Liria Palace

The Palacio de Liria in Madrid's Arguelles district has been the official town residence of the House of Alba since the early 19th century. Ventura Rodriguez and Louis Guilbert began the neoclassical building in 1770; with more than 200 rooms over 3,500 square metres it is the largest private palace in Madrid. The building burned almost completely during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, but the art collection was rescued in time and stored in the vaults of the Bank of Spain. Sir Edwin Lutyens supervised the reconstruction, completed in 1956. The collection includes works by Goya, Titian, Rubens and Velazquez and the original copy of Christopher Columbus's first logbook. The palace has been open to the public since 2019, with guided tours bookable online.