Seven centuries of life hidden behind the shadows of Franco’s 36 years

When the President of the Republic, Manuel Azaña, died on his way into exile in the French city of Montauban, Franco had already been installed in this palace half a year ago, but its origin goes back seven centuries, although many people ignore it or do not care about it. This association with Francoism began at the end of the Civil War, in 1939. The dictator asked his chief architect, Diego Méndez, the same person who designed the Valley of the Fallen, to make the necessary repairs to restore its splendor and transform it not only into his home, but into the nerve center of his regime.

That was for 36 years, until Franco was urgently transferred to a La Paz hospital, after being operated on in a poorly equipped operating room in the barracks next to the palace, which today can only be visited if you are a soldier and stationed there. Since then, El Pardo has been seared in the popular imagination as if it belonged only to the Franco regime, and nothing had ever existed here before.

For this reason, when we entered the courtyard of Austria, its oldest area, the National Heritage Guard in charge of the palace, Maria Isabel Rodriguez Marco“When someone asks me where I work and I say in El Pardo, the usual reaction is: ‘Oh!’” he laments. Where Franco lived. And I always insist that you come to see him to find out his full story. The palace was important in Franco’s era and is not hidden by tour guides, but it is much more than Franco’s residence and we strive to make it known.

Since 1312

The oldest written reference dates back to 1312, when Alfonso XI was King of Castile. Since then, the abundant presence of animals and its proximity to the city of Madrid made its mountain a favorite place for kings to hunt during the Middle Ages and the modern era. We’re talking about a massive 15,700-hectare forest – 50 times the size of New York’s Central Park – home to thousands of fallow deer, deer, and wild boar. There Henry III of Castile built his first hunting lodge in 1405, a few months before his death.

“It seems unfair to me to associate such ancient buildings with one time period, because the history of Spain goes far beyond that. It is true that Franco established his headquarters here, but it cannot be said that it bears the imprint of Franco, but rather his entire previous history, which is reflected in his successive architectural reforms. “There are buildings in Spain that can be more associated with the dictatorship, due to their aesthetics and purpose, such as the Valley of the Fallen or the Arc de Triomphe, but El Pardo and its mountain were also the favorite scene of Francisco Giner de los Ríos (responsible for the educational renewal that Franco condemned and boycotted) and Manuel Azaña,” explains Juan Pablo Fossi, member of the Royal Academy of History, who also accompanies ABC on this matter. An exclusive visit on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the dictator’s death.

On the day of the coup in 1936, the President of the Republic was calmly walking through the rose bushes of Quinta, a building in El Pardo that he had converted into his residence two months earlier. “He was very attracted to the countryside, and at first was more interested in the gardening of the place than in the military uprising. The historian adds: “The Republicans did not appreciate it well or think they could contain it on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar.”

Save Athania

The chief of his escort had to hasten to extract him, because the officers of the engineer regiment stationed there had placed themselves at Franco’s service. A year later, Azaña was still dreaming of returning to that paradise, telling Communist Prime Minister Juan Negrín: “When you win the war, you will allow me to cease my position as president in exchange for appointing me to the position I love most, that of chief guard and permanent governor of El Pardo.” Without pay or reward other than the right to live in any of their homes.

Several centuries ago, in 1547, Emperor Charles I ordered the first wing of the palace to be replaced when he first saw the mountain. Felipe II, also tempted, hung on his walls works by Titian, Sánchez Coelho and Antonio Moro, his chamber painter. In 1604, a major fire destroyed much of the building, but Philip III loved it too and immediately ordered its restoration.

As we ascend the Queen’s Staircase towards the gallery of the same name, which preserves the oldest paintings, from the 17th century, Rodriguez Marco explains to us the details of each room we pass through. The room decorated by the painter and sculptor Gaspar Becerra, Michelangelo’s student, the only one to survive the fire. “When one walks through this and other Spanish royal palaces, one realizes the dignity and stature of our world-dominant power. It is often said that Spain’s decline began in the 18th century, but the truth is that this empire was larger than the previous one. Spain has continued to be the second or third power in Europe, and that reflects very well in this place, which has nothing to do with the stereotype or negative image that is projected about the Spanish monarchies,” Fauci says.

City

In the middle of the 18th century, Ferdinand VI organized the property for the benefit of the Crown and under Charles III it was no longer just a hunting ground, as he began to build houses for employees who needed to spend three months a year here. This was the origin of the city of El Pardo. In 1772, the Italian architect Francesco Sabatini completed the renovation of the palace, which acquired its current appearance. In the nineteenth century, Ferdinand VII enriched it with furniture and furnishings, such as those seen in Goya’s works. But in 1869, the Sixth Year Democratic government seized 5,000 hectares of the mountain, divided it into plots of land and sold them to individuals, as well as converting the guard barracks that had protected the kings for four centuries into a hospice. That was his job until Franco arrived.

Paul Preston said in his book Franco: Leader of Spain (1993): “The leader lived under the protection of El Pardo, surrounded by a court of sycophants, cut off from the real world, for 35 years, except for short visits to the provinces, three trips abroad to meet Hitler, Mussolini and Salazar and long vacations.” Al-Hafiz says that in 2018, National Heritage closed the dictator’s bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room due to the Historical Memory Law. However, today we can see the hall where the Council of Ministers was held.

“During the 18th century it was the ceremonial dining room,” Rodriguez Marco explains. The decoration by the painter Juan Gálvez was commissioned by Fernando VII, because his father, Carlos IV, took the tapestries to the Escorial Monastery. The most curious thing is the vault, a symbol of Spanish royalty painted by Francisco Baio. It is paradoxical that Franco held the cabinet under her (he was in opposition to the monarchy), but he certainly did not notice it.

The office

Finally we entered his study, which in the reign of Charles III had been the dining room for daily use. It has remained practically intact for fifty years. On its walls hang the oldest tapestries of El Pardo made of silver, gold and silk thread, and a portrait of Isabella the Catholic beside the table of Charles IV used by Franco, with his bell by his side to assist him on the most tedious visits. “It makes sense,” Fossey says, “because Franco identified not with the Austrians or the Bourbons, but with the Catholic Monarchs.” He adds: “There are many photographs of Franco working at a table full of papers, which reflects his personality, as he lets problems fall like ripe fruit. “He was always postponing decisions and making his ministers desperate.”

On October 15, 1975, the dictator suffered his first heart attack and his slow pain began, despite the Council of Ministers holding a final meeting. Other interventions followed. The Bishop of Zaragoza even performed his last rites in an improvised operating room, as Manuel Hidalgo, the doctor who operated on him, revealed to ABC: “The first impression was painful. “He was in bed, relatively conscious, having difficulty breathing and a distended stomach.”

Franco finally died in La Paz on November 20. Two months later, a motorcade took his widow, Carmen Polo, to her new home on Hermanos Piquer Street in Madrid. Since then, no family member has set foot in El Pardo again.