The Palace of the Marquis of Fronteira ...

Being a regular weekend tourist in my own city has allowed me to marvel at some of the amazing places, which are "within reach" and yet unknown to many. The Palace of the Marquis of Fronteira (commonly referred to as Fronteira Palace) is one of those.

Located in the area of Benfica (northwest of the city) it is one of the most impressive 1640 Lisbon Museum  residences, initially built as a hunting pavillion to the 1st Marquis of Fronteira (Dom João de Mascarenhas). It is privately owned but guided tours allow visitors to access to both the 17th and 18th century rooms and the gardens, decorated with some of the finest  Portuguese decorative tiles.

We were (unfortunately) only allowed into the outside pavillions and gardens, though fortunate enough to have witnessed this mastery of  tile decoration.

The Chapel's yard (connecting the Palace rooms to the chapel) known as the Gallery of Arts had its walls covered with tiles depicting "The Arts", between which several niches decorated with statues of Mythological figures were to be seen.

Tiles depicting hunting scenes so typical of the epoch and social critic oriented ones, having monkeys and other animals as the main scenario characters caught our attention, the latest mainly because of the rather exquisite representative approach  ("the approved surgeon" and "the Music school").

The garden of Venus and the "Fresh pavillion"  were to follow, the first one fully decorated around its stone seats with tiles depicting maritime scenes and the pavillion itself covered in small pieces of broken shells, crockery, glass and pebbles. Both were impressive, I must say.

The 18th century Italian-like Garden "unveiled" a wide variety of  tile panels, some of which related to the months and seasons of the year, the zodiac, stars and star constelations.

 

I felt rather sad when told that not too many people visit this  Museum, though somehow rewarded by the fact that the few foreign visitors did appreciate  "our" Art, the one we so often ignore ...

I know I will be back, despite the fact that I have visited it twice already ... this "half hidden" Palace in a non-touristic area of Lisboa is really worth being visited ...