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The fortified Castle Palace of La Aljafería was built in Zaragoza in the second half of the 11th century at the initiative of Al-Muqtadir as the residence of the Hudi kings of Saraqusta. This pleasure palace (then called “Qasr al-Surur” or Palace of Joy) reflects the splendor achieved by the Taifa kingdom during the period of its greatest political and cultural apogee.
Its importance lies in the fact that it is the only preserved testimony of a large building of Hispanic Islamic architecture from the Taifa era. So, if a magnificent example of the Caliphate of Córdoba, its Mosque (10th century), and another of the swan song of Islamic culture in Al-Andalus, from the 14th century, the Alhambra of Granada, are preserved, the Aljafería of Zaragoza (11th century) must be included in the triad of Spanish-Muslim architecture as an example of the achievements of Taifa art, an intermediate period of independent kingdoms prior to the arrival of the Almoravids. The Mudejar remains of the Aljafería Palace were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2001 as part of the “Mudejar Architecture of Aragon” complex.
After the reconquest of Zaragoza in 1118 by Alfonso I El Batallador, it became the residence of the Christian kings of Aragon, with which the Aljafería became the main focus of dissemination of Aragonese Mudejar. It was used as a royal residence by Pedro IV the Ceremonious and later, on the main floor, the renovation was carried out that converted these rooms into the palace of the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. In 1593 it underwent another renovation that would convert it into a military fortress, first according to Renaissance designs (which today can be seen in its surroundings, moat and gardens) and later as a barracks for military regiments. It suffered continuous renovations and great damage, especially with the Sieges of Zaragoza from the War of Independence until it was finally restored in the second half of the 20th century and is currently the Headquarters of the Cortes of Aragon.
Originally the construction was made outside the Roman walls, on the plain of the saría or place where the Muslims carried out military displays known as La Almozara. With urban expansion over the years, the building has remained within the city. A small garden environment has been respected around it.
The oldest building in the Aljafería is the so-called "Tower of the Troubadour", which received this name from the romantic drama by Antonio García Gutiérrez, The Troubadour, from 1836. This drama was converted into a libretto for Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Il Trovatore, from 1853.
In the last years of the 15th century, the Catholic Monarchs ordered the construction of a palace for royal use on the north wing of the Andalusian enclosure, configuring a second floor superimposed on that of the existing palace. The building broke the upper parts of the taifal rooms, where the beams that would support the new palace were inserted.
The works are dated between 1488 and 1495 and Mudejar masters continued to participate in them, such as Faraig and Mahoma de Gali, who, as happened with Pedro IV (Yucef and Mohamat Bellito) maintained the tradition of Mudejar builders in the Aljafería.
The palace is accessed by climbing the noble staircase, a monumental construction made up of two wide sections with openwork geometric plasterwork parapets illuminated by angular semicircular windows with a fine decoration of leaves and stems of Gothic roots and Mudejar influences, finished in crochet on the keystone of the arches.
The grandiose ceiling, as in the rest of the palatial rooms, is covered with superb transverse vaulted ceilings arranged between the girders, and are decorated with tempera paint with iconographic motifs related to the Catholic Monarchs: the yoke and arrows alternate with decorative boxes in grisaille of grotesques and candelieri, which announces the typical decoration of the Renaissance. Its dimensions are very considerable (20 meters long by 8 meters wide) and its coffered ceiling is supported by thick beams and sleepers that are decorated with lacework that at the intersections form eight-pointed stars, while generating thirty large and deep square coffers.
Inside these coffers are octagons with a central rosette of curly leaf litter that ends in large hanging pine cones that symbolize fertility and immortality. This ceiling was reflected in the floor, which reproduces the thirty squares with their respective inscribed octagons. The Aljafería was inaugurated as a historical-artistic monument in its current splendor in 1998 by Prince Felipe de Borbón.
