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El programa arquitectónico palatino desarrollado por Pedro I en el tercer cuarto del siglo XIV constituye un claro ejemplo del uso de la arquitectura como medio de manifestación del poder. Los palacios de Astudillo, Tordesillas, Carmona y Sevilla presentan una serie de características comunes que nos permiten vislumbrar el uso de formas y espacios con funciones claramente relacionadas con la visualización del soberano dentro de un marco adecuado para su exaltación delante de sus súbditos. El Alcázar de Sevilla constituye la culminación de este programa con las más sofisticadas soluciones.

Throughout the 15th century, the Crown of Castile offers one of the most diverse and fascinating monumental landscapes in Europe. The central plan prevailing within religious and palatine contexts, added to the design of monumental façades or the development of the semipublic square, etc., are but a few elements which distinguished this monumental landscape from the last third of the 13th century, as a result of the consciously-accepted influence of Al-Andalus. The Andalusi forms gradually wore out throughout the 15th century, in front of the technical and ornamental display of the late Gothic arriving in Castille from the centre and north of the Continent from around 1430. Over the last years of the century there is a general enrichment and overflow with the renewed Renaissance airs coming from Italy. Only thus can we understand such diversity and freedom in the artistic layouts developed in Castille, mixed and overlapped, where pure Andalusi spaces and typologies come to life in the forms of the late Gothic or the Renaissance. Great masterworks such as the Capilla del Condestable in Burgos Cathedral, the façade of San Gregorio College in Valladolid, or the Queen Isabel’s Oratory in the Alcázar of Seville, among many others, could only emerge in Castile during the 15th century and under the circumstances above mentioned.

This article studies the use of sections of the groin vault as supporting architectural elements, particularly as squinches, its origin and development across the territories of Western Islam, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula. It includes a typological study supported on a broad catalogue of examples.