The Palace of Monterrey is a building in the Spanish city of Salamanca, one of the finest examples of the Plateresque artistic style. Built by the 3rd Count of Monterrey, it is currently owned by the House of Alba, which is the owner of the said county. It was a much admired and imitated building in the 19th century, giving rise to the so-called Monterrey or Neoplateresque style, a historicism that took up the aesthetics of the Plateresque style.
It was declared a National Historic Monument, equivalent to the current term Bien de Interés Cultural with the category of Monument, on 6 May 1929. Since May 2018, the building has been open to visitors.
The palace of Monterrey, located in the centre of the city of Salamanca, was built in the Italian Renaissance style by Don Alonso de Zúñiga y Acevedo Fonseca, 3rd Count of Monterrey. Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón and Fray Martín de Santiago drew up the plans for the palace, and Pedro de Ibarra and Pedro de Miguel y Aguirre began construction on 18 January 1539. From then on it would become one of the most representative works of the Spanish Renaissance, although it is an unfinished building as the complete project was much larger. Its image symbolises the great nobility of the Spanish Golden Age.
The project envisaged a three-storey quadrangular building with a central courtyard and towers at each corner and in the centre of each wing. In the end, only one of the wings, the south wing, was built. At the corners, lions and dreamlike animals, designed by Fray Martín de Santiago, support coats of arms bearing the arms of the Zúñiga, Acevedo, Ulloa, Sotomayor and Fonseca families. The gallery of the last section has Renaissance arches. The balconies and windows are adorned with Plateresque decoration.
The palace of Monterrey has had a notable influence on many Spanish buildings of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the palace of the Diputación de Palencia, designed by Jerónimo Arroyo in 1916, the Archaeological Museum of Seville by Aníbal González in 1919 and the Cavalry Academy of Valladolid by Adolfo Pierrad in 1924.
After a year of restoration, in May 2018 the palace was opened for tourist visits as a museum space, thanks to the agreement signed by the Salamanca City Council and the Casa de Alba Foundation.
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