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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.
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