The Palacio de Iturbide in Mexico City has a double distinction: it’s one of the great surviving baroque mansions of New Spain AND it was home to independent Mexico’s first emperor.

It was built between 1779 and 1785 for Miguel de Berrio y Saldívar, Count of San Mateo Valparaíso and Marquis of Jaral de Berrio, a creole aristocrat whose fortune was based on mining.  He commissioned it as a wedding gift for his daughter, allegedly spending the exact amount of the dowry for fear that his new Italian son-in-law, one Marquis of Moncada, would otherwise squander the money.

He certainly got his money’s worth.

The facade of the Palacio de Iturbide on Madero Street in Mexico City.

The palace was designed in the Mexican Baroque style then still prevalent in New Spain, but architects  Francisco Antonio Guerrero y Torres and Agustín Duran purportedly modelled it on the royal palace in Palermo, perhaps in honour of their employer’s son-in-law.  It has 3 floors and the inner courtyard is surrounded by an 18-arch arcade.