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.

In some ways, the Kingdom of New Spain, centred in what we now call Mexico, was at its height in the Versailles Century (1682-1789).

It certainly reached its greatest territorial extent in the 1700s, as the map below illustrates.

By Eddo – Own workFile:BlankMap-World-90W.svgFile:New Spain.pngFile:Nueva España 1795.pngFile:Spanish Provinces in the Pacific.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11435488

The light green areas represent the last areas to be claimed by the Spanish before the onset of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of Independence, which resulted in the collapse of Spanish rule and Mexico’s independence in 1821, not to mention that of the other countries of Central and South America.

The Metropolitan Museum has just made a stunning announcement: 375,000 images from its collections will be made available for free use.

That’s right: free use.  As in, you can use the images freely for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.  You can even adapt, modify or build on them.  This initiative has come about through the Met’s Open Access policy and is being operationalized via Creative Commons.  You can read all about it in this post from the Met’s Facebook page: http://mymodernmet.com/metropolitan-museum-of-art-open-access/

For us, here at Versailles Century, this obviously means worry-free, user-friendly access to hundreds of images of the Château, its contents, and its surroundings.  As a foretaste, here are some images of Versailles from the Met’s collections.

A view of the Château from the courtyard by Sylvestre:

“Château de Versailles seen from the forecourt, from Chalcographie du Louvre, Vol. 22” by Israel Silvestre (French, Nancy 1621–1691 Paris) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0

The Basilica da Estrela with its elegant white façade is my favourite church in Lisbon — no small compliment in a city that fancies itself a second Rome.

The façade of the Basilica da Estrela in western Lisbon with tram #28 at bottom right.

If you’re starting from central Lisbon, it’s quite easy to find.  Just get on the famous #28 tram, heading westwards.  The terminal stop is right in front of the Basilica, as you can see in the photo above.

The Chapel was the last major component of the Château to be completed.

Louis XIV had been planning a grand new chapel in the late 1680s when the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697), also known as the Nine Years’ War, broke out.  The plans for the Chapel were then shelved.

The Chapel of the Château de Versailles as seen from a street in the town.

When the planning resumed after the end of the war, the King had changed his mind about a crucial point of the design: instead of marble, the white stone known as banc royal would be used for the interior.

Madame Adélaïde (1732-1800) was one of Louis XV’s children.  As such, she was a “Daughter of France,” and was accorded a truly royal apartment in the main block of the Château.

Portrait of Mme Adélaïde in 1787 by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. It hangs in her sister’s apartment at Versailles.

Her apartment adjoins that of her younger sister, Mme Victoire (1733-1799).  I previously described Mme Victoire’s apartment in an early post on this blog: http://versaillescentury.com/2016/09/22/versailles-mme-victoires-apartment/#more-304

The 2 sisters were the last of Louis XV’s offspring still alive and living in the Château towards the end of the reign of their nephew, Louis XVI. The latter also gave them the Château de Bellevue, and, unprecedentedly, the joint dukedom of Lauzun.  The layout of the rooms today is as it was arranged for the sisters in the 1780s.

The Rue du Bac is a narrow but fascinating street in Paris to wander along.  Lined with antique shops, boutiques, restaurants, and cafes, it stretches from the quai opposite the Louvre deep into the heart of the Left Bank.

Rue du Bac in Paris.

It’s also home to the Paris Foreign Missions Society, usually abbreviated as MEP using the French initials (Missions Étrangères de Paris).  The unassuming street entrance to the MEP complex is shown below.

The entrance to the MEP complex at 128 Rue du Bac.

This venerable organization, still active today, was responsible for the Catholic evangelization of North America and much of East and Southeast Asia.

The Cour de Marbre is part of the footprint of Louis XIII’s original chateau, which was intended to be nothing more than a hunting lodge and a place of quiet refuge from court life.

The Cour de Marbre facade of the Chateau de Versailles.

Louis XIV, of course, had very different ideas for his father’s hunting lodge.  Still, he respected his father’s memory to such an extent that he planned his expansion of the Chateau around the original building instead of knocking it down and starting fresh.   Thus was born the Enveloppe, literally the “envelope” of new construction that enclosed Louis XIII’s hunting lodge.

On this day, 24 January, occurred the birth of the future Frederick II, called the Great, King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786.  The year was 1712, the last full year of the reign of his grandfather, Frederick I, the first king not only of his name, but of the kingdom of Prussia, which until a decade before had been only a duchy.

Two baby princes had already been born to Frederick I’s heir, Frederick William, and his consort, Sophia Dorothea of Hannover, whose own father would soon become king of England.  Both of the little princes had been sickly and died in infancy.  Only baby Frederick’s elder sister, Wilhelmina, had survived of the the crown princely couple’s early brood.  This pair of children would be close for their rest of their lives.

The newly born Frederick was puny, but proved to be quite hardy.  In the end, he lived to be 74, which was a very respectable age in the Versailles Century.

Frederick the Great in old age.  Credit: Wikipedia.

In maturity, he would be a statesman, general, writer, philosopher, art collector, composer, dog lover, devoted friend, doting brother and uncle, and neglectful husband.  Here at Versailles Century, we consider him fascinating and he’s one of our favourite historical characters.

The King’s State Bedroom was the ceremonial heart of the Château, but the Cabinet du conseil (Council Chamber) next door was its political heart.

The King’s Council Chamber at Versailles.

All three kings who lived at Versailles spent many hours in this room.  It was the venue for meetings of the Conseil d’Etat, the Council of State, which was effectively the cabinet.   The King also chaired the meetings of the Conseil des Dépêches (Foreign Affairs) and the Conseil des Finances (Finance) here.  Furthermore, foreign ambassadors presented their credentials in this room.  Last but not least, all those who wished to join the court had to be presented to the King here by a sponsor.  In 1745, Madame de Pompadour was presented, for instance.