Mallorca :: Comparisson reports

"Now we’re going to describe the other part of the city, Vila d’Abaix, a district limited, in part, by Carrer Sant Jaume. This long and narrow street is lined by old and very characteristic buildings, representing the most aristocratic road in Palma. At its very start is the great Despuig house, with its decorated facade, beautiful architecture, long attic with octagonal columns and double-beamed eave. The very spacious patio doesn’t have anything in particular except for the coffered ceiling above the stairs. In front is the house belonging to Mr. Maroto. Its facade is also decorated. It has a rounded double arch, a balcony with iron balustrade, a long attic with rounded columns and an eave. There are two-Renaissance style windows on the mezzanine floor with sculpted faces and the house’s coat of arms. Much higher up is a Gothic window. It also has a ceiling over the staircase but with sculpted figures in the doorposts. To the left back on the street is a richly decorated house in the Renaissance style, its facade made entirely of stone from Santanyí. It belongs to Count of San Simón and features red and black Mallorcan marble, especially from Artà and Binissalem, just as its entryway and patio with embedded marble columns and also a marble stairway. It has a tower featuring a clock and is shaped like an elongated rectangular prism with a type of terrace on top. In front is the modernized home belonging to General Cotoner, with a Baroque but very beautiful coat of arms.

On the left, a bit farther up the street is the house belonging to the Duke of Unión de Cuba. Its door and windows have been modernized, but it still maintains vestiges of its Gothic architecture, especially the beautiful “coronelles” windows with three arches and small double column. In the patio with four diminished arches supported on columns is the elegant staircase with stone handrail. Seven windows of the aforementioned type open onto this patio where there are also three arches with capitals decorated in different fashion. The majority of capitals are new. Four of the windows in the patio are together, while three are on the opposite side, with one on each side of the patio facade. Back on the street, to the right is Sant Jaume Church which has a small plaza in front. Several more houses with eaves follow, and one of the houses on the left has a long attic with octagonal columns to support the eave. On this side of the street is the new house belonging to the Torrellas. Its facade, made entirely of beautiful stone from Santanyí, was designed by Peironnet, though the figures sculpted on the window tympanums are not very pretty.

Carrer de les Caputxines descends to the Born and has several houses with eaves supported on octagonal columns. The house on the corner with Carrer d’en Campaner has a long attic with rounded columns, three beautiful triple-arch “coronelles” windows and a Gothic one on the first floor. Its portal is a half-point arch, and, to the left, in front of the mezzanine, is a fairly beautiful Renaissance-style window with sculpted figures. Farther up the street, to the left of the small Plaça de le Caputxines where the convent and church giving the plaza its name can be found, is Mr. O’Neylle’s house, with a large, rounded arch portal, balconies with iron balustrades and attic and eave supported on octagonal columns.

If we return now to our starting point, Carrer de Sant Jaume, we find Carrer de la Concepció leaving the Born. On the right, the large house at number 14 has a facade topped by a long attic with octagonal columns and an eave. Its portal is a half-point arch, though everything else about the entryway is modern. To the left, where Carrer de l’Aigua begins, a street we’ll discuss later, Carrer de la Concepció forms a very sharp angle next to a small grove of lemon trees. There is also a covered, pyramid-shaped fountain called “Font del Sepulcre” because there used to be a church there by that name. It’s believed that the small, demolished Sant Sepulcre Church, of which Mr. Felip Puigdorfila possesses five bas-reliefs, was formerly the mosque called Dalguiveni during the time of the island’s conquest.

The church, with its Romanesque facade still standing, survived until 1843, the year in which it was converted first into a warehouse and then a sawmill.

Farther down the street and on the left is the Concepció convent, with four “coronelles” windows bricked up. In front of the convent is a house at number 69. It is very large, with a great half-point portal, modernized balcony, 26 small octagonal columns to support the eave on top and a very pretty patio with diminished arches supported on columns with capitals featuring coats of arms as decoration. To the right of the hallway is the staircase which ends in a beautiful gallery with a coffered ceiling. Both this terrace and the three windows opening up onto the patio have pretty balustrades. A bit farther up the street, on the left, is the Concepció Church, and, on the right, a very old house with a very simple facade made of stone. The wall is cut by two sloped moldings and two “cornelles” windows with three precious arches. After here, only the center of the road is paved; the rest is very abandoned. We should also mention the house at number 98, with its rounded portal, attic with octagonal columns and eave, though we can still see on its facade what’s left of four “coronelles” windows with four arches  on the first floor.

Upon reaching the “murada”, the street widens, forming a small paved plaza. Carrer de ses Rafes continues from this point and along the wall. The street includes a picturesque group of houses and, to the right, the Hospici. After passing by a small grove of lemon trees, we reach the Porta de Jesus gateway.

On Carrer de Cavalleria, there’s a house at number 15 with a rounded arch entryway and a beautiful patio with two large, almost flat diminished arches and, above the stairs, Salomonic columns with carved little baskets. At number 19 is another house with a rounded arch portal and a patio with a beautiful staircase with coffered ceiling. From this street, you cross a small plaza with the same name and reach Carrer del Jardí Botànic. The garden to the left must have once served as the botanical garden. The street ends in Plaça de Santa Magdalena, with the church of the same name and where an unpaved hill begins called Carrer de la Beneficència. To the right is Camp Roig Church. The street ends at Plaça del Hospital, the most eminent place in Vila d’Abaix with the entrance to the hospital. To the right is the insane asylum, which takes up a good part of the recently built Carrer de la Misericordia.

To the west of Carrer de la Concepció is the very poor Carrer Bonaire (“Good Air Street”), thus called probably ironically because, except for a factory on the right, it doesn’t offer anything in particular. And, Carrer de Sant Martí, unpaved like the previous street, has a foundry and the walls of some gardens.

Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria.Las Baleares por la palabra y el grabado. Majorca: City of Palma. Ed. Sa Nostra, Caja de Baleares. Palma de Mallorca. 1982.