Granada, Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Sue N. had found a tour company that offered tours of the Alhambra, including the Palacios Nazaries; she had booked a tour for us yesterday, but got only a “Pending” message, so we had no idea whether we’d be able to return or not. We awoke today, though, to find our tickets for a 3 PM tour…which made our day.
First stop, though, was Granada’s cathedral itself. The cathedral apparently looks like this when the tower is not being restored (we looked out on a wrapped tower from our hotel).
The cathedral looks very different from most Spanish cathedrals, since it was started much later, only after the capture of Granada in 1492. Construction began in 1518 and continued well into the seventeenth century; a projected second tower was never completed. Although many architects worked on the structure, the Renaissance plan was the work of Diego de Siloé.
The portal is an unusual triumphal arch; the tripartite structure would indicate a traditional three-nave interior, but their are in fact five naves, with the central nave leading to the Capilla Mayor and altar the highest.
The interior is a brilliant white with classical, rather than gothic columns.
Another unusual feature is a round Capilla Mayor rather than a semi-circular apse; the resulting form is extraordinary.
Sue and I then did a longer loop through the center of the city while Sue and Paul returned to the hotel. We had a look at the Corral de Carbon, a fourteenth century caravanserai that provided a place for merchants to store their goods, as well as shelter for themselves and their animals.
We saw some of the town’s older houses, churches, and fortifications like this one, the Casa de los Tiros, with musket barrels protruding from some of the decoration.
After a short break, we all headed back up the hill to the Alhambra. Our guide, Angela, was absolutely terrific: knowledgeable, engaging, funny, the whole package. We started back through the Generalife, learning some things we hadn’t learned before. Angela was particularly attuned to what was original (from the time of the Nasrid dynasty) and what added later.
I should say in advance that what follows is a long and detailed tour of the Palacios Nazaries (Nasrid Palaces), one of the world’t great artworks. It is at base an attempt to reconstruct for myself what I saw in this succession of rooms. You may want to stick to the pictures.
The Nasrid Palaces were built over a long period, and not all the complex survives: some parts were destroyed as subsequent emirs altered or enlarged the palaces and other parts were destroyed to make way for the Palace of Charles V. What survives is in three parts: the Mexuar, which was the semi-public space for the administration of justice and the conduct of state affairs; the Palacio de Comares, the official residence of the emir; and the Palacio de los Leones, the most private part, where the harem was located. The layout is not perspicuous: here is a floorpan.
General floor plan[a] of the Comares Palace:
1) Comares Façade, 2) Sala de la Barca, 3) Hall of Ambassadors, 4) Changing room of the baths, 5) Cold room of the baths, 6) Warm room of the baths, 7) Hot room of the baths.
Isma’il I (reigned 1314–1325) decided to build a new palace complex just east of the Alcazaba to serve as the official palace of the sultan and the state. The core of this complex was the Palacio de Comares, while the Mexuar extended to the west. The Mexuar looks totally ordinary from the outside. It has been changed and “restored” over the centuries, so that no one knows how it actually looked under the rule of the Nasrids. The Council Chamber now looks like this, with some original decoration and a great deal of later addition.
At the rear of the hall is a small room called the Oratorio, which was horribly damaged by a gunpowder explosion in the valley below in 1590. The restoration looks like this.
A passageway leads from the Council Chamber to a small patio, the Patio del Cuarto Dorado. It is at this point that the visitor begins to encounter the changes to the palaces brought about by Muhammad V’s artisans. The principle addition here is the “Comares facade” at the far end, which served as the entrance to the Comares palace.
This was for me the point at which my jaw dropped. The decorations cover every inch of the walls.
At the other side of the Patio del Cuarto Dorado a portico leads into the room called the Cuarto Dorado, or Gilded Room.
The Gilded Room itself may have served as a waiting room for the Comares Palace. It is named after its ceiling, a creation of Mujedar artisans after the fall of Granada.
Passing through the lefthand doorway of the Comares Facade, the visitor enters the palace itself. Little remains here as it was under Isma’il; the entire palace was extensively renovated by Muhammad V in the years 1354-1391. Most commentators consider this the architectural apogee of the Nasrid emirate, as more innovative architectural and artistic structures began to emerge.
