A visit to this building allows you to get to know one of the few remaining examples of medieval civil architecture in
Pamplona, together with the Palacio de los Virreyes (Palace of the Viceroys, also known as 'Capitanía'), which is now home to the
General Archives of Navarre.
The Cámara de Comptos is located in the heart of the old quarter of the city, almost on one of the corners of Plaza San Francisco in calle Ansoleaga, near the
church of San Cernin (or San Saturnino). Before it became the seat of the Accounts Tribunal it was the palace of Don Pedro de Berrio, Lord of Otazu.
Despite successive renovations it still
maintains its lordly, strong and sober air in its stones, the pointed arch over the entrance, the small windows split with mullions or its tower-like outer appearance.
Over the entrance is a higher section in the form of a tower and coat of arms with the royal arms of Spain, placed there in the 18th century. Go inside and you will discover a small passageway covered with a pointed barrel vault which gives onto a small courtyard where, if you are lucky, you will be able to hear the echo of the bells from the tower of San Cernin.
The Cámara de Comptos was born as a
tribunal that specialised in matters of the Treasury. It collected taxes, kept watch over royal assets and minted coins. That was between 1524 and 1836. Around 1840 the building became the seat of the Monuments Commission of Navarre, which was later replaced by the Institución Príncipe de Viana. In 1980, the Cámara de Comptos was re-established in Navarra as an autonomous body to control public accounts and it returned to its original site in calle Ansoleaga at the end of the 1990s.