MACHUCA, Pedro

Constructed on a plateau that overlooks the city of Granada, the Alhambra was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, in the reigns of Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and his successors. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, much of the interior was effaced and the furniture was ruined or removed. Charles V, who ruled in Spain as Charles I (1516–56), rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style and destroyed part of the Alhambra in order to build an Italianate palace.

The photo shows the Palace of Charles V within the Alhambra.

View the ground plan of the Palace of Charles V within the Alhambra complex, Granada.

Constructed on a plateau that overlooks the city of Granada, the Alhambra was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, in the reigns of Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and his successors. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, much of the interior was effaced and the furniture was ruined or removed. Charles V, who ruled in Spain as Charles I (1516–56), rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style and destroyed part of the Alhambra in order to build an Italianate palace.

The photo shows the Palace of Charles V within the Alhambra.

View the ground plan of the Palace of Charles V within the Alhambra complex, Granada.

Returning to Spain from Rome, where he lived for a time, Machuca produced exotic, hybrid paintings that place a higher value on expression than on correctness. His Deposition is thought to have been painted in the early 1520s, although on its original frame it is indicated that the altarpiece was ordered by Doña In�s de Castillo, and it was finished in 1547.

In this picture the Italian veneer is starting to wear thin as the figures grow flatter, their anatomy more schematic than in his earlier paintings. At the same time, the facial expressions are more intense, as in the centre group, where St Mary Magdalene, waiting to receive Christ’s body, and the man at the foot of the cross, who holds the corps, open their mouths wide, emitting almost audible sounds of grief. The group at the right is a jumble of strange types - a soldier in full armour, an old man in a tall fur hat with a conspicuous grimace on his face, a youth in short pants, standing self-consciously with a hand on his hip, a little boy wearing a kerchief around his head and tied beneath his chin, as if he had a toothache. Under the dark, midnight sky, the scene of death acquires a peculiar intensity.

Machuca was an extraordinary artist, an architect, sculptor and painter. He built the palace of Charles V in Granada, a work of exceptional quality, one of the very few existing Renaissance buildings with a circular court. His training as an architect is evident in the design of the original ornamented frame of this painting with plenty of decorative elements typical of the architecture of first Spanish Renaissance or Plateresque style. It is indicated on this frame that the altarpiece was ordered by Doña In�s de Castillo, and it was finished in 1547.

Constructed on a plateau that overlooks the city of Granada, the Alhambra was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, in the reigns of Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and his successors. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, much of the interior was effaced and the furniture was ruined or removed. Charles V, who ruled in Spain as Charles I (1516–56), rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style and destroyed part of the Alhambra in order to build an Italianate palace.

Designed by the Spaniard Pedro Machuca in 1526, who had studied in Italy, the Palace of Charles V was never completed, although work on it continued throughout most of the 16th century. The palace is square in plan with a huge central circular court (30 metres in diameter), which was intended for bullfights and tournaments. The plan is, therefore, fully Renaissance, being centralized and symmetrical; it is organized on cross-axes formed by the four entrances, one in the centre of each side. The fa�ade shows a full understanding of the principles of Italian Renaissance design in its superimposition of orders and in the alternating rhythm of the triangular and segmental pediments above the windows of the second story. The interior court is surrounded by a colonnade with a similar superimposition of Doric and Ionic.

The photo shows the southern fa�ade of the Palace of Charles V.

View the ground plan of the Palace of Charles V, Granada.

Constructed on a plateau that overlooks the city of Granada, the Alhambra was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, in the reigns of Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and his successors. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, much of the interior was effaced and the furniture was ruined or removed. Charles V, who ruled in Spain as Charles I (1516–56), rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style and destroyed part of the Alhambra in order to build an Italianate palace.

Designed by the Spaniard Pedro Machuca in 1526, who had studied in Italy, the Palace of Charles V was never completed, although work on it continued throughout most of the 16th century. The palace is square in plan with a huge central circular court (30 metres in diameter), which was intended for bullfights and tournaments. The plan is, therefore, fully Renaissance, being centralized and symmetrical; it is organized on cross-axes formed by the four entrances, one in the centre of each side. The fa�ade shows a full understanding of the principles of Italian Renaissance design in its superimposition of orders and in the alternating rhythm of the triangular and segmental pediments above the windows of the second story. The interior court is surrounded by a colonnade with a similar superimposition of Doric and Ionic.

View the ground plan of the Palace of Charles V, Granada.

Constructed on a plateau that overlooks the city of Granada, the Alhambra was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, in the reigns of Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and his successors. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, much of the interior was effaced and the furniture was ruined or removed. Charles V, who ruled in Spain as Charles I (1516–56), rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style and destroyed part of the Alhambra in order to build an Italianate palace.

Designed by the Spaniard Pedro Machuca in 1526, who had studied in Italy, the Palace of Charles V was never completed, although work on it continued throughout most of the 16th century. The palace is square in plan with a huge central circular court (30 metres in diameter), which was intended for bullfights and tournaments. The plan is, therefore, fully Renaissance, being centralized and symmetrical; it is organized on cross-axes formed by the four entrances, one in the centre of each side. The fa�ade shows a full understanding of the principles of Italian Renaissance design in its superimposition of orders and in the alternating rhythm of the triangular and segmental pediments above the windows of the second story. The interior court is surrounded by a colonnade with a similar superimposition of Doric and Ionic.

View the ground plan of the Palace of Charles V, Granada.

Constructed on a plateau that overlooks the city of Granada, the Alhambra was built chiefly between 1238 and 1358, in the reigns of Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and his successors. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, much of the interior was effaced and the furniture was ruined or removed. Charles V, who ruled in Spain as Charles I (1516–56), rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style and destroyed part of the Alhambra in order to build an Italianate palace.

Designed by the Spaniard Pedro Machuca in 1526, who had studied in Italy, the Palace of Charles V was never completed, although work on it continued throughout most of the 16th century. The palace is square in plan with a huge central circular court (30 metres in diameter), which was intended for bullfights and tournaments. The plan is, therefore, fully Renaissance, being centralized and symmetrical; it is organized on cross-axes formed by the four entrances, one in the centre of each side. The fa�ade shows a full understanding of the principles of Italian Renaissance design in its superimposition of orders and in the alternating rhythm of the triangular and segmental pediments above the windows of the second story. The interior court is surrounded by a colonnade with a similar superimposition of Doric and Ionic.

The photo shows the west fa�ade with the main entrance.

View the ground plan of the palace.

The circular patio has also two levels. The lower consists of a Doric colonnade of conglomerate stone, with an orthodox classical entablature formed of triglyphs and metopes. The upper floor is formed by a stylised Ionic colonnade whose entablature has no decoration. This organisation of the patio shows a deep knowledge of Roman architecture, and would be framed in pure Renaissance style but for its curved shape, which surprises the visitor entering from the main fa�ades. The interior spaces and the staircases are also governed by the combination of square and circle. Similar aesthetic devices would be developed in the following decades under the classification of Mannerism.

The photo shows the patio of the Palace of Charles V.

View the ground plan of the Palace of Charles V, Granada.

Spain accepted the Mannerist style early - a violent reaction against the violence of her Late Gothic. Charles V’s new and never finished palace on the Alhambra at Granada (begun in 1526 by Pedro Machuca) looks, with its vast circular colonnaded inner court and the motifs of its 64-meter-long fa�ade, as though it were based on the Raphael of the Villa Madama and Giulio Romano, somewhat provincially interpreted.

Machuca’s strong Mannerist tendencies are evident in this painting.