The National Palace of Queluz enchants for its magnificence and for the exuberance of its architectural details. Closely linked to the experiences of three generations of the Portuguese Royal Family, and the stage for intense emotions, the palace reflects the evolution of the tastes and styles of the time, going through Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassicism.
Surrounding it, scenic gardens invite you to “stroll” through the time when the court organized sumptuous parties there and keep the memories of the gondola rides on the canal, the theater, the hunts, the musical and literary evenings, the masquerade balls, the games and outdoor recitals.
In 1747, Infante D. Pedro, third Lord of Casa do Infantado and future king D. Pedro III (by marriage to D. Maria I) instructs the architect Mateus de Vicente de Oliveira to expand the so-called “Paço Velho”. Years later, in 1760, the announcement of the marriage of D. Pedro to the heir to the throne, Princess D. Maria, motivates deeper works.
At this stage, the works are the responsibility of the architect and goldsmith Jean-Baptiste Robillion. D Pedro III dedicates his attention to this place, transforming it into a leisure and entertainment space for the Royal Family and filling it with apparatus rooms, such as the Throne Room or the Ambassadors Room.
In the gardens, the decoration is marked by several sculptural groups that evoke classical mythology, of which the lead statues of John Cheere’s London studio stand out.
After the fire at the Royal Barraca da Ajuda, in 1794, where the Royal Family had lived permanently since the 1755 earthquake, the Queluz Palace became the official residence of Queen D. Maria I and, later, of the ruling princes D. João VI and D. Carlota Joaquina
The palace is permanently inhabited until the departure of the Royal Family for Brazil
In 1821, D. João VI returned to Portugal, but the palace was only re-inhabited, in a semi-exile regime, by Queen D. Carlota Joaquina, accused of conspiring against her husband. The next generation, marked by the Civil War that opposed the brothers D. Miguel and D. Pedro IV of Portugal and the first Emperor of Brazil, ended the royal experience of the Palace of Queluz. It is in the Queluz Palace, in the room Don Quixote, where he was born, that D. Pedro IV died.