BRIEF HISTORY OF LAS DUENAS
Built between the 15th and 16th centuries, Las Dueñas was named after  the currently dissapeared monastery of Santa María de las Dueñas, placed in the adjoining plot and demolished in 1868. 

 Its Origin was the Place-house of the Pineda, lords of Casa Bermeja, one of the dynasties  of the patricians of Sevilla. In the following decades, the Palace was inherited by Fernando Enríquez de Ribera, II marquis of Villanueva del Río. 

His daugther, Antonia Enríquez de Ribera,  got married in 1612 with Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, future Duke of Alba. Since then, Las Dueñas belongs to Casa de Alba.

 In the XIX Century, Dueñas became a guesthouse, dividing its rooms and halls with walls  and covering  the coffered ceiling. 

 One of the guest, and property administrator of Las Dueñas, was Antonio Machado Álvarez father of the famous poet Antonio Machado, who was born in Las Dueñas in 1875. 

Machado remembers in the following  verses the eight years of his childhood , when he lived in Las Dueñas: