Tag: religious architecture

Postcard from Cordoba, Spain: Mezquita Catedral

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The Cathedral of Cordoba is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, yet even the city’s Catholics tend to refer to it simply as La Mezquita, the Mosque.

A Roman temple once stood on this site, but it was torn down with its building materials recycled for construction of a Visigoth church. The Moorish conquest in the 8th century resulted in another teardown and recycling of materials, particularly columns.

Cordoba became the headquarters of the independent Caliphate in Spain, and a golden age of construction burst forth to create a capital to rival the splendor of Damascus and Constantinople. This meant the mosque must be enormous.

The interior boasts approximately 850 granite jasper and marble columns. As the handsome columns were too short to attain the desired height, the arches they supported were topped with a second tier of arches, all in a striking pattern alternating red brick and white stone. A shell-shaped ceiling carved from one block of marble crowns the gilded Mihrab, the original center for prayer, at the heart of the Mezquita.

King Ferdinand III (1199-1252) reclaimed Cordoba from the Moorish rulers in 1236, and the mosque immediately was consecrated as a Christian place of worship. The original Gothic altar inserted in the middle of the former mosque was expanded and modified to reflect later and Renaissance and Baroque styles. The architectural encasement of the original minaret masks its origins. A full Renaissance nave popped up above the existing roofline during the reign of King Charles V (1500-1558). Some say the king was displeased with the resulting intrusive architectural assault upon the stunning structure.

Lawrence Boheme offers a tale involving a 1,000-mile round trip for the bells of Santiago de Compostela to symbolize the historical rivalry between the Spain’s Christians and Muslims at this site:

At the height of Muslim power, during the Omega Caliphate at the end of the 10th century, the fearsome warlord Al-Mansur led a bloody raid through northern Spain, going as far into Christian territory as Santiago de Compostela. On the loose in the great pilgrims’ city, the Moor had the audacity of riding his horse into the cathedral and letting it drink from the font of holy water, outraging the Christian townsfolk; then, even more insultingly, he had the church’s bells carried 500 miles south to Cordoba, where they were melted down to make lamps to illuminate the Great Mosque.

When, two and a half centuries later, in 1236, the Castillian King Ferdinand the Third (“The Saint”) reconquered Cordoba, his first action, to avenge the humiliation caused by Al-Mansur, was to have the lamps carried back to the shrine of Saint James, where they were melted down to make a new set of bells.

Postcard from Sevilla, Spain: A piece of a saint to answer almost any prayer

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Above is simply the underside of one low altar found along a wall of San Luis de los Franceses. The photo probably is not clear enough for you to really get the picture, but the entire length of it is a repository for bones. Sacred bones. Remnants of saints. And they are found everywhere in this former church. Some shards are almost microscopic and certainly appear so in our photos.

But most people probably visit San Luis for its unusual architectural bones.

By way of introduction, the building is dedicated to Saint Louis of France, King Louis IX (1214-1270). San Luis was the favorite saint of the woman who originally donated the land to the Society of Jesus if they agreed to honor him.

The titular honor also represented a politically correct move for the always-in-trouble Jesuits as a respectful tribute to the Bourbon monarchs ruling over Spain at the time. Appropriately, a majestically crowned portrait of San Luis by the prominent artist Francisco de Zurburan (1578-1664) dominates the main altar.

The Baroque structure was designed by architect Leonardo de Figueroa (1650-1730) on the plan of a Greek cross. The cross is crowned by an ornate cupola and features major gilded altars at the end of each of its four arms. Figueroa also incorporated a heavy dose of my favorite columns – helical or Solomonic twists.

Distinctive octagonal towers top the sculptural façade, a façade difficult to appreciate on such a narrow street. The four evangelists, the three archangels – they were all meant to address a major plaza below. The plaza envisioned did not materialize. Despite their tribute, the Jesuits ran into problems with the powers that were.

crowned painting of San Luis de los Franceses, Francisco de Zurburan

With the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain in 1835, their properties came under the control of the crown. It is hard to imagine how much it pained the Jesuits to abandon the hundreds of precious relics of saints stored and displayed in every nook and cranny in this former church.

Repurposing of San Luis never resulted in irrevocable alterations affecting its original architectural integrity. The Provincial Council of Seville refurbished San Luis and reopened it to the public only two years ago.

While the former church is not consecrated, the bones still attract the faithful. Many of these probably received Vatican authentication for veneration centuries ago.

Think there is a portion of a patron saint housed within San Luis to meet almost any need for prayers that could arise.

Postcard from Sevilla, Spain: Size foremost in the minds of Cathedral founders

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In the year 1482, Pierre Dancart began carving the High Altar for the Cathedral of Seville, el Catedral de Santa María de la Sede. The enormous project probably consumed most of his life, as he did not finish until 44 years later. The sheer size of the altar overwhelms the vignettes from the Bible and lives of saints contained within it, such as the rather gory spearing of children above.

But size was what mattered most to those who determined to build the grand Cathedral in 1401.

Prior to that time, the site was occupied by a major mosque with a minaret designed by architect Ahamed ben Basso for Almodhad Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf (1135-1185). When King Ferdinand III of Castile (1199-1252) conquered Sevilla in 1248, both the city and the mosque were Christianized. Chapels were inserted to convert the interior into a more Catholic appearing space.

Seville became a center of wealth, and the initial redo of the mosque was not as grandiose as the city’s leaders vision for the city. They wanted an awe-inspiring Cathedral, so work commenced.

The resulting Cathedral was built astride the mosque and inside some of the walls of its compound. The imposing edifice covers close to six acres, with the center transept soaring to a height equal to a 12-story building – by most measurements, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. The minaret was converted into a bell tower, the Giralda, and rises more than 30 stories in height.

Perhaps some of the plans were more grandiose than practical. The center dome collapsed in 1511, only five years after its completion. Its replacement, however, lasted until an earthquake in 1888. The newest one was completed in 1903.

Silver or Jubilee Altar, Juan Laureano de Pina, 18th century
reliquary
Tomb of Christopher Columbus, Arturo Melida, 19th century
reliquary
High Altar, 15th-16th century
detail of “Saints Justa and Rufina,” Francisco de Goya, 19th century
High Altar, 15th-16th century
floor mosaic
Giralda Tower, Ben Basso, 12th century

The Cathedral contains the tombs of several kings as well as that of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506). The riches within are suitably impressive, and art includes works by Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682) and Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).

One can be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Cathedral, or zoom in on the details, such as tiny shards of saints held in reliquaries or predatory, the Moorish lock on a door or wolves topping pilasters at one of the entrances.