Logbook · 17 places

Palace of el Marqués de Santa Cruz

Viso del Marqués, Sierra Morena, Ciudad Real

1 Villages · 5 Monuments · 2 Nature · 2 Activities · 3 Curiosities · 4 Historical milestones

Spain › Castilla-La Mancha › Ciudad Real › Sierra Morena › Viso del Marqués › Palace of el Marqués de Santa Cruz

Palace of el Marqués de Santa Cruz

Monument · Viso del Marqués, Sierra Morena, Ciudad Real

Palace of el Marqués de Santa Cruz

The palace of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, built between 1574 and 1588 by the admiral Álvaro de Bazán, served as a residence midway between Madrid, seat of the court, and Seville, where he used to keep anchored the Armada of which he was admiral under Philip II. It came close to being destroyed by Austracist troops during the War of the Spanish Succession and suffered damage in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which brought down the ceiling of the hall where the fresco of the Battle of Lepanto had been painted and knocked the tops off its four towers; the French razed it during the Peninsular War and it went on to serve as a granary, school, stable, prison and hospital. Declared a Monumento Nacional (a historic heritage designation, predecessor of today's Bien de Interés Cultural) in 1931, it has been leased since 1948 to the Armada, which uses it as the General Archive of the Navy.

Photo: Jl FilpoC (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in Viso del Marqués