The essence of the garden of the Pazo de Oca resides in the inseparable unity of water, stone and vegetation. Although built very far from the Court, the reference in its design was the Baroque court garden, characteristics that explain why it is known with the hyperbolic metaphors of “Galician Versailles” or “northern Generalife”. Despite the numerous transformations they have undergone, these gardens are characterized by the harmonious coexistence of their different stages, from the Renaissance garden bordering the palace to the landscape reforms that, in the 19th century, the gardener of the Royal Palace of Madrid, Fançois Vié, introduced connecting it with the surrounding terraced mountain. However, it is the imprint of the Baroque garden of the first half of the 18th century that is best perceived, as it focused on its ponds which, in addition to constituting the axis around which the garden is arranged, condense all their symbolic baroque style. Forming a figurative boat of tricentennial boxwood that contains another inverted boat on which they sail, evoking the virtues and vanities of the world, two boats, one for fishing and the other for war.
The palace dates back to a primitive late medieval fortress although it was fundamentally transformed in the 18th century when, in addition to a large stately apartment, a beautiful Baroque chapel was built that presides over both the garden for leisure, and the square for work. The restoration work on these gardens, directed by the Duke of Segorbe, president of the Casa Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation, has had as its guiding criteria the conservation of the aforementioned harmonious stylistic diversity and the double character of an ornamental garden and a productive garden both being fundamental characteristics of all pazo gardens.
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