columns. Busts of Francisco Pizarro, the Inca princess Inés Yupanqui, their daughter Francisca, and Hernando Pizarro occupy the spaces between the columns.
A large coat of arms granted by Charles V crowns the balcony. Charles V was the sixteenth-century Habsburg king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, so the grant expressed royal authorization and honor. The arms combine allegorical motifs associated with the conquest of Peru with the Pizarro family’s pine and two rampant bears. The balcony rests on a strong granite pilaster topped by tritons supporting a Pizarro shield. Additional stone Pizarro coats of arms appear across the lower facade and within the iron grilles.
Entrance and courtyard
Entrance vestibule
The principal entrance opens beneath the portico through a segmental arch bearing another family shield. It leads into a large vestibule where part of the earlier facade of Gonzalo Pizarro’s house remains visible. This earlier fabric includes a window with an ogee arch. The vestibule also gives access to the stables, which have a barrel vault like the cellar, and to the interior courtyard.
Interior courtyard
Slender columns organize the courtyard and the rooms around it. A staircase to the upper floor is displayed above a basket-handle arch. The courtyard also contains several arrow slits and a cistern. Its first-floor balustraded loggia, an open-sided gallery, projects over the space and is supported by a broad lowered arch.
Interior decoration and circulation
The interior chambers have groin or hipped vaults. On the first floor, three halls retain wooden coffered ceilings decorated with numerous Inca motifs. Sgraffito murals, made by cutting through one layer of plaster to expose another, and period fireplaces with heraldic designs add to the interior decoration. These designs continue artistically above the roofline. Three spiral staircases provide access to the remaining floors.
