Descripction

 

This facade belonged to the palace of the same name that was located in the Castillo Square. Unfortunately the palace was destroyed in the sixties for lack of foresight and for speculative reasons, placing its facade on the eastern front of the house of the Segundo de Cardenas, on the hillock of St. Ana, now Archbishop Jose Manuel Estepa.

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Palatial-home known also with the name of "House of the Shackles" for having two on each side of the door. The shackles, decorated with heads covered with three-cornered jars, were placed once the crisis was over, known as the "Mutiny of Esquilache" (1765), which in Andujar had some relief. With the detail of the three-cornered hat, apparently one of the causes of the mutiny, the Perez de Vargas expressed their loyalty to Carlos III.

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Palace built at the beginning of the seventeenth century by Manuel Perez de Vargas Parraga, knight twenty-four of the city of Andujar, and Mrs. Juana Palomino Cobo. Line of the Perez de Vargas that will be the depository of the title of the Marquis of Contadero, granted by Carlos III, December 4, 1775, to Mr. Luís Sirvente Pérez de Vargas Zambrana Soto. (1)

 

Its facade, halfway between the Mannerism and the Baroque, is, together with the front tower of the house of the Children of Don Gome, the only one that is conceived in stone in its totality in correspondence with the magnitude of the patrimony and the relevance of the cradle of its promoters. The simplicity of its scheme brings it closer to the late Renaissance, being its split pediments, demanded by the same layout of the openings, the only reference to the new Baroque aesthetic. We do not know the authorship of the project, although at that time the master stonemason Bernabé de Lorca worked on several projects in the city, there being the possibility to make the trace of this building.

 

One of the most significant elements of the facade, which gives it great singularity, are the highlighted ashlars of flat carving that are projected throughout the wall. Its function is purely ornamental, although it helps to reinforce the sense of solidity and monumentality that the stonework prints on the facade. An attic on frieze with cantilevered cornice finishes off the facade. On the frieze four barrel-like mouths: two frontals, aligned with the shields that flank the balcony, and two on the edge; in the corners of the attic, shields cut on cut leathers and helmet with the lineages of the dwellers and on it five balusters or pinnacles.

 

The cover arranged around the opening of the door and the balcony. The door, lintelled, comprised of columns of Tuscan order on small pedestal. The frieze decorated with diamonds. The split pediment grips the balcony overhang. On its vertices the blazons of the family. The one on the right, on a human mask with cut and stamped leathers, with a helmet and an artistic duster, presents the lineage of Gormaz and Palomino.

 

The one on the left, the lineages of Perez de Vargas, Gormaz and Gualbes. The balcony topped with curved party fronton decorated with split shield on cut, stamped leathers and helmet where the lineages of Perez de Vargas and Gormaz, the owners of the building, are represented.

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Asociación de Amigos del Patrimonio de Andujar