Interior
The main entrance leads to an atrium with a vaulted rooftop and a floor planted with striped slabs (to allow access for horses), upheld by a haul of five large steps, crossed by a labored arch (flanked by gaps), followed by a plateau that gives access to a majestic staircase (which is lined with figurative panels of blue and white tiles), subdivided into two plateaus, connected by a stone banister (also covered with tiles). On the top, rises a magnificent richly crafted portal surmounted by the coat of arms of the Paes do Amaral Family.
The magnificence of the architectural ensemble of this real estate staircase is additionally enhanced by the extensive indoor height of the surrounding space, culminating in a high polychrome coffered ceiling of exquisite Baroque decorative (centered by the Arms of the Paes do Amaral Family), in perfect harmony with the lobby and entrance to the noble hall. “The passage and stairways treated as intermediate spaces, interior in relation to the street and exterior in relation to the house, are still a pseudo-metamorphosis of the inner courtyard, when adapting to a program of central nucleus of European tradition“3.
In the hall of extensive baroque apparatus, covered with a striking set of panels of eighteenth-century tiles, three large balconies let in light, which replaces the “Architectural treatment in volume by a superficial envelopment, giving the space a calm Mediterranean luminosity”4, passing through a “thin film of sparkles and aquatic reflections“. This space marks the central axis of the noble floor of the house, and the imposing connection of rooms of the main body of the building is visible.
From the end of the 18th century, the spatial function of the house gradually tends to leave the Baroque concept, clearly used as a symbol of ceremony, dignity and power, transforming itself into a lovely space of familiar and social life, considering the aesthetics of a profane humanism. Notwithstanding the several campaigns of works through which this Palace went through until its completion (amid the eighteenth century until the dawn of eight hundred), it is noted that the Paes do Amaral Family, like other families belonging to the rural nobility (in general more traditionalists), would only use the decorative motifs of the neoclassical style (according to the taste of Queen D. Maria I) to adorn smaller rooms and rooms of family intimacy5, maintaining the baroque enrichment for those spaces of public apparatus (entrances, stairs and lounges).
Additionally, because of the orderly use of the tile throughout the whole apparatus course of the noble floor (sometimes surpassing the mere pictorial expression to become the very essence of the architectural space) 6. When passing through the halls of the Palace of the Counts of Anadia (apart from the dining room) 7, we do not find “discontinuities between spaces made in different periods. The premises of a global and encompassing space that was one of the directions of baroque art are still present” 8.