|
|
|
|
| Itinerary for a visit |
| Ground floor |
First floor |
Second floor |
Third floor |
 |
 |
 |
 |
> Virtual visit of the first floor
A look at the kitchen will show its large hearth, a large cupboard-cum-scullery, the bench, the window with the opening for the fire, a little pantry hewn inside the wall.
The kitchen of Iñigo’s childhood. Masters and servants shared the old kitchen round the fire. This is where old family chronicles were told; this, where the family culture was handed down:
- the Christian faith;
- the sense of honor;
- the value of personal courage;
- life-style and appearance;
- the chivalric vocation to defend the weak
> More on the Collective Family Culture
Southwestern corner. The ship painted on the side of a window in the southwestern corner recalls the itinerant and sailing vocation of the Oñaz and Loyola, a family that would produce a ship captain, a colonizer in the Americas, soldiers who fought wars in Europe, a parish priest for Azpeitia…
The coat of arms of Velázquez is shown on a pillar because Iñigo, too, will travel by land and sea; his first “port of call” was the Castilian town of Arévalo, Ávila, where he spent eleven years in the exquisitely courtesan atmosphere of the house of the Finance Minister of Castile, Don Juan Velázquez de Cuéllar, to be trained in administration and the art of war. Until in 1516 his mentor fell in disgrace with the new King Charles I of Spain, future Emperor Charles V, and died in 1517.
Then Iñigo moved to the court of the Viceroy of Navarre, the Duke of Nájera, introduced by the widow of Don Juan Velázquez.
Servants quarters. Here, too, various articles evoke Iñigo’s knightly past, what he went through immediately before and after his conversion.
A scale model of Pamplona in 1521 and pages from two court cases against Miguel de Herrera and Esteban de Zuasti citing Iñigo as a witness recall his presence in Navarre and his part in the defense of the Castle of Pamplona in favor of Charles V against the army sent by Francis I of France to restore the dethroned dynasty of Navarre.
The scale model shows that in 1521 Pamplona was a fortified town, with a perfect continuity of the medieval walls, with the only interruption of the defense towers and fortified gates. In the center of the upper part there stands out St Peter’s Palace, residence of the Viceroy whose gentleman-at-arms was Iñigo de Loyola, and in the lower part St James’ Fortress, in whose defense he was seriously wounded on 20 May 1521. This episode would unleash the process of his conversion. The Castle surrendered and Iñigo was taken on stretchers to his native house of Loyola by his companions.
Our Lady of Montserrat and a copy of Iñigo’s sword evoke his first steps as a converted knight, when he made the symbolic gesture of depositing his sword and keeping a vigil with his pilgrim attire and staff as his new arms.
Because, as Iñigo himself explains, as a tireless reader of books of chivalry, “his mind was full of those things, of Amadis de Gaul and such books,” he knew no other language to give expression to his conversion. |
|
|
 |
| |
 |
| First floor |
|
|
|
| |
 |
| Don Juan Velázquez de Cuellar's coat of arms |
|
|
|
| |
 |
| Pamplona in 1521 |
|
|
|
| |
 |
| Iñigo's sword offered to Our Lady of Montserrat |
|
|
|
| |
 |
| Graffiti of a boat |
|
|
|
|