The palace is organized around the Patio de los Mirtos, or patio of the Myrtles, named for the myrtle hedges that flank the reflecting pool. This architectural ensemble, with a porticoed structure adjacent to a reflecting pool, was a key feature of Nasrid palace architecture, found already in the Palacio del Partal that we saw yesterday.
This view looks toward the Palace of Charles V; the Comares Palace originally extended further, but the rooms behind the portico were destroyed to make room for the Christian structure.
This second view, from the opposite end, looks toward the heart of the Comares Palace: the Comares Tower and, below it, the Sala des Embajadores.
The arch visible in the photo above leads to the Sala de la Barca, or room of the blessings, notable for its beautiful muqarnes ceiling. Allow me a quick note on muqarnas vaulting, sometimes called stalactite vaulting. In this form, typical of Islamic architecture, projecting elements alternate with recessed ones, creating upper niches and lower “stalactites.” Here is an elaborate example from the Palace of the Lions at the Alhambra. Note that you’re looking at this upside down!
And here is a view from below, showing how muqarnas works in an archway. We first saw these forms in Capella Palatina in Palermo, where the Norman kings used Muslim artists.
Here is the actual ceiling in the Sala de la Barca.
From the Sala de la Barca one enters the most ornate of all the rooms at the Alhabra, the Salón de Embajadores. It was the throne room and the site of official celebrations. This is the view upon entering.
And this is the view back to the entrance.
The throne was positioned in this alcove, the most fully decorated of the entire room.
This image gives a sense of the decoration of the room, which combines abstract and organic motifs with epigraphic ones: poems in praise of Allah and the Emir and quotations from the Quran.
We now enter the Palace of the Lions, Muhammad V’s most significant contribution to the Alhambra; it lies to the east of the Comares Palace in an area previously occupied by gardens. The name Palacio de los Leones is modern and refers to the lions that support a fountain the palace’s central courtyard. The palace may have been the royal family’s most private spaces, but no one is really sure of it use.
The effect of walking into the Court of the Lions is not unlike that of entering the Mezquita in Cordoba, in that one is confronted by a complex array of columns and arches.
Single columns alternate with groups of two or three columns to forming a visual rhythm that highlights certain parts of the façade. At the center stands the fountain that gives its name to the entire palace.
On the east and west sides, a pavilion projects into the courtyard.
The decoration above and between the columns and especially within the pavilions and porticos is even more ornate and extraordinary that that found in the Comares Palace; you might think of it as Nasrid Rococo.
A series of extraordinary rooms are arranged around the courtyard.
General floor plan of the Palace of the Lions: 1) Fountain of the Lions, 2) Sala de los Mocárabes, 3) Sala de los Abencerrajes, 4) Sala de los Reyes, 5) Sala de Dos Hermanas, 6) Mirador de Lindaraja, 7) Patio del Harén
The hall on the eastern side of the courtyard is known as the Sala de los Reyes. It has unusual contours; rather than one space, it is divided by muqarnes arches into seven subchambers.
On the north side of the courtyard is the hall called Sala de dos Hermanas (the two sisters refer to two large slabs of marble that make up part of the pavement. The square space covered by an elaborate, indeed extraordinary muqarnes dome.
Here is a close up.
On the north side of the Sala de dos Hermanas is an arched doorway leading to a wide rectangular chamber known as the Sala de los Ajimeces or Hall of the Mullioned Windows. The chamber is covered with a long muqarnas vault ceiling composed of a number of domes that blend into one another.
The most notable feature of the space, though, is a small projecting room with double-arched windows on three sides which overlook the gardens below. This lookout chamber is known as the Mirador de Lindaraja (the name combines the Spanish word for lookout or belvedere with a corruption of an Arabic phrase). This small room, the culmination of the visit to the Nasrid Palaces, is also the most ornate of all.
What an extraordinary day! Angela had been a great guide; and the tour was enriched by conversations with another member of the tour, a professor of graphic arts from Kosovo. A Muslim himself, he knew an enormous amount about Islamic architecture, philosophy, and especially Sufism, whose ideas are reflected in the palaces.
Dinner was not exactly a bust, but it wasn’t a rousing success, either. We had had reservations at a place that only had a tasting menu, and none of us wanted that much food. I cancelled and booked a table as we walked. Only when we got there did we realize it was in a hotel. The restaurant was actually stunning: the hotel had taken over a convent, and the restaurant looked out onto a sixteenth century cloister. the food was pretty good, but wildly expensive. Oh, well.