Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso (farm) alongside the lodge and shrine. The site was purchased from the monks in 1719 by King Philip V, after his summer palace nearby at Valsaín burned to a shell. He was the first Spanish king from the French Bourbon dynasty. Beginning in 1721, Philip began building a new palace and gardens modeled on Versailles, built by his grandfather, Louis XIV of France. Like Versailles it embraced a "cour d'honneur" on the approaching side, and formal gardens, with a main axis centred on the palace, that were surrounded by woodland in which further hidden garden features were disposed. Like Versailles,
Palace of Versailles stage in June, 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurnish the palace. More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. In 1978, parts of the Palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists. The restoration