Zaragoza
Palacio de la Aljafería Courtyard Gardens
The Aljafería Palace is an eleventh-century fortified Islamic palace in Zaragoza, preserving the sublime Patio de San Martín and Patio de Santa Isabel—rare surviving courtyards of the Taifa era in northern Spain.
From the source
Palacio de la Aljafería is a château at Zaragoza, Aragon, in Spain. Its architecture is recorded as Renaissance architecture. The register records it as “World Heritage Site”. Details are drawn from Wikidata.
Editorial reading
Constructed during the second half of the eleventh century by Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Sulayman al-Muqtadir, ruler of the Taifa of Zaragoza, the Aljafería (Qasr al-Surur, 'Palace of Joy') was a palatial oasis of Taifa architectural and literary culture. The architectural heart of the Islamic palace is the Patio de Santa Isabel, an open-air sunken garden courtyard enclosed by exquisite polylobed plasterwork arches and marble columns. The courtyard is arranged on a north-south axis with twin reflecting pools, fragrant orange trees, and aromatic herbal borders that cooled the hot summer air of the Ebro plain. Following the Christian reconquest of Zaragoza in 1118 by King Alfonso I of Aragon, the palace became a royal residence of the Crown of Aragon. In the late fifteenth century, the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella added Mudéjar and Gothic palatial extensions while preserving the delicate Islamic garden courtyards. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001 as part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragon, the Aljafería preserves rare eleventh-century Andalusian courtyard gardens outside southern Spain.
Recommendation
Explore rare 11th-century Islamic courtyard gardens and intricate polylobed Mudéjar porticoes at the fortified Taifa palace of Zaragoza.
Sources
The château by this garden
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