The New Castle of Manzanares el Real, also known as the Castle of the Mendoza family, is a late medieval palace-fortress located in the municipality of the same name at the foot of the Guadarrama mountain range and near to the Manzanares River, which is retained in the Santillana reservoir.
It was built in the 15th century over a Romanesque-Mudejar church to serve as the House of Mendoza's stately dwelling during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. It replaced a family-owned castle in a local enclave.
It was erected by Juan Guas (1430-1496), who utilized Elizabethan Gothic and Hispano-Muslim influences to create the Infantado Palace, an important work of Spanish Renaissance architecture that defined the palace prototype for the Catholic Monarchs.
It is well-preserved after several repairs. It houses a Middle Ages Interpretation Centre10 and 16th–19th-century tapestries, paintings, armour, and furniture. A Historic-Artistic Monument since 1931. The Duke of Infantado owns the enclosure, but the Directorate General of Tourism of the Community of Madrid manages it and enables public and institutional activities.
Due to their agricultural and forestry wealth, the lands around the upper course of the Manzanares River, known as El Real de Manzanares since Alfonso X the Wise (1221-1284), were frequently fought over following the Reconquest.
King John I of Castile (1358-1390) donated the province to the House of Mendoza in the 14th century through Pedro González de Mendoza (1340-1385), the monarch's steward.
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1367-1404), Admiral Major of Castile, built the area's first bastion, the medieval castle of Manzanares el Real. In the last part of the 15th century, the Mendozas replaced it with a larger, more sumptuous edifice to reflect their political and economic power.
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y de la Vega (1417-1479), grandson of the Admiral and first Duke of the Infantado, promoted the new house. His will shows work began in June 1475.
His death interrupted work. His firstborn son, Áigo López de Mendoza y de la Vega (1438-1500), presumably resumed the work in 1481,16 constructing a new addition on the east side to expand stall space. He also employed Juan Guas (1430-1496),17 architect to the Catholic Monarchs and creator of the Palace of the Infantado (Guadalajara) and the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes (Toledo),18 to homogenize and enrich the complex.
Guas designed the Elizabethan Gothic southern gallery, porticoed courtyard, knights atop the corner towers, and parapet and crowning embellishment.
The House of Mendoza dismantled and abandoned the old stronghold to reuse its masonry materials and prevent its opponents from capturing it due to its proximity to the new building.
The fourth Duke of the Infantado, Áigo López de Mendoza y Pimentel (1493-1566), scarcely a century after its completion, lived in Guadalajara, leaving Manzanares el Real largely abandoned. The condition of abandonment exacerbated with his death, due to economic troubles and lawsuits between the heirs of the House of Mendoza.
The Ducal Mansion was restored in 1914. Vicente Lampérez y Romea (1861-1923), its architect, used anastylosis and historicist principles to rebuild the porticoed courtyard, which was completely destroyed. Under José Manuel González Valcárcel, the administration funded a Castles Museum in 1964.
In 1965, Áigo de Arteaga y Falguera (1905-1997), 18th Duke of Infantado, gave the castle to the now-defunct Diputación Provincial de Madrid, which began consolidation and restoration. These works allowed the 1977 memorial opening.
The 1982 assembly of Madrid parliamentarians presented the proposed Statute of Autonomy for Madrid at the building. The Community of Madrid took over the Provincial Council's duties and assets in 1983 and took over the complex. The new organization installed ten 17th-century Flemish tapestries in the stronghold.
In 2005, Madrid returned to the castle to start a new museum and tourism project. In 2013, a Renaissance-inspired garden was created.
With the Reconquest nearly complete and the noble houses largely established, fortifications were built in the last third of the 15th century to project wealth and power. Machicolations, merlons, loopholes, moats, barbicans, and other fortification elements serve this idea and are subjugated to the grand home, more in line with pre-renaissance ideas.
One of late medieval Castile's most powerful lineages lived in Manzanares el Real Castle. The Mendozas engaged Juan Guas to build a lavish palace that resembled a castle.
The complex combines military design with palace architecture's balance of forms, symmetry of volumes, and flair for decorating. The chapel inside the castle shows religious architecture.
