Description
The Vizconde de Los Villares Palace in Los Villares (Province of Jaén, Spain) is the only civil building that coetanea to the foundation of the town in the 16th century. It is called by the villariegos "Casa Grande," for its notorious largest size to the rest of the house, or "Casa del Vizconde," for having belonged to the family of Don Francisco Zeballos and Villegas, first viscount of Los Villares.
It is a solarium house that follows the Spanish rural Renaissance models and the high Andalusia, of petreous facades, articulated around an intellized courtyard shaped by a wood-bearing structure of jácenas, beautiful shoes and right feet of considerable plastic and artisan value and open on its main facade by an elegant high gallery of half-point arches.
The built volume, which rests on a basement with stone vaults, is of two floors communicated by a staircase that starts from a corner of the courtyard. The walls are of ripian and tapial of remarkable thickness; the forging of rolls and in the configuration of the main courtyard were used jácenas of large squadría. The cover system is also woody, with chandelier and limas under Arab tile.
In the center of the construction is the main courtyard, with another secondary or garden in the back. The main courtyard, with a square floor, is visually reduced from its original proportions by adding partitions that allowed to protect two of the galleries and to enable a third room, leaving today only the northern panda. As a result of these changes, the elements of wood were altered, among which the large zapatas with the decoration of volts, spirals, crosses, etc. They are also to mention some cassette doors.
From the north-east angle of the courtyard starts the staircase, of a single stretch, covered by an orange half decorated with central floron and supported by pechines decorated by small heads of cherubim in plaster. The top of the staircase offers a flat double arch of a half-point cut that separates a factory machon.
The first floor has rooms for bedrooms with plaster shells on the entrance lintel. On the second floor there are three cameras, including the one that offers the façade to the Garden Street, open with a gallery of eight half-point arches.
The cover, located under that plunder, is high and sober and is shaped by simple Tuscan pilasters that flank the inintered vain.
