Ribeira Palace

The palace complex underwent numerous reconstructions and reconfigurations from the original Manueline design, ending with its final Mannerist and Baroque form.

After the earthquake, the reigning monarch, King José I, suffered from claustrophobia and chose to live the rest of his life in a group of pavilions in the hills of Ajuda, and thus the palace was never rebuilt.

With his lucrative profits from Portugal's monopoly on the spice trade, King Manuel I set off on a building spree, renovating the Lisbon landscape, and starting with the construction of a new royal palace.

In 1508, King Manuel I started expansion works on the palace, which ended in 1510, and appointed Diogo de Arruda as head architect of the project.

It was during the Manueline era, when the House of Aviz ruled Portugal, that the Portuguese Renaissance truly flourished, and Ribeira Palace was one of its centers.

It was at Ribeira Palace, in 1515, that Gil Vicente, the father of Portuguese and Spanish theatre, first performed his play Quem Tem Farelos?

The original manueline chapel was turned into a magnificent baroque church, and the palace gained another wing for the queen, parallel to the previous one, commissioned to the Italian Antonio Cannevari.

The royal archives disappeared together with detailed historical records of explorations by Vasco da Gama and other early navigators.

His prime minister, the 1st Marquis of Pombal, coordinated a massive reconstruction effort that would give rise to the Pombaline Downtown of Lisbon.

Ribeira Palace in its mid-18th century Mannerist and Baroque form, only years before its destruction in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake .
A 16th-century painting of the Holy Martyrs of Lisbon uses Ribeira Palace in the background as a metonym for the city: King Manuel I 's original palace, done in the Manueline style, was the head of his royal and imperial administration.
Ribeira Palace after the King John III 's renovations. Alterations can be seen in the King's Tower .
During the Philippine era , the palace changed hugely, scrapping the original Manueline for a Mannerist style.
Catherine of Braganza departs from the Palace Square, en route to England, 23 April 1662
Ribeira Palace of the Brigantine era was a vast and modern palatial complex, including an opera and cathedral. On the left, there is the Corte Real palace
" Washing of the Feet by John V of Portugal", one of the few representations of the interior of the Ribeira Palace (1748)
After the 1755 earthquake , enough of Ribeira Palace's frame stood to reconstruct, but it was demolished.