Valldemossa Charterhouse


The Valldemossa Charterhouse is a palace in Valldemossa, Majorca that was residence of the king Sancho of Majorca former royal residence and Royal Charterhouse.

History

The origin of the complex dates back to the time of King James II of Majorca, who chose this exceptional place in the Sierra de Tramuntana, located more than 400 meters high, to build a palace for his son Sancho, known as the "Palace of the King Sancho". In the year 1399 Martin of Aragon yielded all the royal possessions of Valldemossa to the Carthusian monks. These founded the Charterhouse and inhabited it until 1835, when it happened to private hands by the Ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal.
The church, a neoclassical building decorated by great artists and craftsmen of the time, began to be built in 1751 on the primitive church erected in 1446. The complex has a cloister -one of the oldest parts of the current buildings-, the old pharmacy of the Carthusians, garden and the rooms of the Prioral Cell-chapel, former library, audience room, bedroom...- where the historical and artistic legacy of the Carthusians is preserved, showing how the monks lived. In the cells there are the documents and memories of the stay of the musician Frédéric Chopin and the writer George Sand the winter of the years 1838-1839. In the cell 4 Chopin composed his Preludes Op. 28, “ Scherzo no. 3, op. 39 in C-Sharp Minor” and Sand wrote A Winter in Majorca.
Saint Catherine of Palma, one of the Patron Saints of Mallorca was born at the Monastery in 1533.