Bellver Castle is to be found some three kilometres form the centre of the city of Palma at some 112.60 metres above sea level. It dominates the bay and a large area of Majorca. Its construction commenced in 1300, by order of Jaume II, King of Majorca. Work on the building took nine years and the ornamentation was finished more slowly, 70 permanently employed workmen, a large number of women and the king’s slaves all worked on it. The castle was designed as royal residence. At the end of the 14th century, Joan I and Violant of Aragon lived there for three months with their court. Other important visitors were Carlos I, the Prince of Saboya, Juan of Austria, the Duke of Montpensier and Queen Isabel II, Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII, as well as the present monarchs King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia. IN 1717, it became a military prison. Between 1802 and 1808, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Minister of the Treasury, Patronage and Justice in the reign of Carlos IV, was imprisoned in one of the rooms on the first floor. The castle also acted as a prison for numerous French officers and soldiers defeated in the Battle of Bailen. In 1817 General Lacy, leader of a failed liberal rebellion, faced a firing squad there. In 1821, the castle was temporarily used as a mint. The building in circular lay-out with three semicircular buttressed towers, and a single tower some seven metres from the body of the castle. The construction is arranged around a central courtyard, on two levels, the ground floor with semicircular arches and flat roofs and the upper one with Gothic arches and the ribbed vault so typical of Gothic architecture. In 1931, the Government gave the building and the woods to the Palma City Council who turned it into the Palma History Museum and the Despuig Collection of Classical Sculpture. In addition, the Palma Town council organises various cultural and leisure activities there.