Monumentos archivo | Page 4 of 18

Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia

The Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia constitutes the historical compilation of all the documentation belonging both to the territory of Valencia and to other institutions related in some way.

This archive is catalogued as an Asset of Cultural Interest and can be consulted in the same building as the Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia, which is located at Paseo de la Alameda, 22.

The importance of the Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia lies both in the amount of documentation collected, and its antiquity, which dates back to the thirteenth century.

All interested citizens can enter the Archive building and make the query they want among the abundant existing documentation. To this end, a reading room has been set up with capacity for 56 people and reading equipment that includes microfilm and microfiche readers.

Palace of the Boïl d’Arenós

The Palacio de los Boïl de Arenós is located on Calle Llibrers, in the historic centre of Valencia, very close to the Palace of the Marquis of Dosaigües. It is also known as the House of the Lord of Bétera.

The origins of the building date back to the fourteenth century, although the appearance it preserves corresponds to the works of the eighteenth century. This palace is located in an environment where the Valencian nobility then resided.

Following the model of most Valencian palaces, its distribution is carried out around a central courtyard, in this case rectangular, which still retains its segmental arches of Gothic influence. Although it was originally discovered, today this courtyard is covered with a glass skylight.

The structure of the building obeys the scheme of semi-basement, ground floor, mezzanine, first or main floor and second floor.

On the façade facing Calle Llibrers, the cantería stone plinth stands out and the heraldic shield that crowns the large access door that leads into the courtyard. In this shield, in Baroque style, you can see the arms of different Valencian lineages united by marriages, such as the Boïl, the Vives or the Lladró. This façade offers three floors of wrought iron balconies that occupy almost the entire smooth wall.

The current palace is the result of different reforms, carried out mainly in the eighteenth century and also in the nineteenth century. Restored in 1997, today it is the headquarters of the Valencia Stock Exchange.

Building listed as an Asset of Cultural Interest.

Monastery of San Miguel de los Reyes

The old Monastery of San Miguel de los Reyes is located in the current Avda. of the Constitution of Valencia. It was founded in the sixteenth century by Ferdinand of Aragon, Duke of Calabria, Viceroy of Valencia. Built over the old Mercedarian abbey of San Bernardo de Rascanya.

It is one of the great works of the Renaissance in Valencia. Although its construction began before that of the Monastery of El Escorial, the stoppage of almost 20 years that followed the death of the Viceroy, meant that it was resumed under a clear influence of the Madrid monument.

The church door is a Renaissance façade-altarpiece, one of the first in the Kingdom of Valencia, guarded by two towers, to which Baroque Solomonic columns were later added. This façade features sculptures of the three Magi.

The temple was built between the years 20 and 40 of the seventeenth century. It is a temple with a Latin cross floor plan, with a single and wide nave, dome on a circular drum and a large high choir at the feet, which almost equals in size that of El Escorial.

Also noteworthy are the cloisters of the monastery, also influenced by the main cloister of El Escorial, which are surrounded by galleries with semicircular arches and stone balusters in the upper area.

This monastery has had multiple uses throughout its history, it was even about to be demolished although the city council managed to avoid it in time. In the mid-nineteenth century it was an asylum, which in 1859 and well into the twentieth century became a prison. Then came a time of sad abandonment.

After its rehabilitation, it is currently the headquarters of the Valencian Library.

Palace of the Marquis of Dosaigües

In the historic centre of Valencia, on Calle del Marqués de Dosaigües, is the palace of the same name. Its main façade, an indisputable jewel of the Rococo style, overlooks Culture Street.

The Palace of the Marqués de Dosaigües is a building that was built around the fifteenth century as a stately mansion of the Rabassa Perellós family, owners of the Marquisate of Dosaigües. The current appearance is the result of a major reform that was carried out on this old manor house in the 1740s.

The building has an irregular quadrangular floor plan, with towers at its corners, and is distributed around a courtyard. Due to the findings that appeared during its reform, it is believed that the space on which the palace was built may have been a Roman necropolis from the first to the third centuries AD.

Old House

Casa Vella is a stately style building present in the city of Valencia, specifically on Roteros street, on the corner with Pintor Fillol street.

The building dates from the eighteenth century and although its infrastructure deteriorated over the years, some iconic details lasted until very recently. These elements and its privileged location in the Carmen neighborhood popularized Casa Vella among residents, turning it into an architectural reference of the time.

