Islamicate Elements in the Velasco Palaces: Constructing a Castilian Court Architecture

Abstract

The article questions the categorisation of different palaces of the Velasco family according to stylistic attributions to Mudéjar or Gothic style, analysing the fourteenth-century Palace of Medina de Pomar and the fifteenth-century Casa del Cordón in Burgos. It shows how both combine features traceable to the Nasrid context with Northern European elements, contradicting at the same time the assumption that the Islamicate heritage was limited to ornamental contributions, while the fundamental structure was based on Northern European elements. The article discusses whether the Islamicate elements would have been perceived as such and when they started to be perceived as a possibly indistinguishable part of a Castilian court style. It also examines the role the stylistic associations and delimitations played in the image exhibited by one of the lineages promoted by the Trastamara dynasty.