PhD Program in Historical studies
“El Bosque” of Bejar: importing an Italian model
The Bosque, located in the territory of Béjar (Salamanca), originated in 1567, when the fourth Duke of Béjar, Francisco de Zúñiga y Sotomayor, ordered the construction of a house for the entertainment of his family. The place was an ancient possession that the ZúñigaThe noble Zúñiga clan were originally from the kingdom of Navarre. The Zúñigas were at the service of the Spanish Crown in the guise of ambassadors, archbishops, and military advisors. They were also Spanish Grandees. Their titles included the Duchy of Béjar and County of Miranda. family used for hunting and fishing since the Middle Ages. As in the case of Italian villas, the location in the countryside of Béjar’s Bosque, on the outskirts of the town, is characteristic. It consists of buildings and gardens arranged in geometric shapes and terraces communicating with each other through stairways, all following a precise order of symmetry. Moreover, the complex does not stop at the palace and the garden, but also includes gardens, fields and open spaces with meadows and forests, not to mention the beautiful scenery visible from various points of the estate. El Bosque fully followed the model of the Italian villa, taking as examples the Neapolitan villa at PoggiorealeWas a villa outside the walls of the city of Naples, now disappeared. Alfonso II had it built in the late fifteenth century, following the model of florentine villas, and it experienced a period of great splendour during his reign. However, since 1494, with the abandonment of the villa by Alfonso II after the French invasion, it came under several owners and was gradually abandoned., which no longer exists, created by Alfonso II of NaplesBelonging to the Aragonese dynasty, King Alfonso II (1448-1495) ruled the kingdom of Naples for only two years (1494-1495), due to the French invasion commissioned by Charles VIII. Years before, his father, Ferdinand I, had planned to build a large house for the royal family in Poggioreale, with a large garden and abundant fountains. in the fifteenth century on the outskirts of the city, or the villa at Poggio a Caiano, built at the behest of Lorenzo de’ MediciLorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492), called “the Magnificent”, ruled Florence during the Renaissance. A famous patron of the arts, he promoted the work of Botticelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti and a good number of important artists. From the political point of view, he constantly struggled to maintain his power in the face of other important noble Florentine families, above all the Pazzi. from 1485. It is clearly an import into Spain of the model of the Italian villa through ties of kinship that bound the family of the MediciThe Medici family ruled Florence and Tuscany for centuries, first as lords and then as grand dukes. Their power and influence made them one of the era’s most powerful Italian families, as evinced by the fact that more than one of the Medici managed to get himself elected pope. In addition, their name connects with the greatness of the Florentine Renaissance, which extended to the whole of Italy and served as a model to the whole of Europe. to the Zúñiga through the viceroy of Naples, Pedro de Toledo y ZúñigaPedro Álvarez de Toledo y Zúñiga (1484-1553) was an important courtier and military governor during the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic and, especially, of Charles V. He was appointed Viceroy of Naples in 1532, and exercised that office until 1553. His long stint at the healm of the Neapolitan government allowed him to carry out a number of reforms and changes within the city and the kingdom. and his daughter Leonor de ToledoLeonor Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel (1519-1562), the daughter of the viceroy of Naples, Don Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Zúñiga, married Cosimo I de ‘Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The union served to strengthen the ties between the Emperor Charles V and the Grand Duke, as Leonor belonged to one of the most powerful families in Spain. In the court of the Medici, Leonor was a great art collector, and surrounded herself with important artists of the Italian Renaissance., who was married to Cosimo I de’ MediciCosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574), was the first Duke of Florence and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1537 to 1574. He married Leonor Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, by whom he had a total of 11 children. During the reign of Cosimo I the Medici increased the great art collection that can be admired today in the Uffizi Gallery. Cosimo and his wife also ordered the construction of the Boboli gardens, which became the paradigm of the Italian garden. and was the creator of the Boboli Gardens in Florence. Other nobles, such as the dukes of Alba or the dukes of Osuna, who also were viceroys of Naples, exported the classical model of the garden. The culturally rich court of Naples was converted in fact, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, into one of the main sources for the penetration of thought and the Italian artistic model in Spain. El Bosque of the Dukes of Béjar is the most complete and best preserved example of the “Italian” garden in Spain.
The Bosque has different levels: the first terrace of the system was originally dedicated to an ornamental garden. Today it retains some fruit trees, but the farmland is gone. The second terrace was occupied by the geometric garden with trimmed hedges, quite changed following the reorganization that took place towards 1869-1871 following Romantic models, though it retains some geometric elements of the original garden (image 1). The next level is that of the lake, the third terrace of the system, in which the representative elements of the villa are arranged around the pond: the Dukes of Béjar’s palacete de recreo, the Fuente de la Sábana that preserves its Baroque elements, the plazuela or rotonda and the Fuente de los Ocho Caños (picture 2). Flanking the southern side of this long succession of terraces in levels there is a series of trees, mostly chestnuts that form the forest (bosque) which gives its name to the villa. Higher up, you can enjoy the spectacle of nature, the landscape between the foot of the mountain and the snowy peaks of the Sierra, which create the waters that give life to the garden.