Compensated Stair
Introduction
The Sorzano de Tejada Palace*, also known as Romero de Tejada Palace*, is a palace located in the city of Orihuela and headquarters of the Pedrera Martínez Foundation Museum.
History
In 1804 Matías Sorzano de Nájera"), one of the richest and most powerful characters of the century in Orihuela, asked the City Council for recognition of his status as a nobleman for being the "Divisa (Crown of Castile)") of the Solar de Tejada manor.
Once his nobility was recognized, it allowed him to enjoy numerous privileges as well as display his shield, which he placed in the left corner of the façade of his house-palace, a building built between the 19th and 19th centuries, in front of the most aristocratic buildings in the city on Calle del Ángel (current López Pozas).
In 1820, Matías Sorzano de Nájera paid the amount of 51,439 reales in gold and silver coins to Josefa Sardo de Raymundo and her daughter Bárbara, for two adjacent houses that they owned pro indiviso and that bordered theirs. The union of these three properties gave rise to the current palace.
The Palace
The building, from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, is made up of a basement, ground floor, main floor and two more above it, with four semicircular arch openings on each height. The doors of the three balconies on the main floor are finished with two pediments "Fronton (architecture)"), the central one being curved.
At each end of the façade there is a door, both lintels made of stone. The main one is the left. Via a compensated staircase,[note 1] illuminated by a Bohemian crystal lamp, you reach the first floor, where the Hall of Mirrors is located, where concerts and cultural activities are held.
In the second is the chapel with an altar of classical structure. The building, in neoclassical style, was expanded in the 19th century. Initially the palace had two floors, although later a third was added and the dome of the chapel was hidden. Inside there are living rooms, a chapel and a basement that preserves the old kitchen.
The interior was greatly transformed in a restoration in the period 1998 - 1999.[1] The result is an eclectic interior "Eclecticism (art)"), where nineteenth-century tiles meet with neo-Mudejar coffered ceilings, chandeliers and halls of mirrors. Once the building was restored, it became a University Residence Hall attached to the Miguel Hernández University of Elche.