São Pedro de Penaferrim, in the municipality of Sintra, on the Portuguese Riviera, is home to the Romanticist Pena Palace. Perched on a peak in the Sintra Mountains, overlooking the town of Sintra, the castle is plainly visible from Lisbon and a large portion of the metropolitan area on a clear day. It is a national monument and one of the most significant examples of Romanticism from the 19th century worldwide. The palace is one of Seven Wonders of Portugal and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The President of the Portuguese Republic and other government authorities also utilize it for formal events. The history of the castle began in the Middle Ages with the construction of a chapel devoted to Our Lady of Pena on the hill overlooking Sintra. Tradition has it that building started following a vision of the Virgin Mary. In order to fulfill a commitment, King John II traveled to the location in 1493 with his wife, Queen Leonor. King Manuel I, who succeeded him, had a great affection for this sanctuary as well. He gave the Order of Saint Jerome the order to build a monastery there. For centuries Pena was a modest, sedate retreat for monks, with room for no more than eighteen. Lightning struck the monastery in the 18th century, causing significant damage. But it was the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, which happened not long after, that severely damaged the monastery and left it in ruins. Even though the remains were abandoned for many years, young Prince Ferdinand was nonetheless in awe of them. As King Consort Ferdinand II, he made the decision in 1838 to purchase the old monastery, the surrounding territories, the Castle of the Moors, and a few other local estates. The Portuguese royal family would use the remnants of the monastery as a vacation house, thus King Ferdinand set out to build a palace on their site. Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege, a mining engineer and lieutenant general, was tasked with overseeing the reconstruction of the Romantic style. Being a well-traveled amateur architect from Germany, Eschwege probably knew a number of castles along the Rhine. Although it was nearly finished in 1847, the construction was completed between 1842 and 1854. There was significant intervention on questions of decoration and symbolism by King Ferdinand and Queen Maria II. The Portuguese State bought the palace in 1889, and following the Republican Revolution of 1910, it was designated as a national monument and turned into a museum. Before going into exile, Queen Amélia, the last monarch of Portugal, spent her final night at the palace [Information and Image Credit : Pena_Palace, Wikipedia] [Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_Palace ] [Image : Palácio da Pena; Wikipedia-Image Author : www.GlynLowe.com from Hamburg, Germany] [Image is availed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License; (Please Relate to Individual Image URLs for More Usage Property and Sharing, Remixing or Attributing the Work)] [License-Link : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en ] [Wikipedia-Image-Source-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pena_National_Palace_-_Sintra_-_Pal%C3%A1cio_Nacional_da_Pena_(15842491914)_(cropped).jpg ] #Castles#History
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Monuments and Architecture
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