Palace of Mafra  

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The Palace of Mafra also known as the Convent and Palace of Mafra and the Royal Building of Mafra, is a monumental Baroque and Italianized Neoclassical palace-monastery located in Mafra, Portugal, some 28 kilometres from Lisbon. Construction began in 1717 and was completely concluded in 1755. The palace was classified as a National Monument in 1910, and was also one of the finalists of the Seven Wonders of Portugal.

A major reference to the construction of the palace is made in the book Baltasar and Blimunda (Memorial do Convento), written by the Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago. The main character, Baltasar, born in Mafra, works in the construction of the palace(He does not work in the construction of the palace. He was born in Mafra and during the events of the novel he returns to it and witnesses some of the early stages of the construction before leaving again to Lisbon). Saramago makes a detailed description of the building process, including the transport of a giant stone from the quarry to the building site, depicting it as a torture for those who helped build the palace.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Palace of Mafra" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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