The palace the guerrilla general burned to prevent French occupation

In 1813, the Navarrese guerrilla general Espoz y Mina set the Royal Palace of Olite on fire. He wanted to ensure that French troops during the French Invasion could not use the fortress as a base. The plan worked, leaving the building in ruins, but it also nearly erased centuries of Navarrese history.

Before the fire, the palace served as a magnificent court for the Kings of Navarre. While an older structure stood on Roman foundations, King Charles III the Noble commissioned a new palace beginning around 1388. He brought in the sculptors Johan Lome and Pedro Jalopa, the carpenter Lope Barbicano of Tudela, the painter Enrique de Estencop of Aragon, and the tapestry maker Lucien Bertolomeu to create a palace of gilded rooms, galleries, and courtyards.

Following the destruction of the war, the provincial government of Navarre began a massive restoration project in 1937. Architects José and Javier Yárnoz Larrosa won a competition in 1926 to lead the project and studied the documents on the palace in the Archivo General de Navarra. They spent thirty years bringing the palace back to its former appearance.

Today, you can walk through this National Monument to see the results of that long restoration, which was completed in 1967 and paid for by the Foral Government of Navarre.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons