Sa Llotja — you say it Yot-ja. Battlements along the top, an octagonal tower at each corner, enormous windows full of stone tracery, and a row of gargoyles leaning out over your head with their mouths open.
Everybody assumes it's a church. It has never been a church. This is a trading floor.
Sa Llotja was built for the College of Merchants — the men who ran shipping out of this harbour — as the place to do business. Cargoes bought and sold, insurance argued over, contracts sworn, disputes settled.
They were moving olive oil, wool, salt and cloth around a sea with no telegraph, no reliable charts and a permanent piracy problem. A deal struck in this room was a bet that a particular boat would come back, made by men who would not hear either way for months. They put up a building of cathedral quality, with cathedral craftsmanship, so that everybody who sailed into Palma would understand within about four seconds what kind of city they were dealing with.
Over the main door there's an
angel. Not a saint, not a king. An angel holding a shield, and his actual job title is guardian of commerce. These men commissioned a heavenly being to watch over their paperwork.
The man who built it was Guillem Sagrera, a Mallorcan mason, and his contract is the interesting part, because he wasn't only hired to design it. He was hired to CARVE it. The angel over the door is his. The gargoyles a
