Sintra National Palace: A Historic Royal Residence in Portugal
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Portugal
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Portuguese
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page15 sections
History
Sintra National Palace is a historic royal residence in Sintra, Portugal, whose present form grew from a castle used by Islamic rulers and was shaped chiefly by Portuguese Gothic, Manueline, Moorish, and Mudéjar building campaigns from the fourteenth to early sixteenth centuries. Also known as the Town Palace, it is regarded as the best-preserved medieval royal residence in Portugal and remained occupied more or less continuously from at least the early fifteenth century until the late nineteenth century.
Islamic Origins and the Portuguese Conquest
The palace originated as one of two castles in Sintra during the period of Al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled territories of Iberia that began with the Umayyad conquest in the eighth century. It served as the urban residence of the Islamic rulers of the Taifa of Lisbon, a small medieval Islamic principality. The earliest recorded mention of the castle appears in the tenth-century writings of the Arab geographer Al-Bakri.
Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, conquered Sintra in the twelfth century and took the castle for royal use. No structures from the period of Moorish rule or from the reigns of Portugal’s first kings survive at the palace. The Royal Chapel, possibly built during the reign of King Dinis I in the early fourteenth century, is the earliest surviving part of the complex, whose foundation is dated to that century.
The João I Building Campaign
King João I began a major construction campaign around 1415. Most of the buildings around the central courtyard belong to this phase and form the Ala Joanina, or John’s Wing. João I’s son, King Duarte I, spent long periods at the palace and left a written description of its development and use. His account indicates that much of his father’s construction had changed little after it was completed.
The palace was closely connected with the Portuguese monarchy during the fifteenth century. King Afonso V was born there in 1432 and died there in 1481. His successor, King João II, was acclaimed king of Portugal at the palace.
The Manuel I Campaign and Later Royal Use
King Manuel I sponsored a second major building campaign between 1497 and 1530. Wealth associated with overseas exploratory expeditions during the Age of Discoveries, the period of Portuguese and European maritime expansion from the fifteenth century onward, helped finance this work. The campaign established much of the palace’s present structure and decoration, including the Ala Manuelina, or Manuel’s Wing.
Portuguese kings continued to occupy the palace intermittently during the later monarchy. Additional paintings, tile panels, furniture, and other interior furnishings were added over time. After being deposed by his brother Pedro II, King Afonso VI was confined at the residence from 1676 until his death in 1683. Queen Maria I redecorated and redivided rooms in the Ala Manuelina near the end of the eighteenth century.
Sintra became a favored royal residence again during the nineteenth century. Queen Amélie of Orléans, queen consort of Portugal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was especially attached to the palace and made several drawings of it.
Earthquake, Restoration, and Heritage Status
The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 damaged the palace. The greatest loss was the collapse of the tower above the Arab Room, after which the building was restored in an intentionally old-fashioned manner. Following the foundation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910, the palace became a national monument. It received the designation of Portuguese National Monument on 16 June 1910.
In the 1940s, architect Raul Lino directed a restoration intended to recover the palace’s former appearance. The work included the restoration of tile panels and the introduction of old furniture transferred from other palaces. Sintra National Palace now functions as a historic house museum and forms part of the Cultural Landscape of Sintra, which was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
Remains
The surviving palace combines Gothic, Manueline, Moorish, and Mudéjar elements. Most of its architectural character comes from the fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century campaigns. The complex is organized around courtyards and includes the Ala Joanina around much of the central courtyard, the Ala Manuelina to the right of the main façade, the Royal Chapel, ceremonial rooms, kitchens, and decorated interiors. Original tiled floors remain alongside later paintings, tile panels, furniture, and other furnishings.
Wings and Courtyards
The Ala Joanina contains the palace’s principal façade, with entrance arches and paired mullioned windows known as biforas. Its spaces include terraces, the chapel, kitchens, rooms for state affairs, and areas associated with scribes, secretaries, and dispatches. The Ala Manuelina has characteristic Manueline windows and contributes much of the palace’s ornate Portuguese Gothic-Renaissance appearance. Courtyards in the early wing are decorated with tiles and Islamic-style water pools. Polychrome ceramic tiles, or azulejos, specially produced in Seville for Manuel I, cover other rooms in multicoloured panels using Mudéjar motifs, meaning Islamic artistic patterns retained or revived in Christian Iberia.
Chapel and Decorated Interiors
Royal Chapel
The Royal Chapel has a tiled floor whose apse, the semi-circular sanctuary end, is arranged to resemble a carpet. Patterned squares cover the walls, including designs depicting the Holy Ghost descending as a dove. Above them, the wooden ceiling carries geometrically patterned Moorish latticework.
Swan Room
The Swan Room is decorated in the Manueline style and takes its name from the painted swans on its ceiling. Thirty birds are depicted. They symbolize the house of Philip the Good, the fifteenth-century duke of Burgundy, and correspond to the stated age of Infanta Isabel of Portugal, a son or daughter of a Portuguese or Spanish monarch who was not the heir apparent, to whom Philip was betrothed.
Magpie Room
The Magpie Room has painted magpies on its ceiling and frieze. Each bird holds the emblem por bem, meaning “for honour,” in its beak. The decoration contains 136 magpies, corresponding to the number of women said to have been at the court.
Arab Room
The Arab Room is covered with azulejos and contains a Moorish-style fountain at its centre. The room was damaged in the 1755 earthquake when the tower above it collapsed, and its history remains tied to the earthquake repairs that shaped the palace’s later appearance.
Palace Kitchens
The palace kitchens consist of two large rooms, each with a wall of ovens and cooking stoves. Instead of conventional ceilings, the rooms are topped by two enormous conical chimneys that taper toward their summits.
Coat of Arms Room
The Coat of Arms Room is a Manueline interior devoted to the heraldic symbols of Portugal’s royal and noble families. Its wooden, coffered domed ceiling displays 72 coats of arms associated with the king and the principal Portuguese noble families. The coat of arms of the Távora family was later removed after the family’s conspiracy against King Joseph I.
Historic Furnishings and Tilework
The interiors preserve original tiled floors together with paintings, tile panels, furniture, and other decorative additions from later periods of royal occupation. The restoration directed by Raul Lino in the 1940s restored tile panels and brought historic furniture from other palaces into the complex, contributing to the appearance presented by the house museum today.
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