The most characteristic feature of Casa Vella is its cubic volumetry and its stone door with Doric columns and semicircular arch, which have been preserved until today.

Casa Vella was built using load-bearing walls and wooden beams and is arranged between ground floor, mezzanine and two other floors. For the period in which it was built it had imposing dimensions that, together with the rest of the architectural details, gave it that stately character with which it has come to us.

Its facades have a molded cornice and windows aligned on vertical axes, which coexist next to balconies also of great size, which have broken space and parapets made of cast iron.

The interior courtyard of Casa Vella also keeps its architectural interest, especially with regard to the viewpoint. It is a design elaborated in 1889 by the Valencian architect Joaquín María Belda, creator of many constructions of the city that have gone down to posterity as other examples of architecture of the nineteenth century such as the Santa Monica Station and the Model Prison of Valencia.

Casa Vella was restored a few years ago in order to avoid further deterioration, although in the process much of its original aesthetic disappeared, although the color that initially always presented was also recovered. It was recently sold into private hands to be converted into hotel accommodation.

Church of Santa Caterina i Sant Agustí

The Church of San Agustín, also known as the Church of Santa Caterina y San Agustín is a Valencian Gothic style building, which represents one of the most important Catholic churches in the city of Valencia.

This building is identified as an Asset of Cultural Interest and is located in the Plaza de San Agustín, in the heart of the city and in a privileged location to be admired by tourists from all over the world.

The Church of St. Augustine is also considered of great historical importance due to its antiquity. Its date of creation dates back to the foundation of the Augustine convent in 1307. At that time, construction began on both the church and the convent, with such impressive dimensions that it was for a long time one of the largest in all of Valencia.

Today only the church still stands, but with a restoration work carried out by the architect Javier Goerlich Lleó in 1940.

From this restoration, the Church of San Agustín was completed with the façade and tower that currently overlook Guillem de Castro street.

In terms of infrastructure, we are facing a Gothic church with a single nave, side chapels and choir at the foot.

Inside there are multiple elements that may be of cultural interest. Among them is the fact that the first fajón is located between the third and fourth chapels. The first two chapels on each side are joined by the chancel.

Despite its Gothic character, the Church of San Agustín transmits a lot of lightness, thanks above all to the presence of five large pointed windows present in the presbytery.

Among the most important sculptures, the “Mare de Déu de Gracia” (Our Lady of Grace) stands out, which is of Byzantine origin.

Breastfeeding Asylum

The building known in Valencia as the Lactation Asylum dates back to 1909. However, the institution to which he refers is almost a century earlier.

The Breastfeeding Asylum consisted of an institution set up so that women in the tobacco factory (now known as Tabacalera) could care for their breastfeeding children.

These eighteenth-century working women could travel to existing facilities and breastfeed their children. Then they stayed in optimal conditions of care, while their mothers continued to work.

However, the lack of space and other infrastructure needs motivated the creation of a new building for Tabacalera, which also involved the construction of new facilities to maintain this relationship between mothers and their nursing children.

This is how the architect Ramón Lucini Callejo was requested to build the Lactation Asylum of Valencia in the early twentieth century.

Palace of Justice

The Valencia Palace of Justice is located on the street of the same name. It is the seat of the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community.

This building was built by order of Carlos III between 1758 and 1802 as the Customs House. It was the work of architects Felipe Rubio, Antonio Gilabert and Tomás Miner, whose function was to filter and channel all the commerce that came from the sea. In the eighteenth century this trade made Valencia an economic power.

In 1828 the National Tobacco Factory was installed in this building and already in the s. XX began to be adapted to turn it into the headquarters of the Palace of Justice, with a slow reform by the architect Vicente Rodríguez.

The Palace of Justice occupies a large block of quadrangular houses. Its main door overlooks the Glorieta Gardens, while its side walls overlook the Parterre Gardens, located in Plaza Alfonso el Magnánimo, and Calle Colón. Behind it is Calle Cerdán Tallada.

Church and Monastery of San Vicente de la Roqueta

Located on Calle San Vicente Mártir, next to the old Via Augusta, the Church and Monastery of San Vicente de la Roqueta (current Parish Church of Christ the King), can be considered the cradle of Christianity in Valencia.

According to tradition, in this place built on a mound of rock, the diacon Vicente was martyred at the beginning of the fourth century and this would also be the place where he was buried. Next to the tomb of the martyr a church was built to venerate his remains.

