In 1523 this house belonged to Francesc Burgues, the royal procurator. On 26 November 1541 the emperor Charles V stayed here, after the failure of the military expedition against Algiers. It was the most expensive house in the 1576 property valuation. In 1636 it belonged to Nicolau Burgues and it currently belongs to the Blanes family. A great semicircular arched doorway leads into the vestibule area, with the staircase to the right. A segmental arch with the coat-of-arms of the Burgues family carved in the capitals provides access to the courtyard, with the coat-of-arms of the Blanes family to the left.
Military History Museum in a fortress built in Porto Pi during the XVII century, displaying military and other artifices of war, ranging from the Middle Ages to the XX century. Dic de l'Oest (Portopí) Excellent panorama of the Bay and the city of Palma.
We are now in another symbolic street of the old quarter, where there is a large number of mansions, most of which have been converted. The best-preserved building is Can Olesa, one of the most famous mansions in Palma. The façade still has an early wall, dating back to the 16th century, with Renaissance windows displaying the coats of arms of the Descós family. The current house is the result of renovation work at the end of the 17th century, arranged around a magnificent central courtyard. This courtyard is one of the earliest examples of the Mallorcan Baroque patio, with its characteristic columns, extraordinarily low arches and a staircase crowned by a gallery of three arches. This house is one of the few in the city still boasting its original period interior. It was declared a Historical and Artistic Monument in 1973.
The path we have taken is known by the name of "Dalt Murada", and from here we can see what were once the boundaries of the Roman city which stretched from the palace of La Almudaina to the eastern end of the Episcopal palace. On the southern façade of this building, looking towards the sea, we can see a walkway with Modernist-style guard posts which are attributed to the famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, as well as the iron railings of some windows. The wall we can see at the foot of the cathedral is the old Roman city wall, which was transformed during the Middle Ages and totally rebuilt over the course of the centuries. In fact, the whole sea front of the fortified city was reconstructed in the 18th century with the new city wall on top of the one we can see now, built on top of land reclaimed from the sea. The highlights of this structure are the guard posts that have a Baroque form. The area known as ses Voltes is a former barracks completed in 1802 and refurbished by the architects Elies Torres and José A. Martínez Lapeña between 1983 and 1991, for leisure and cultural use.
The building is from the XVII century, and has a courtyard characterized by the mixture of elements from different periods: Gothic staircase, octagonal pillars of Gothic origin that support segmental arches, gallery of the XIX century. The facade has three floors of elevation, with a semicircular arched portal and another portal on the right. On the second floor there are two balconies and a balcony window and, in the porch, small octagonal pillars. The entrance has a beamed roof; on the left, above a small staircase, there is a studio doorway with a rounded arch. To the right, there is a lintel doorway. A segmental arch communicates with the courtyard. This one, paved, shows the medieval staircase on the right and conserves a cistern neck of octagonal section, located under the stairway palate.
The calle de la Portella is one of the most magnificent streets in Palma, where some of the most emblematic mansions in the city can be found. From the 17th century there is the outstanding Can Formiguera, with a splendid balcony overlooking the street and the coat of arms on the corner displaying the arms of Ramon Burgues-Safortesa y Fuster, the count of Formiguera, a legendary figure in the history of Mallorca who is known by the name of "Comte Mal". Opposite we find the ancient lodgings of the Carthusians of Valldemossa in Palma, which following the confiscation of church property fell into private hands and is known as Cal Comte d'Espanya. The building was reconstructed in the 18th century and contains a beautiful Baroque courtyard. In the niche of the doorway we can see the image of St Bruno. Halfway along the street there are two large historic houses with Neo-Gothic features. The most significant is Can Espanya-Serra, which has an important late 19th century courtyard. In all of these buildings we can see the layout of the Mallorcan noble mansion which, generally speaking, tends to retain the great, traditionally Gothic, semicircular doorway, the studio floor, the balcony on the piano nobile and the rows of windows or columns of the attic or upper porxo. Lastly, there are the wonderful eaves protruding over the street and helping to protect the wall of the façade. On the left, if we go down towards the city wall, where an old mansion once stood, we come to the museum dedicated to the Catalan painter Joaquim Torrents Lladó (1946-1993), exhibiting his life and works. Further on, on Dalt Murada, we can see the large building of Ca la Torre (an abbreviation of Cal Marquès de la Torre), a mansion built in the early 18th century and an early example of the sober tone of Mallorcan noble architecture; its courtyard is integrated into the medieval walls.
In the garden of la Lonja we can see one of the oldest gates of the city wall. This is known as the Porta del Moll (gate of the quay), built in 1620 by the master builder of the fortification, Antoni Saura, in collaboration with Jaume Blanquer, one of the best Mallorcan sculptors of the time. This is not its original site; the gate was originally inserted into the medieval wall alongside the sea, and then into the new one constructed in the 18th century in front of la Lonja. The gate represents a kind of triumphal arch in the Mannerist style, crowned on the arch by a small statue of the Immaculate Conception. The entablature carries an inscription referring to its construction. This was the main entrance gate to the city, and its artistic and monumental style is in line with the highly symbolic nature of the gates in ancient fortified enclosures. They would display the coats of arms of the king and his counsel, which in the case of the Porta del Moll were removed in the 18th century. Beside the gate stands the Consolat de Mar, now the headquarters of the Balearic Government. This building was originally the home of the Colegio de la Mercaderia, with a beautiful Gothic chapel added to its rear. The Consolat de Mar was an institution that acted as a court in order to resolve maritime conflicts and those between merchants. On the left-hand side we can see Can Chacón, with a beautiful 18th century Baroque gallery, from when the building was owned by this family of Andalusian origin. At the end of the 17th century it was the residence of the military engineer Martín Gil de Gaínza (1650-1737), who had it built above the wall.
C/ Sant Roc, 4. The Estudio General Luliano is a teaching institution founded in the 15th century, which subsequently, in the 17th century, became the Luliana de Mallorca University. After various changes, the current institution was created in 1951 to promote the culture of Mallorca and university studies. This institution is now used as a language school and for other teaching and cultural activities. The present-day building, in a Regionalist style, is the result of reconstruction in the 1950s, by the architect Gabriel Alomar. Some of the coats of arms and Gothic and Renaissance capitals survive from the ancient building and have been incorporated into the current building.
Although there was a first project by Emili Pou to install a 6th order lighthouse in this enclave, it did not materialize until much later, when a simple automated light was installed by means of a solar valve and acetylene gas flashers of the "naked flame" type. It was inaugurated on September 1, 1974 with a typical 350 mm diopter optic. The project was drafted by Rafael Soler. As the lighthouses on the island of Dragonera were also automated, both these and the Mola de Andratx lighthouse became part of the group of lighthouses whose technicians in charge lived in Puerto de Andratx, in some houses near the red beacon at the entrance to the port, which also belonged to the group of lights they had to attend to. It belongs to the first generation of lighthouses that were built without houses for the lighthouse keepers, although there were already quite a few automated beacons since the second decade of the 20th century. The urban pressure to which the area is subjected, has motivated that it is raised for a near future the necessary reforms that guarantee the reach and luminous coverage established for this signal.
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