The Mafra National Palace stands in the town of Mafra northwest of Lisbon, built between 1717 and 1755 under King John V of Portugal, its enormous cost financed largely by gold and diamonds flowing from Portugal's colony in Brazil. The complex combines a royal palace, a Franciscan convent housing hundreds of friars, and a domed basilica within a single vast Baroque and early Neoclassical building, making it one of the largest single religious-royal structures ever built in Europe. Its library, added later in the eighteenth century, holds tens of thousands of historic volumes and is one of the most significant surviving Rococo libraries in the world, still protected in part by a colony of bats that live behind its bookshelves and feed on insects that would otherwise damage the collection. The palace also holds two matched carillons of bells cast in the Low Countries, among the largest sets of historic carillon bells anywhere. UNESCO inscribed the Mafra palace complex as a World Heritage Site in 2019.
Facts
Building Type Completed Year Classification
Standing Status Building Type
Building Type (category) Connections
Has Building Type
Entity-backed identity for the building-type enum value this building already carries, resolved to an architecture concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The building-type fact itself stays on the building unchanged.
In Style
Source Palace of Mafra (Wikipedia)
Source Palace of Mafra (Wikipedia)
Uses Element
Source Palace of Mafra (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Portugal, located there.
Sources
1. Palace of Mafra (Wikipedia)
Lead, description
a monumental Baroque and Neoclassical palace-monastery
Lead, location
located in Mafra, Portugal, some 28 kilometres from Lisbon
Construction history
Construction began in 1717 under King John V of Portugal and was completed in 1755
Entity description and the lead/infobox of the Wikipedia article
The Mafra National Palace stands in the town of Mafra northwest of Lisbon, built between 1717 and 1755 under King John V of Portugal, its enormous cost financed largely by gold and diamonds flowing from Portugal's colony in Brazil. The complex combines a royal palace, a Franciscan convent housing hundreds of friars, and a domed basilica within a single vast Baroque and early Neoclassical building, making it one of the largest single religious-royal structures ever built in Europe. Its library, added later in the eighteenth century, holds tens of thousands of historic volumes and is one of the most significant surviving Rococo libraries in the world, still protected in part by a colony of bats that live behind its bookshelves and feed on insects that would otherwise damage the collection. The palace also holds two matched carillons of bells cast in the Low Countries, among the largest sets of historic carillon bells anywhere. UNESCO inscribed the Mafra palace complex as a World Heritage Site in 2019.
In Style: Baroque Architecture, Wikipedia categories
Category:Baroque palaces in Portugal
In Style: Neoclassical Architecture, Wikipedia categories
Category:Neoclassical palaces in Portugal
Uses Element: Stone, Wikipedia article
This vast complex, largely built of Lioz stone, is among the most sumptuous Baroque buildings in Portugal and at 40,000 m², one of the largest royal palaces.
View the SourceWikidata: Mafra National Palace
Wikidata Q599223, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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