The new castle of Manzanares el Real, or castle of the Mendoza, is a
palace-fortress of late medieval origin located in the municipality
from Manzanares el Real, at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama and next to the river
Manzanares, which in that section is retained in the Santillana reservoir.
Built in the fifteenth century on a Romanesque-Mudejar church, which remained
integrated into the structure, it was conceived as the residence
palatial of the Casa de Mendoza, one of the most influential lineages in
Castile during the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Replaced a
former castle, which was located in a nearby enclave, owned
also from the aforementioned family.
The architect Juan Guas participated in its construction, who used traces
Elizabethan Gothic, with Hispano-Muslim influences. It's considered
such as the precedent of the Palacio del Infantado (Guadalajara), a key work of
Spanish Renaissance architecture, where the aforementioned author defined the
palatial prototype of the reign of the Catholic Monarchs.
Thanks to successive restorations, it presents an excellent state of
conservation. It currently houses an Interpretation Center on the
medieval, plus a collection of tapestries, paintings, armor and
furniture from the 16th to 19th centuries. It was declared a Historical Monument-
Artistic in 1931.
The lands surrounding the upper course of the Manzanares river, known as El
Real de Manzanares from the time of Alfonso X el Sabio, were the object
of frequent disputes between the different powers that emerged after the
Reconquest, due to its agricultural and forestry wealth.
In the 14th century, King Juan I of Castilla donated the region to the Casa de
Mendoza, through Pedro González de Mendoza, butler of the
monarch.
To his eldest son, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, senior admiral of
Castilla, he is credited with building a first fortress in the area,
of which some remains are preserved, which are called the old castle
from Manzanares el Real. In the last third of the XV century, the Mendoza
they decided to replace it with another building, larger and more
luxurious, in keeping with the notable political and economic influence achieved by
the family.
The new residence was promoted by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and the
Vega, grandson of the admiral and first duke of the Infantado. Thanks to your
Will, works are known to have been underway in June 1475.
After his death, the work was paralyzed for a
weather. Her eldest son, Íñigo López de Mendoza y de la Vega,
probably picked them up and

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