Among palaces named for the seasons, including the Winter Palace, St Petersburg and the Old Summer Palace of the Ming Dynasty in the hills outside Peking (now Beiping) and the Summer Palace begun in 1750, several have been named the Spring Palace.
In Tang dynasty China, poet Wang Changling wrote "A Song of the Spring Palace".
The most famous Spring Palace is the fictional one described in the early 11th century novel-romance, The Tale of Genji. When Genji became the Grand Minister he decided to refurbish the mansion belonging to Rokujyo, who had been his mistress since he was seventeen. The mansion, the Rokujyo-in ("Rokujyo's house"), was so grand that Genji plotted the site into four sections, each having a palace and its garden that were named and designed for one of the seasons: the Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Palaces. Murasaki-no-ue occupied the Spring Palace (following Murasaki's death, Onna-sannomiya occupied it).
The Texas Spring Palace in Fort Worth, was an agricultural fairground designed to attract settlers and investors to Texas, which opened, after construction that was completed in barely a month, May 29, 1889. At the outset of its second season, May 30, 1890, a flash fire burned the building to the ground in a matter of minutes. Only one life was lost, that of a heroic Englishman, Al Hayne who risked and lost his life helping women and children escape from the flames.
- Fort Worth's Spring Palace
Nicolae Ceauşescu's Spring Palace in Bucharest in now a luxury welcome suite used by the Romanian Government as a guest house for VIPs.
Famous quotes containing the words spring and/or palace:
“The spring is here, young and beautiful as ever, and absolutely shocking in its display of reckless maternity; but the Judas tree will bloom for you on the Bosphorus if you get there in time. No one ever loved the dog-wood and Judas tree as I have done, and it is my one crown of life to be sure that I am going to take them with me to heaven to enjoy real happiness with the Virgin and them.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)