King Philip III ordered the building of a turret at the express request of merchants. This was the first of the set of buildings. Visitors enter through a drawbridge using the door that you can see at the top.
Construction took place between 1610 and 1612 and the tower was located on the original site where the old lighthouse of Porto Pu was erected.
The construction was built in order to defend the sea - and in particular Porto Pi, which, in the seventeenth century, was the natural port of Palma - from ongoing pirate attacks that were ravaging the Mediterranean.
The turret has a tetragonal shape with a bastion in every corner. It is made from sandstone and you can see lots of marks made by the very people who worked on it at the time.
According to some historians, the Castle is named after the viceroy of Mallorca, D. Carles Coloma. Half a century after it was built and before it was necessary to increase the endowment of the Castle and its equipment, in 1662 and under Philip IV, the second-phase construction work began, which was carried out under the illustrious military engineer D. Vicente Mut. The fortress is shaped like a trapezoid, with four large bastions, giving it its very odd shape. In the nineteenth century, it underwent its 3rd and final reform in order to create a Coastal Artillery with four cannons on the outside.
During the twentieth century, it was used for different purposes: a hospital, a prison for officials and from 1981 onwards a Military Museum.
King Philip III ordered the building of a turret at the express request of merchants. This was the first of the set of buildings. Visitors enter through a drawbridge using the door that you can see at the top.
Construction took place between 1610 and 1612 and the tower was located on the original site where the old lighthouse of Porto Pu was erected.
The construction was built in order to defend the sea - and in particular Porto Pi, which, in the seventeenth century, was the natural port of Palma - from ongoing pirate attacks that were ravaging the Mediterranean.
The turret has a tetragonal shape with a bastion in every corner. It is made from sandstone and you can see lots of marks made by the very people who worked on it at the time.
According to some historians, the Castle is named after the viceroy of Mallorca, D. Carles Coloma. Half a century after it was built and before it was necessary to increase the endowment of the Castle and its equipment, in 1662 and under Philip IV, the second-phase construction work began, which was carried out under the illustrious military engineer D. Vicente Mut. The fortress is shaped like a trapezoid, with four large bastions, giving it its very odd shape. In the nineteenth century, it underwent its 3rd and final reform in order to create a Coastal Artillery with four cannons on the outside.
During the twentieth century, it was used for different purposes: a hospital, a prison for officials and from 1981 onwards a Military Museum.
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