The Palace of the Marquises of Valbuena was commissioned at the end of the 17th century by Don Antonio Ibáñez de Riva-Herrera, Archbishop of Zaragoza and Toledo, Viceroy of Aragon, and Grand Inquisitor of Spain.
In keeping with the rank of its owner, this civil architecture, a symbol of medieval power and dominance, still preserves all the characteristic elements of Baroque art: the original walled enclosure, the main entrance, and its stone façade adorned with a magnificent and imposing coat of arms.
This coat of arms, almost entirely preserved, represents the father’s surname, Ibáñez-Agüero, and the mother’s, Riva-Herrera, attesting to the hierarchy of the founder and that of his nephew, Don Antonio Ibáñez Prieto de la Concha, the first Marquis of Valbuena de Duero.
The current dining room retains original elements such as a stone basin embedded in the wall, as well as a window with a small column separating two semicircular arches.
The building later had a religious use and underwent various modifications; some of the hotel rooms in the building’s extension were formerly the nuns’ cells.
CHAPEL OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
Barnabé de Hazas, a Cantabrian master stonemason, oversaw the construction of this chapel, which is documented as early as the beginning of the 17th century, although it underwent a major remodeling at the end of the same century by the Archbishop of Zaragoza, Don Antonio Ibáñez de la Riva-Herrera.
The chapel is attached to the palace and internally connected via a gallery and a window.
Access is through a classical portal, with a large arch projecting from the façade, topped by a triangular pediment adorned with balls at its corners and apex, and finished with a small bell gable.
Inside, the chapel features a large classical pillar around which the entire space is organized. Arches spring from this pillar, dividing the interior into four chapels covered with beautiful ribbed vaults: the two front bays feature star-shaped ribbed vaults with curved ribs, while the rear bays have star-shaped vaults with five ribs.
The chapel continues to serve a religious function today.
