Casa de Pilatos

Casa de Pilatos was the palace of the chief governors of Andalusia, and built between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Like the Alcazar, architecturally it is a combination of Mudejar and Renaissance styles. And not only is it interesting and beautiful, it was also only a couple of streets away from our apartment. So obviously we were going to visit (indeed I did twice!)

The Palace's Courtyard, around which almost all the palace is built

The next two photos exemplify the marrying of Mudejar and then Renaissance decoration

The Golden Room - the ceiling is gold, the walls just yellow. It is basically a small room with bits of classical statuary that projects into the garden. Just a lovely light airy room.

The Praetors Room - all about the coffered ceiling

 

A very odd painting by Ribera of what appears to be a man but is supposed to be a bearded woman breastfeeding a baby

The oldest part of the complex is the Flagellation chapel - the little marble pillar in the middle supposedly representing the pillar to which Christ was attached to be flogged

The gardens are also really delightful

There is also a second floor, but that was only visitable by guided tour and we didn't have time to wait as we had a football match to see that evening (see separate entry). So I had to make a return visit the next morning for that!

This statue looks bald, but actually the helmet (which would have been attached by means of the holes you can see in the hair) was removed for safety reasons and now sits in the Golden Room

Below you can see the missing helmet from the courtyard statue of Athena in pride of place

Th courtyard has a beautiful Renaissance fountain of Carrara marble topped by the two faced Janus sculpture

And now the upstairs by a really nice guided tour with not too many people on it

The upstairs had still been owned and used by family members into this century, and the last old lady to live here had a thing about pigs. She collected models of pigs of all sorts, including one tiny ancient Egyptian bronze

Really just the very most beautiful house. I think I would choose this as my second home if it came up for grabs😀