The Council of the Alhambra opens to the public today the Tower of the Captive as new space of the month

The Council of the Alhambra and the Generalife opens to the public today the Tower of the Captive. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, from 8:30 to 20:00 , people interested in visiting this space, closed to the public for conservation works reasons, will have the opportunity to do it just by showing their general entrance to the complex.
The new space of the month dates back to the end of the 13th century and it combines the defensive character of its outside with the dwelling in the interior, since it was adapted for this purpose during the time of Yusuf I, during the first half of the 14th century. Throughout history, this place has received different names: tower of the Thief, of the Ladies and the Sultana. Since mid 19th century it is known as Tower of the Captive, for the romantic literary legend, which says that Doña Isabel de Solís was prisoner there, who later would be sultana with the name of Soraya.
The Tower of the Captive can hardly be differentiated externally from the rest. Nevertheless, its interior is one of the most outstanding room spaces of the Alhambra by its decoration. It is a tower-palace, or Qalahurra, whose structure and distribution is the same as the one of the houses and palaces of the Monumental Complex. 
This space, along with the Hall Comares, hoards the most complex decorative program of the Alhambra. A poem engraved in the room, which begins in the left angle, gives the key to understand it: “This work has come to adorn the Alhambra;dwelling for peaceful people and for soldiers; Calahorra that contains a palace. Say that is a fort and a mansion for joy at the same time!  It is a palace in which the splendor is distributed between its ceiling, its ground and its four walls; there are wonders in the stucco and tiles, but the wrought wood of its ceilings are still more extraordinary…”.