ALMUDÍ PALACE

Situated in the "Plano de San Francisco", this is a unique and imposing building, with a patio of columns which takes us back to Baroque Murcia. At one time, it was a grain silo -"alhóndiga"- for the city. The original idea to build a public storage centre for cereals collected as tithes can be attributed to King Alfonso X el Sabio (the Wise) in the XVIII century.

The name Almudí comes from the measurement for grain, and is the equivalent of six "cahíces" or four thousand litres. All of the harvesters and merchants came here to trade in cereals. At the same time, the town council handed out the wheat to the bakers.

The building was finished in 1440 by Esteban Fernández, and was reformed on various occasions throughout the XVI century. In the XVII century, some of its rooms were used provisionally to store weapons while the "Contraste" building was under completion, causing a bolt of lightning to destroy much of the palace.

The building later became the Law Court and today it is home to the City Archives, located on the first floor, where the administrative documentation of the city and the "Huerta" has been kept since the XIII century. It is also an art centre, and you can find an exhibition room in the grandiose hall with its Tuscan columns on the ground floor.

On the facade, you can admire a medallion relief of the Matron of Murcia or The Bread Store (Pósito del Pan), by Hernando de Torquemada. It shows a matron -Murcia- holding aside her own child to feed another, symbol of the Murcian hospitality. A pelican, symbol of abundance, crowns the relief.