- Type
- Castle
- Built
- 1300 · 13th century
- Location
- Balearic Islands, Spain
- Style
- Gothic architecture
- Coordinates
- 39.5638°, 2.6193°
History
Work on the castle began in 1300 on the orders of James II, king of Majorca, and was completed about ten years later under the direction of Pere Salvà. It served as a royal summer residence, but after Majorca was annexed by Aragon in 1343 increasingly as a fortress and prison – among those held here was the family of the deposed James III. From 1802 to 1808 the statesman and writer Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was imprisoned here, and during the Napoleonic Wars French prisoners. In 1931 the state handed the castle to the city of Palma, which made it the home of its history museum.
What to see
The round courtyard is ringed by two storeys of galleries – Romanesque arches below and Gothic ones above. Three towers are set into the wall, while the fourth, a free-standing keep, is linked to the castle by a stone bridge over the moat. The rooms house Palma's history museum with a collection of classical sculpture, and the flat roof gives views over the city, the port and the bay.
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