Palácio de São Lourenço

The Fortress-Palace of São Lourenço (St Lawrence) (Portuguese: Fortaleza-Palácio de São Lourenço) is located on the waterfront near the harbour in Funchal on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

The first fortress on this site was built at the request of the inhabitants after the ships anchored in the harbour were plundered. Construction took place in the years 1529–1540. However, the fortification did not meet all the military requirements for such a structure, and so the fortress was easily captured by French pirates in 1566. It was therefore subsequently improved, modified and enlarged up until the 19th century.

From the beginning the fortress served as the residence of the captain (the administrator of the island appointed by the king). It gradually turned into a residential palace. In 1943 it was declared a National Monument. It is now the seat of the president of the government of the autonomous region and of the military command (the navy is based in another Funchal fortress). For this reason not all areas of the São Lourenço fortress are freely accessible to the public, but since 1993 there has been a permanent exhibition here on the construction and history of the fortress. The National Palace inside the fortress can be visited by prior arrangement with the office of the president of the government.

Machine-translated from “Pevnost - palác São Lourenço” on the Czech Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Palácio de São Lourenço ranks #5,743 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #105 of the 200 mapped in Portugal. Founded 1490, it is older than 46% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 434 atlas entries founded in the 15th century. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Portugal compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Czech) ↗