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Home to the 19th Duke of Alba, a Grandee - or
highest nobility - of Spain and head of one of its oldest and
richest aristocratic houses, it boasts paintings by Francisco
Goya, Diego Velazquez and Peter Paul Rubens and a unique library
with letters penned by Christopher Columbus and a first edition
of Don Quixote.
"You can feel the weight of history the moment you enter this
house," Alvaro Romero Sanchez-Arjona, head of the culture
department at the Casa de Alba Foundation, told Reuters.
"Visitors ... will realize they're not in a conventional museum,
they are in a palace, in an inhabited house," Romero added while
taking receipt of Goya's portrait of the 13th Duchess of Alba -
the painter's muse - returned after a temporary lease to the
Thyssen museum.
The 18th century building is the third palace the Albas have
opened to paying visitors since 2016 in an effort to maintain
the heritage of the family, which is restricted from selling
many of its heirlooms due to their historic importance for
Spain.
The House of Alba dates back to the 1400s and its wealth is
estimated to be between 600 million euros and 3.5 billion euros
($663 million-$3.87 billion).
The Palace of Liria, where France's last empress and wife of
Napoleon III, Maria Eugenia de Montijo, died in exile 1920, will
allow groups of 20 visitors to tour its ground and first floors
every 30 minutes for a 14-euro ($15.50) fee.
Duke Carlos Fitz-James Stuart and his family will continue to
live on the second floor of the palace, which was extensively
rebuilt after suffering heavy damage from bombing in Spain's
1936-39 Civil War.
(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Andrei Khalip and Toby
Chopra)
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