Bastion of Sant Pere

Monuments | Palma de Mallorca

In the 16th century the Renaissance enclosure of Palma was begun with walls and bastions adapted for artillery purposes. The creator of the project was the Italian engineer Giacomo Palearo, more commonly known as Captain Fratin (+1586). To be precise, work commenced on the enclosure in 1575 with the construction of the bastion of Santa Catalina, which was the name of the medieval gate and of the area still standing to the west today. That bastion would later be known as the bastion of Santa Creu, the name of the parish, and as the bastion of Sant Pere, due to the name of the street. This bastion was reconstructed in the first half of the 17th century by the Mallorcan engineer Vicenç Mut i Armengol (1614-1687), and between 1644 and 1656 a new gate was opened in the wall which no longer exists, but of which part of its bridge over the water course of Sa Riera survives. The bastion has endured many changes, and the one we can see today is what has remained of the old fortification. The bastion had two levels: the one known as the lower bastion, forming the square overlooking the paseo de Sagrera and the quay, and the one known as the upper bastion, which now contains the building of the Palma Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, opened in January 2004. The gate with the ramp was once the gateway up to this upper part of the bastion, which was totally embanked.