La Lonja

The building was built by the Town Council, for use as a Corn Exchange, according to the project by master Juan de Sariñena. It is the first totally Renaissance palace of the city and the most important civilian construction of the 16th century in Aragon.

Its façades show a brilliant interpretation of the Italian models, adapted to brickwork; there are three floors with the number of openings increasing in height. The early  use of leaded glass in the windows of the second floor must be highlighted, in order to achieve the necessary inner lighting for thr activities that are developed there. The decoration is focused on the top floor, with the double semicircular arch windowed balcony enriched with busts of people in polychrome plaster.

The outer division into floors does not correspond to the inner space, which occupies a single hall with naves separated by ringed columns and covered with starred vaults. The new Renaissance style is also followed in the decoration, visible above all in the windows and in the frieze of the inscription, which runs around the hall. The most repeated motif is the city shield, carried by angels on the capitals of the columns and worked in the keystones of the vaults.  In the centre of the four sides the shield of emperor Carlos appears, sustained by lions and framed by the Golden Fleece. Above this hall is the floor, which corresponds to the outer windowed balcony, which is reached by a spiral staircase located inside an outer tower, which has disappeared today; the function it fulfilled was that of warehouse for the district arms.