The main body of the structure is quadrangular (30 m x 30 m) with a straight portion on one side, modeled after palatial castles of the time. It has a basement, first mezzanine, main floor, second mezzanine, upper gallery, and roof gallery. Three corners have cylindrical towers, but the southeast corner has a higher, square tower with an octagonal top, like a keep.
A five-metre-high barbican with artillery-ready arrow slits or fire ports surrounds the main body.
After Cardinal Mendoza, they bear the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem cross.
Other defensive resources, typical of fortified enclosures, are the moat (now dismantled and partly filled in); the moat or defensive corridor, which is protected by a shooting gallery; the parapet made of a salted wall (reminiscent of the obstacle that existed in full medieval fortresses, which made it difficult for potential assailants to climb); the knights raised on the corner towers; and the outer gate, located on the western side and guarded by two flanking turr
The inside is a luxurious palace with a series of enormous chambers grouped around a porticoed courtyard, replacing the earlier parade grounds of the walls of previous centuries.
Juan Guas designed the courtyard, which was renovated in the early 20th century by architect and restorer Vicente Lampérez. A double corridor with two superimposed galleries is supported by depressed bell-shaped arches with fluted shafts and octagonal capitals, carved with floral and figurative themes. The lower corridor includes three 16th-century coats of arms of the Mendoza, Enriquez, and Álvarez de Toledo families, all from the Duchy of Infantado. The top corridor has a rose-windowed railing.
The exterior includes palatial features that soften military constructions. The parapet mouldings and tower balls are aesthetic, but some are also recreational.
The southern gallery, which overlooks the Manzanares River valley, was created for contemplation, like a beautiful perspective. Its 20th-century name, Paseador or Galería de Juan Guas,28 refers to its author and its segmental arched loggia with double-pointed and lobed tracery. One of the most important Elizabethan Gothic galleries.
Guas uses Hispano-Muslim decorative formulas. The network of rhomboidal plates that supports the southern gallery, inspired by the Islamic sebka; the muqarnas that shape the parapet mouldings, discussed above; and the enormous lime four-lobed rhombuses that frame the stone balls of the towers and are now faded are examples of this.
According to experts, Guas' Palace del Infantado in Guadalajara, likewise commissioned by the Mendoza family, utilised similar resources as a rehearsal.
The castle's only unrestored part is the chapel on the eastern body's lowest level.
15 Its Romanesque-Mudejar apse and presbytery arch match the 13th-century church of Nuestra Señora de la Nava on which it was built. A later Gothic arcade with three naves remains. The octagonal pillars support semicircular arches with pointed sides.
The library and other rooms were on several storeys above the chapel, now gone.
Granite, abundant in the Sierra de Guadarrama, is used for construction.
30 The porticoed courtyard galleries and the original medieval church employ limestone and brick.
The walls are masonry and ashlar, although the most ornate parts, such the gateway, loopholes, southern gallery, and courtyard, are carved ashlar.
The Sierra de Guadarrama's rich granite is employed in the construction, although limestone, brick, and the old medieval church's galleries are also utilised.
The walls are masonry and ashlar, although the most ornate aspects, such as the gateway, loopholes, southern gallery, and courtyard, are carved ashlar.
The 2005 Madrid Community Integrated Strategy for Tourist Development designated Manzanares el Real castle as a historicist museum.
31 Its rooms store authentic and imitation collections that replicate and idealize the 16th to 17th century palatial ambiance. The entry hall, Santillana Room, Infantado Room, Ladies' Room, alcove, and oratory have been decorated.
The now-defunct Diputación Provincial de Madrid stored 10 Flemish tapestries in these chambers, together with paintings, armour, and furniture from the 16th to 19th century.
The exhibition's most valuable items were manufactured in Brussels in the mid-17th century. The Life of Julius Caesar, a five-textile series by Ian Van Leefdael and Gerard Van der Strecken, is the most thorough. Only Ian Francis and Franz Van den Hecke's Life of Man series, based on Rubens' pupils' cartoons, survives. The biblical-themed tenth tapestry is untitled.