6. PALACE OF NARVÁEZ

The building which nowadays is the Town Hall used to be the palace of General Narváez. I propose you a little game. Look for a detail on the wall, next to the rear servants’ door: the roof and the top floor. Can you find it? Exactly — the roof and the top floor cover a part of the adjacent house. But ... do you know who General Narváez was?

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Ramón Mª Narváez was born in Loja in 1799 to an aristocratic family. At a very young age, he began his military career, reaching the highest possible rank of field marshal.

He fought in the Carlist wars which divided Spain between the supporters of liberalism, who backed up Isabela II (King Ferdinand’s daughter) and those who were in favour of absolutism and they supported the king’s brother, Carlos. Narváez was a liberalist, but within this movement he separated from some colleagues such as O’Donnell and Espartero, following the most conservative branch of the movement.

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Once Isabel II became queen, he began his political career as the leader of the Conservative Party in Spain. He ruled Spain six times, alternating in office with his opponents in a brand new and unstable democracy. He was mainly known as “the Broadsword of Loja” because of his authoritarian personality. Apart from this palace, in our city, his summer country house (General Narváez’s garden) is still preserved, together with his mausoleum, where his remains, those of his parents’ and his legitimate son’s can be seen, as well as those of a daughter who could not inherit his surname, but who he loved for all his life.

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And what’s the fuzz about the roof? Well, he had this special roof built to show his power and superiority over his neighbour.