A view of the Partal Palace at the Alhambra. The word itself is of disputed origin. It is comprised of a five-arched gateway which overlooks pools of water. The Partal palace built by Muhammad III is the oldest surviving palace at the Alhambra. It is located to the east of the Court of the Lions. The box-hedges and the ivy of Partal’s gardens are all anachronistic.
The Alhambra as a whole is one of the most fantasized monuments of Islamic Architecture, captivating the imagination of a vast number of writers and artists, including Washington Irving and the French author Chateaubriand, to name just a couple. Indeed, some parts of the Alhambra, such as the Court of the Lions, are commonly written about examples of the most beautiful architecture in the world. The palace-complex as it stands today was built mostly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries under the Nasrid dynasty (1238-1492), in particular by Yusuf I (1333-54) and his son Muhammad V (1354-59, 1362-1391). Out of six royal palaces, only two survive (the Comares palace and the Palace of the Lions). A summer palace called the Generalife (from the Arabic jannat al-arif, ‘the garden of the architect’) is also extant. – SK
Photograph created 1974. Photograph processed June 1974. Formerly catalogued as B49.226. Notes written on the slide or index: Pavilion + pool.