This was one of the few churches that remained open for worship during the period of Arab domination, becoming the cathedral of the Mozarabic community in Valencia, outside the city walls. The Christians formed a neighborhood around the church that prevented its demise.
With the conquest of Valencia in the thirteenth century, King James I ordered the construction of a temple, a monastery and a hospital in this place. During the eighteenth century it underwent great transformations and the Carlist wars of the nineteenth century demolished the tower, part of the church and the convent.

After a fire in 1936, at the end of the Civil War it passed into the hands of the Augustinian order, who sold the building to a private company to build houses until, before this happened, it became the property of the Arzobispado. Of the whole complex, today only the church and the monastery remain standing.

The temple preserves two late Romanesque gates. The so-called north door or Vicentine cover, of half a point poured, shows us in its capitals different scenes of the martyrdom of St. Vincent.

The monastery has a cloister from the early eighteenth century, with Doric pilasters on pedestals and semicircular arches on the ground floor. It is in the process of being restored.
Listed as an Asset of Local Relevance. Declared a National Historic-Artistic Monument.

Palace of the Marquis of La Scala

The Palace of the Marquis of La Scala is located in Plaza de Manises in Valencia. Its construction dates from the sixteenth century, although in subsequent centuries several reforms were made, which leads to the fact that in this building coexist today the Valencian Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles.

This was the Palace of the Marquises of L’Escala and Lords of Manises. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Pedro Boïl de Aragón, first lord of Manises, married Altadona della Scala, of Italian origin.

Currently the palace is composed of the union of two buildings from different eras, two stately mansions whose courtyards are united, which is why it has a double portal.

The building of the sixteenth century, which is considered the main one, responds to the four levels of the Gothic: semi-basement, mezzanine, main floor and upper gallery. One of the most striking elements is the tower with a quadrangular floor plan and flat terrace that is located on the left, topped on the highest with balls.

Ex-Carmen Convent

The Carmen Convent is currently known in Valencia as Centro del Carmen and is also the headquarters of the Consortium of Museums of the Valencian Community.

Its original name suggests that initially its functions were different from the current ones, more linked to the cultural and artistic world.

The Convent of Carmen can be visited in the Calle Museu and has as its offer two main interests, that of the temporary exhibitions that awaits in its interior and that of the architecture of the original convent.

The exhibitions deal with very diverse subjects and many of them are temporary, so the repeated visit to the Convent of Carmen will offer us each time a new experience.

As for the convent as an infrastructure, its origin dates back to 1281, when the Carmelites chose Valencia as their place of residence.

The complex architectural transformation of the Carmen Convent over the centuries, makes this infrastructure exterior and interior an authentic journey through the evolution of Valencian architecture and, in general, of the Mediterranean architectural style, from 8 centuries ago to the present.

The visit to the Convent of Carmen can offer multiple experiences and artistic discoveries, but two in particular are of special relevance.

The first of these corresponds to the interior Gothic cloister, of which all visitors testify to the peace and tranquility it transmits, while it is used to move to the different rooms of the convent.

The other point of interest, especially referring to Valencian culture, is the visit to the sarcophagus of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. The Valencian writer is not buried in him, but is an artistic work by Mariano Benlliure dating from 1935, with which he wanted to pay tribute to the literary contribution of the writer, with this sculpture that contains inscriptions of his work and dedications.

Parish Church of St. Stephen the Protomartyr

The Parish Church of San Esteban Protomartyr, located precisely in Plaza San Esteban, is one of the oldest in Valencia and also one of the most important. It is currently considered an Asset of Cultural Interest and a National Artistic Monument since 1955.

This church was built on an old mosque that existed previously and was conceived on the basis of the Gothic structures of the Valencian parish churches. That is, it consists of a single nave and chapels between the buttresses.

However, during the seventeenth century the Church of San Esteban was modified to look more like a Baroque style.

Externally, especially compared to other more recent churches, the building may seem somewhat sober, but ithas characteristic details that make it stand out. Among them are the buttresses that have gargoyles that appear protruding above the smooth wall . Also noteworthy are the simple design door that leads directly to the Plaza de San Esteban, as well as the bell tower.

The exterior sobriety clashes directly with the overloaded decoration of the interior. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the Baroque style established later was not part of its original structure, so it also differs in some elements with other Baroque churches.