289
Since 2002, conservational and restoration interventions have pre-
sented great technical magnitude for the treatment of paintings and
stuccos, included in the 37 sectors which form Western, Northern
and Eastern sides of the perimeter gallery. Nearly 900m2 wall facing
where more than a half contain numerous mural painting fragments,
restored by removal to protect them from the high and insurmount-
able obstacle of humidity from the load-bearing wall, safeguarding its
polychrome. After the restoration, they have been placed to their orig-
inal place, so that it is possible to take a tour around the galleries which
contain restored paintings
1
nowadays. Remains of painting retrieved
and maintained are diverse, while sectors containing complete and
perceptible compositions
2
are lacking. It is for sure that, without the
respect shown and without the treatment practised, all that informa-
tion would have disappeared over the years, as well as the knowledge
of its existence itself or the aesthetic purposes and conditions pre-
sented since the sixteenth century. After this long and worthy period,
still unfinished, it is the time for periodical inspections and mainte-
nance measures, like if a chronic patient it was. All that, achieving the
elimination of the main alteration agents, —unresolved matter—, an
adequate conservation and durability of treatments.
During the last three years, once finished the restoration of murals
in portico galleries around the
Patio del Crucero
, interventions take
place in the central longitudinal gallery where —like portico galler-
ies— give a pleasant surprise with the discovery of unknown com-
positions, hidden by added coats or unconventional intercessions.
The central gallery is the only made publicly available as a part of the
tour, being the first vaults from the entrance themost vulnerable ones
to be touched by visitors. They were also the most damaged ones in
the past, as a consequence of fast improvement interventions; some-
times liming to conceal the poor state of paintings and other times
eliminating coverings by means of inappropriate procedures, with
the result of a degraded and decayed appearance at the present time.
Visitors access the
Ba
ñ
os
and then the passage towards the pond,
where they get a spectacular frontal view of the gallery in shadows,
the Grutesque fountain at the end and the ribbed vaults reflected on
the pond. From this magnificent and unique perspective, the audi-
ence cannot watch or intuit the expanse of perimeter and transverse
galleries structured around this focal point, because of the lack of in-
formation. In the course of the painterly interventions, the possibility
of recovering a guided tour, although limited, emerges like a unify-
ing measure for the vision and acknowledgment of these paintings
—generally unknown— for minor groups interested in their study.
The information about the context, as well as the historical and artis-
tic circumstances emerged from the exhibition of these galleries, will
also provide a more real, complete and surprising view of the
Ba
ñ
os
,
in contrast to the current notion about this area; set-aside as a mere
beautiful frontal scene which, even romantic and captivating, is just
part of the cultural, historical and artistic sense of the galleries.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: THE AESTHETIC
RENOVATION OF THE GOTHIC PALACE AND THE PATIO
DEL CRUCERO IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
The interventions implemented in the
Ba
ñ
os
in the last years are deep-
ly connected with the most of artistic alterations in times of Philip II.
This monarch had already undertaken the Renaissance transforma-
tion of the
Patio de las Doncellas
, and he begins with the structural and
aesthetic rehabilitation of the gothic palace now, both in and outside,
including the subterranean; where the
Patio del Crucero
is located.
This process of renovation undertaken in the palace salons begins in
the last third of the sixteenth century, with the incorporation of the
lush Plateresque ornamentation together with a type of architecture
governed by medieval canons. The main aims pursued were repair-
ing the deterioration and the neglected appearance already present
in the different areas of the palace, creating accesses to bordering
buildings and modernizing the old and rigid appearance of the
structure as a whole, imbuing the environment with sumptuous-
ness and elegance typical of mannerist aesthetic canons governed by
the Italian style, according to the tendencies in the most important
European courts
3
.
The work begins in 1576, being prolonged to 1588, with the inter-
vention of a wide team of officials and artisans in charge of Antón
Sánchez Hurtado, the Senior Master back then, the Masonry Master
Juan Fernández and the Carpentry Master Juan de Simancas
4
.
The interventions are set at different levels. On the one hand, tasks
are focused on the reconditioning of the building and the subterra-
nean garden. On the other hand, they are aimed to work on external
gardens, restoring the old Islamic vegetal ones located on the South-
ern edge of the palace, converted into Renaissance gardens nowa-
days, as well as the allotment and creation of new gardens based on
lands from the old
Alcoba
Vegetable Garden, where artistic fountains
are installed and new spaces are conditioned with carved gardening
in
ars topiaria
, where singular hydraulic mechanisms are incorpo-
rated. This contributes to the creation of theatrical and dramatic
scenes, where the natural and the artificial are merged from a festive
and aesthetic point of view.
The building works begin with the repair of flooring in the gothic
palace terraced roofs, whose filtrations were damaging naves, fol-
lowed by the creation of intercalated arches among the buttresses of
the Southern external façade, probably with the purpose of dimin-
ishing sobriety and severity in the gothic façade. These arches were
subsequently painted with heraldic shields by Bartolomé Maqueda
and Gonzalo Pérez (fromwhich there is no presence of traces nowa-
days)
5
. In the top floor, a passage connects the terraces, and thus the
upper
Cuarto Real
and the newwall with high rostrumwhich divides
the
Chorr
ó
n
garden pond, connecting also the primitive wall.
In the Southern room we can appreciate large openings which serve
as magnificent bay windows, flooded in light, and huge windows
adorned with Renaissance grids in the room next to the transept.
Pilasters disappear from naves, where rib vaults are supported, with
the aim of grading the mural area, and they are replaced by stony
corbels decorated withmannerist motifs. The same as the expansion
of an old and narrow crossing in the South-East, aligning the façade
over this area and communicating these rooms more widely and el-
egantly with the wall next to the restored reservoir
6
, now converted
in a beautiful pond and viewpoint. Both these new transept and
rostrum are covered in new Renaissance panelled ceiling decorated
with caissons. The ancient Northern corridor which comes before
the
Patio del Crucero
is repaired as well (replaced by the
Apeadero-
Patio de la Monter
í
a
passage in the eighteenth century).
The inside walls of the four naves are covered in high contiguous
plinths of plain and plane Plateresque tiles, entrusted to Cristóbal
Augusta in 1755. It is outlined from the yellow colour as the back-
ground, from where jumbled Grutesque motifs are painted as of
interlaced vegetal elements, animal topics,
putti
, vases, candela-
brums, monsters, and theriomorphic figures, separated by panels
