Sintra National Palace, also called Town Palace (Palácio da Vila Vila) is located in the town of Sintra, in Portugal near Lisbon.
It is the best preserved mediaeval Royal Palace in Portugal, having been inhabited more or less continuously at least from the early 15th up to the late 19th century. It is an important tourist attraction and is part of the Cultural landscape of Sintra, designated World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The National Palace of Sintra is the only surviving intact medieval royal palaces of Portugal. Most likely, it was built on the former residence of of the Muslims wallis, and since the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy, monarchs had a palace here.
Much of the palace dates from the times of King John I, who sponsored a major building campaign starting around 1415.
The other major building campaign that defined the structure and decoration of the Palace was sponsored by King Manuel I between 1497 and 1530, using the wealth engendered by the exploratory expeditions in this Age of Discoveries. The reign of this King saw the development of a transitional Gothic-Renaissance art style, named Manueline, as well as a kind of revival of Islamic artistic influence (Mudéjar) reflected in the choice of polychromed ceramic tiles (azulejos) as a preferred decorative art form.
King Manuel ordered the construction of the so-called Ala Manuelina (Manuel's Wing), to the right of the main façade, decorated with typical manueline windows. He also built the Coats-of-Arms Room (Sala dos Brasões) (1515–1518), with a magnificent wooden coffered domed ceiling decorated with 72 coats-of-arms of the King and the main Portuguese noble families. The coat-of-arms of the Távora family was however removed after their conspiracy against king Joseph I.
In the following centuries the Palace continued to be inhabited by Kings from time to time, gaining new decoration in the form of paintings, tile panels and furniture.
The ensemble suffered damage after the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake but was restored in the "old fashion", according to contemporary accounts. The biggest loss to the great earthquake was the tower over the Arab Room, which collapsed. At the end of the 18th century, Queen Maria I redecorated and redivided the rooms of the Ala Manuelina.
During the 19th century, Sintra became again a favourite spot for the Kings and the Palace of Sintra was frequently inhabited. Queen Amélia, in particular, was very fond of the Palace and made several drawings of it. With the foundation of the Republic, in 1910, the Palace became a National Monument. In the 1940s, it was restored by architect Raul Lino, who tried to return the Palace to its former splendour by adding old furniture from other palaces and restoring the tile panels. It has been an important historical tourist attraction ever since.
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