The Royal Palace of Madrid is the official residence of the Spanish royal family, used today primarily for state ceremonies, and stands on Bailen Street in western central Madrid near the Manzanares River. It was built between 1738 and 1755 to replace an earlier Alcazar destroyed by fire in 1734, designed first by the Italian architect Filippo Juvarra and completed under Giovanni Battista Sacchetti and Francesco Sabatini, whose work introduced Neoclassical refinements to the late Baroque exterior of rusticated grey granite and white limestone. With more than 135,000 square meters of floor space and 3,418 rooms, it is the largest royal palace in Europe. The palace houses major art collections including works by Goya, Velazquez, and Tiepolo, along with the only complete Stradivarius string quintet in the world and one of Europe's finest armories.
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