Centro Cultural Palacio de Villardompardo

Museum

Plaza Sta. Luisa de Marillac. 23004, Jaén How to get

The Palacio de Villardompardo Cultural Center rests on what was the Palace of the First Count of Villardompardo and Viceroy of Peru, Don Fernando de Torres y Portugal, a Renaissance building from the 16th century, located in the very heart of the old town of Jaén.

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During the seventeenth century and until the middle of the eighteenth, the Palace was used as a bank, proof of this are the two inscriptions on the walls of the central courtyard.

At the end of the 18th century, the building was acquired by the Royal Hospice Board, passing it to the Provincial Charity and settling in it, the Hospice for Women.

At the beginning of the 19th century, modifications were made to the property, among which is the remodeling of the entrance door of the Palace, replacing the previously existing one and placing an inscription in white marble edged with gray stone on its lintel.

Likewise, on both sides of this inscription, two shields were placed: to the right, that of Bishop Fray Benito Marín (1751-1769); and to the left, the shield of Castile.

In 1868, when the Provincial Benefit Boards were abolished, the directive and administrative functions of the charitable establishments became the responsibility of the Provincial Councils, in this way, the building became part of the patrimony of the Provincial Institution. Between 1901 and 1903 the Hospice was expanded, demolishing some houses adjacent to the Palace for this purpose. This extension includes the construction of a Chapel adjacent to the building, inaugurated in 1903 under the invocation of "The Visitation".

In 1939 the center was renamed the Santa Teresa Boarding School and functioned as a residence for the elderly of both sexes and chronically ill until the second half of the 20th century, in this way, with the transfer of the chronically ill in 1971 to San Juan de Dios and the from the elderly in 1972 to the new Santa Teresa Residence, the building was left empty. In those years, the restoration works of the Arab Baths located in the basements of the Palace began, as well as the rehabilitation of the entire building, works that would end in 1984 and that were awarded that same year with the Medal of Honor from the Europa Nostra Association.

The central courtyard of the Palace is made up of a square with thick walls into which the windows and doors of different rooms open. Inside this square there is another one formed by a colonnaded gallery on two levels, with three columns on each side and a total of eight columns on each of the two levels.

For the construction of the gallery on the lower level or floor, the chosen Order was the Tuscan one, applying very slightly lowered semicircular arches. Four arches rest on the four corner columns: the two largest, form the angle of the gallery; the two smaller ones are attached to the perimeter wall, turning into “palm tree” columns, a solution that had been used by the Muslim builder who had built the great Temperate Room of the underlying Arab Baths. In the same way, the architect of the Palace used a constructive structure identical to that used in the Baths: for the columns and capitals he used stone and for the arches and spandrels the chosen material was brick.

Regarding the gallery of the upper level or floor, although it presents a similar scheme to that of the lower floor, it presents modifications, since a variant of the Tuscan Order was chosen. Both the columns and the arches are lower in height than those located on the lower level. Currently, the intercolumniations of this level are closed with a wooden balustrade railing.