Aljafería Palace

It is not often that you get the chance to pass through a set of walls and step, all at once, from an austere world into a refined one. That was precisely the intention of those who built the Aljafería: behind a rectangular enclosure reinforced by sixteen semicircular towers lay a cultured, delicate interior designed for the enjoyment of the Hudid kings of Saraqusta. Its creator, al-Muqtadir, called it the 'Palace of Joy' in his poems, and the name Aljafería derives, after a long phonetic evolution, from Abu Jafar.

It was built between 1065 and 1081, dates inferred from the inscriptions on some of the capitals, where the monarch appears with the victor's title he adopted after taking Barbastro. It is the only major surviving building of taifa art, which is why, together with the Mosque of Córdoba and the Alhambra in Granada, it forms the essential triad of Hispano-Muslim architecture. Its roots go back to the Umayyad desert palaces of Syria.

The decoration is well worth lingering over: mixtilinear arches, S-shaped springers, broad surfaces of openwork ataurique and plant-motif plasterwork that grows ever more abstract. These solutions left their mark on Almoravid and Almohad art on both sides of the Strait, and their drift towards the geometric anticipates Nasrid art.

After Alfonso I the Battler conquered Saragossa in 1118, the palace passed to the kings of Aragon and became the great centre of Aragonese Mudéjar, whose remains have been a World Heritage Site since 1986. Peter IV the Ceremonious lived here, and in 1492 the main floor was remodelled as a palace for the Catholic Monarchs. From 1593 it was a fortress of Renaissance design, still visible in the moat and gardens, and later a barracks.

The Sieges of Saragossa during the Peninsular War caused it serious damage, but restoration work in the second half of the 20th century returned it to its former splendour. Built outside the Roman walls, on the plain of La Almozara, it now stands within the city, surrounded by a small garden, and is home to the Cortes of Aragon, the regional parliament.