- Type
- Palace / château
- Origins
- 1511 · 16th century per Wikidata: founding, first mention or construction
- Location
- Nacional, Dominican Republic
- Heritage
- part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site (an old town or a valley, for example)
- Visiting
- probably – Wikidata lists it as a museum or gives tickets, opening hours or visitor numbers; check before you go
- Coordinates
- 18.4775°, -69.8828°
History
The palace was built between 1510 and 1514 for Diego Columbus, son of Christopher, who arrived in Hispaniola in 1509 as governor of the Indies. Built of coral limestone blocks, it blended late Gothic with Renaissance forms and housed the first viceregal court in the New World, where expeditions to the mainland were planned. After Diego's death in 1526 his wife, María de Toledo, governed the colony for a time. Once Columbus's descendants left the island the palace fell into ruin, and in 1586 Francis Drake sacked the city. The ruins were rebuilt in 1955–1957 to a design by the Spanish architect Javier Barroso, and in 1990 the whole old town was added to the UNESCO list.
What to see
The palace closes the east side of the broad Plaza de España in Santo Domingo's colonial zone. Its façades towards the square and the Ozama River are formed by two tiers of open arcades. The interiors, arranged as a museum, are filled with 16th-century European furniture, tapestries, paintings and household objects that evoke life at the viceregal court, and the loggia looks out over the river and the port.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q668772
Popularity: articles about this site in 18 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).