La Llotja de Palma celebrates 600 years of history with cultural events

An inaugural conference will be held followed by a concert by the Mallorca Chamber Orchestra at La Llotja on March 11th.

On March 11th, 2026, the six hundredth anniversary of the signing of the contract between the College of Merchants and Guillem Sagrera to build the Llotja building in Palma will be celebrated. The building was conceived as the headquarters of this College. For this reason, the Institute of Balearic Studies (IEB) will organize on that same day, at 7:00 p.m., the inaugural conference given by the Professor of Art History Sebastiana (Tina) Sabater Rebassa titled “La Llotja (1426-2026): six hundred years of history and art in the city of Mallorca. CYCLE: Remembering the Consulate of the Sea and the Llotja of Palma. History, art and heritage.”

The inaugural conference event will also include a performance by the Mallorca Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Bernat Quetglas. The program will consist of the piece “Transitus liminis” by Joan Pérez-Villegas and the piece “Requiem” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The idea of this performance is to present a program with music from the time when the Llotja building was constructed.

Afterwards, at the Archive of the Kingdom of Mallorca, six more conferences will be held on the following Wednesdays of March and April, in addition to the introductory one. Four of them will focus on the Llotja and two on the institution of the Consulate of the Sea.

The first of these conferences will take place on Wednesday, March 18th, given by Catalina Cantarellas under the title “La Llotja: critical and historiographical fortune.” On March 25th, Pere Rabassa will present “Rehabilitation of the Llotja and its surroundings.” On April 1st, Antònia Juan will give the lecture “Conventional and alternative approaches to the sculpture of the Llotja.”

The cycle will continue on April 15th with Maria Barceló and the talk “The new Llotja in the middle of the Raval de Mar.” On April 22nd, Albert Cassanyes will present “The Book of the Consulate of the Sea of the monastery of La Real (1385): a documentary approach.” The final conference will take place on April 29th, given by Pere Ripoll Sastre under the title “The Consulate of the Sea: from Mallorcan innovation to a shared legal tradition.”

Six hundred years later, this anniversary offers the opportunity not only to remember the past but also to highlight the value of our heritage. The Llotja of Palma continues to be a symbol of the identity of Palma and a cultural reference for the whole society. We celebrate the vision of the merchants who promoted this project and the creative genius of Guillem Sagrera, who made possible a building that, six centuries later, continues to amaze residents and visitors.