The Diplomat in Spain

The Throne Room of Madrid’s Royal Palace is already open to visitors./ Pictures: Elora Valbuena.

Eva Cantón. Madrid

Just like actors on the opening day, Pilar Benito, Curator of the Royal Palace of Madrid, looks at the audience out of the corner of her eye, a bit nervous, in search of a gesture of approval. Many visitors ignore that, for the first time in thirty years, the public can enter the Throne Room.

Since last 24 April, the new tourist itinerary of the Palace, which incorporates three areas that used to be banned, culminates in its most emblematic room, the scene of the most relevant ceremonies of the State, such as the King’s reception to the Diplomatic Corps accredited in Spain, the National Holiday or the celebration of the Pascua Militar.

Its access is a space also unknown for the tourists: a closed balcony, a privileged viewpoint named “Camón” which allows contemplating the baroque marble staircase while climbing up to the Palace.

Soon the antechamber appears showing fleurs-de-lis in the blue silk velvet in the walls and a French table, a present of the Gibraltarians to Fernando VII in appreciation for the monarch’s help during the epidemic of yellow fever in 1828.

After walking under the ‘La apoteosis de Trajano’ in the official small room, where Charles III ate in front of his subjects, you can go into the Throne Room, wander about the same carpets garlanded with flowers where kings and queens walked on; see the same fresco by Tiépolo unfolding “the Greatness of the Spanish Monarchy” in the vault, the same lions commissioned by Velázquez to flank the chairs of the throne where a piece of crest was added at the beginning of the 18^th century because they were devised as table legs at first.

Those days poking your head out of the side corridor of the Halberdiers Room to take a brief and stealth look are gone; the evasive walk that moved away the experience of appreciating the prodigious reflections of the sixteen Neapolitan mirrors on the consoles, the crimson tapestries embroidered on silver and the sculptures of the Seven Planets saved from the Alcázar’s fire.

“The feeling that the citizen will experience when physically being in the Throne Room, that great historical scene where the most important events of the History of Spain since the 18^th century have happened, is a unique experience”, tells José Luis Díez, brilliant director of the Royal Collections.

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 «A new itinerary allows access to the most emblematic room of the Royal Palace of Madrid»

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Everything is symbolic in a room where Charles III placed elements that legitimized him as a Bourbon king and heir of the Hapsburg. Even the furniture tries to control time and space thanks to the four elements, the four seasons, and the four parts of the world known by then. “It is a great allegory”, summarizes Pilar Benito before taking us to the Room where the Greats of Spain waited to be granted an audience with the King.

The current tourist itinerary of the Royal Palace concludes a series of measures taken throughout 2013 to highlight the beauty of lamps, vases, bronzes, cabinets, porcelains and glassware. Among these, the new LED lighting, providing a new saving ingredient and lots of light without any risk for the works of art.

Only in the Gala Dining Room, inaugurated on 29 November 1879 to celebrate the wedding reception of Alfonso XII and María Cristina de Hapsburg, there are more than 900 light bulbs distributed into eight lamps flying over an infinite table dressed as if the fellow diners were about to sit at a State lunch.

Once the journey is finished, the visitors’ expression is eloquent. “You notice the greatness of the Spanish Monarchy”, says a Sevillian about to go down the elegant Italian staircase. What she probably ignores is that, in the future, we will also have access to the kitchens.