The Palace of Liria: walls with art, corridors with History
In the heart of Madrid , in a street of a busy artery of the capital, only the golden tips of a black fence suggest the treasure they guard . The leafy bushes prevent us from seeing that inside stands the Liria Palace with all its noble elegance, a mansion that could make many museums pale for the dazzling art collection that hangs on their walls.
Surrounded by gardens, this 18th century palace , opened its doors to the public a month ago ( on September 19 ) to show the artistic legacy of the House of Alba , one of the most traditional dynasties of the Spanish aristocracy.
“Virtually all available slots are booked in October and few places left for november . We are already giving out tickets for December and January”, explains to Traveler the cultural director of the Casa de Alba Foundation, Álvaro Romero , who claims to be very satisfied with the response to this proposal, which brings together a collection of unexpected and surprising category with works by Rubens, Fra Angelico, Velázquez, Brueghel, El Greco, Zurbarán, Murillo or Ribera , just to name a few teachers.
Rubens, Fra Angelico, Velázquez, Brueghel, El Greco, Zurbarán, Murillo or Ribera, adorn the walls of the Palace of Liria
The building, which was completely rebuilt in the second half of the 20th century after having been reduced to rubble in a bombing in 1936, during the Civil War , also houses a library with priceless treasures such as a 15th century bible, the first to be translated into Spanish, the last testament of King Ferdinand the Catholic either a second edition of Don Quixote, dating from 1605 , the same year that Cervantes' novel was published, as well as an extensive collection of manuscripts of Christopher Columbus, among other treasures and curiosities.
It is estimated that some 80,000 people can visit this neoclassical-style palace every year, which in its day came to rival the Royal Palace.
For 14 euros you can access one of the most elegant private residences in Spain. And making simple mathematical calculations, in this way the House of Alba, whose highest representative is currently the Duke Charles Fitz-James Stuart , you can get to enter more than a million euros, money clearly necessary to maintain the rich artistic legacy in which the protagonists are not only the great masters of European painting but also the ancestors of this aristocratic family.
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"This palace has 250 years approximately , but not only 250 years of history appear, but the 600 years of a family . It is a mainly family collection. There are works of Titian, Goya, Rubens, but some of them are portraits of his ancestors. That's the differentiator. Romero insists.
The origins of the family go back to the Middle Ages , but the first title of Duke of Alba was granted in the 15th century to García Álvarez de Toledo , when the King Henry IV of Castile he made the county of Alba de Tormes a dukedom.
This Castilian nobleman and military man, who can be seen on one of the canvases in the collection, inaugurated a dynasty that, being a courtesan, attained great power , accumulated numerous titles through marriages and orbited around the great European royal houses , as is evident in the artistic collection that inaugurates a portrait of Mary Stuart, the queen of Scots who was beheaded.
The great dining room (still in use) of the Palacio de Liria
And the kinship and alliances with great figures in history is what makes this legacy so special. One of the most outstanding figures of this lineage is the Grand Duke of Alba Fernando Álvarez de Toledo (1507-1582), prominent military man and politician who served Charles V and Philip II.
In the room dedicated to the figure of him and also decorated with armor of the time you can see the one who was the third Duke of Alba with all the gravity of the historical weight of him in the portrait signed by Titian.
In that same room, some large tapestries made testify to the military campaigns led by the Grand Duke and that strengthened the Spanish empire in Europe. His ferocity in battle made Álvarez de Toledo end up becoming legend in the netherlands , where the children, instead of being told that Coco would come if they didn't fall asleep, were told that the Duke of Alba would come to take them away.
Between paintings and family photographs, the 600 years of the Alba dynasty are counted
If Titian immortalized the most powerful Duke of Alba, Francisco de Goya passed down to posterity the thirteenth heiress of the title, Cayetana, that she was one of the first patrons of the brilliant Aragonese painter. The artist has his own salon in the palace, where all the furniture and objects are from the 18th century.
However, it is another Cayetana, the mother of the current Duke, the omnipresent star of the place. The Duchess of Alba , who died almost five years ago, she was portrayed on canvas by Zuloaga , but photos of her in which she can be seen accompanied by jackie kennedy or with the now emeritus kings, among others, they catch more eyes.
Uncrowned queen of coated paper, especially in the last decades of the last century, the duchess continued to honor the tradition of the palace as the center of social, cultural and political life.
Hall of the Palace of Liria
One of the clearly visible photos on the route is the one dedicated to him by the former President Felipe González to the Duchess . Curiously, there are no more images of other heads of government.
Precisely, they are the numerous photos distributed in practically all the halls on vintage furniture those that evoke the homely memory of a palace that was always a residence.
“Liria is a palace, but above all it is a house ”, points out the voice of the audio guide before the main staircase covered with a soft carpet to remind you that you are entering a private residence in operation.
Liria Palace seen from the gardens
That is the reason why the visits take place in a group of maximum 20 people and they go guarded by two guards that, with careful and elegant ways, are in charge of showing the visitor where do you have to look while listening to the explanation of the works offered by the audio guide.
On the frieze of the main staircase, a phrase from Cicero engraved in Latin sums up the spirit that has held this impressive private collection together: “ For the immortal gods whose will was not only that I inherit these things from my ancestors, but also pass them on to descendants ”.
At least now the rest of the mortals can also see it.
The great main staircase with Cicero's phrase in the Palace of Liria