Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The hotel of Spain, or Hotel Maurel de Pontevès, is a private hotel built in the middle of the seventeenth century on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence. He was commissioned by Pierre Maurel, a wealthy linen merchant who had been anointed in 1639, and symbolizes the transition between late mannerism and the emerging baroque. Its façade is distinguished by two atlantes supporting the balcony, works by Jacques Fossé, while the rear houses a garden decorated with fountains. Ranked a historic monument in 1990, it illustrates Aixian civil architecture in the Great Century.

Pierre Maurel, who became postmaster and then intendant of the king's finances, married Diane de Pontevès in 1645 and began construction between 1647 and 1651. Architects Jean Lombard and Pierre Pavillon lead the project, while Jean Daret and Jacques Fossé design interior and exterior decorations. Nicknamed "Hotel du Crésus de Provence" with reference to the fortune of its sponsor, the building embodies the fascist of the Aix élites under Louis XIV. Requisitioned by the German army in 1942, it now houses the commercial court of Aix-en-Provence.

The hotel is located in the Mazarin district, an urban extension of the 17th century desired by the Robine aristocracy. Its classification in 1990 includes the garden, the fence walls and the fountain, highlighting the coherence of the whole. A communal property since 1951, it bears witness to both the social ambitions of its first occupants and the contemporary reuse of heritage. The facade atlantes, attributed to Fossé, remain one of the most emblematic elements of the building.

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