The Valldemossa Charterhouse (Catalan: ''Cartoixa de Valldemossa'', Spanish: ''Cartuja de Valldemosa'', translatable as Carthusian Monastery of Valldemossa) is a palace in

Valldemossa Valldemossa is a village and municipality on the island of Majorca, part of the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. It is famous for one landmark: the Royal Charterhouse of Valldemossa, built at the beginning of the 14th cent ...

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

that was residence of the king

Sancho of Majorca Sancho (; 1274 – 4 September 1324), called the Pacific or the Peaceful, was King of Majorca, Count of Roussillon and Cerdanya, and Lord of Montpellier from 1311 to his death. His 13-year-long reign was markedly undisturbed by turmoil, which earne ...

former royal residence and Royal

Charterhouse Charterhouse may refer to: * Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order Charterhouse may also refer to: Places * The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery * Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey London ...

(15th century).

History

The origin of the complex dates back to the time of King

James II of Majorca James II ( ca, Jaume) (31 May 1243 – 29 May 1311) was King of Majorca and Lord of Montpellier from 1276 until his death. He was the second son of James I of Aragon and his wife, Violant, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary. In 1279, by the Trea ...

, 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 Martin the Humane (29 July 1356 – 31 May 1410), also called the Elder and the Ecclesiastic, was King of Aragon, Valencia, Sardinia and Corsica and Count of Barcelona from 1396 and King of Sicily from 1409 (as Martin II). He failed to secure th ...

yielded all the royal possessions of Valldemossa to the

Carthusian The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians ( la, Ordo Cartusiensis), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its ...

monks. Saint Catherine of Palma, one of the Patron Saints of Mallorca, was born at the Monastery in 1533 and died in 1574. 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, a garden and the rooms of the Prioral Cell–chapel, former library, audience room, dormitory—where the historical and artistic legacy of the Carthusians is preserved, showing how the monks lived. These founded the Charterhouse and inhabited it until 1835, when it happened to private hands by the

Ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal {{Short pages monitor