Three Monuments of Seville

First, we have to say that we really liked Seville. We visited in mid November and the weather was sunny, chilly at night, short-pants warm in the day. Of course we were visitors for only five days, and we spent most of our time in the historic and city center. But the liveliness of the streets and plazas, the amazing range of restaurants, cafés, and bars, as well as shops and boutiques laid gentle energy all around. You probably know about the Spanish custom of eating dinner late — folks show up at 9 or even 10 to start dinner. (We tried, but when we could manage 8:30, we were happier). All that late social life means that even after dinner, the walk back to our hotel through the winding streets was never a lonely or insecure one. We realize that a visit in August when the daytime high might be 40C / 104F would be less comfortable. We look forward to returning — not in August — to spend more time in this beautiful city.

Part of the fascination and beauty of Seville comes from its particular story of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian lives and influences. We saw it everywhere in the Mudéjar art and architecture, the fabulous walls of ceramic tiles, and of course the Christian churches. The Jewish heritage is a bit less obvious but threads through much of the story.

We’ll start with three major monuments of the city. Two are quite old and one is not at all.

Cathedral of Seville

Or officially Catedral de Santa María de la Sede or the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See.

As so often in Andalusia, a mosque that was opened in 1198 occupied the site of the current cathedral prior to the Christian Reconquista in 1248. At first, conquering Ferdinand III simply had the mosque declared a cathedral. In 1401, the city decided to erect a new gothic cathedral on the site of the former mosque. Construction wasn’t completed until 1519. The result is the largest gothic cathedral in the world (measured by total area). It’s almost twice the size of Notre Dame de Paris. So, very impressive.

And austere. Well, at least the massive columns and vaults.

Over the centuries, many chapels have been fitted out with elaborate altars and sculptures and artwork. A dazzling choir and altar inhabit the space beneath the crossing of the nave and transept (the main long hall, and the crossing “arms”).

For those of you who like a deep dive:

The short answer to whether Christopher Columbus’s remains lie in Seville is that DNA testing strongly supports that at least some of his bones are in Seville Cathedral, but it cannot exclude that other parts of his remains may still be in Santo Domingo.

After Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506, his body was first buried there and then transferred to Seville, fulfilling his family’s preference for burial in Spain. In the mid‑16th century, his remains were shipped to Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, later moved by Spanish authorities to Havana when France took control of Santo Domingo in 1795, and finally brought back to Seville in 1898–99 after Spain lost Cuba.

In 1877, workers in Santo Domingo found a box of bones with inscriptions referring to “Don Colón,” which the Dominican Republic has taken as evidence that Columbus (or part of him) never left the island. This parallel claim is what made scientific verification in Seville so important.

In 2003, a University of Granada forensic team exhumed bone fragments attributed to Columbus from the tomb in Seville Cathedral, along with remains of his son Hernando and his brother Diego, who are also buried in Seville. Early mitochondrial DNA comparisons showed a close match between the Seville “Columbus” bones and those of his identified male relatives, indicating that the fragments belonged to the same maternal lineage.

Because the bones were very degraded and sample amounts tiny, the researchers paused until newer techniques became available, and then re‑analyzed the material using more advanced genetic methods. After about two decades of work, the team reported that the genetic profile of the Seville remains matches Columbus’s documented relatives with what they describe as “absolute reliability,” confirming that the bones in Seville are indeed those of the historical Columbus.

The Dominican authorities have never allowed DNA sampling of the bones they claim as Columbus’s, so science has only tested the Seville material, not the Santo Domingo remains. Because Columbus’s body was moved several times and the remains are fragmentary, researchers often note that while Seville clearly holds authentic Columbus bones, it remains possible that other fragments stayed behind in the Caribbean.

In other words, the “proof” is as strong as modern genetics can make it for the bones in Seville, but it cannot resolve with certainty whether all of Columbus or only part of him is there, given the untested remains in Santo Domingo and the complex transfer history. (※)

The funerary monument was constructed at the end of the 19th century, centuries after Columbus’s death. The four pallbearers represent four regional powers of Spain: Castile, León, Navarre, and Aragón, and they hold the casket with Columbus’s bones above them. This is unusual symbolism, with monarchic figures holding a non-royal subject above them; it signals that his achievements in opening Atlantic routes were considered so consequential that they warranted being carried by the kingdoms themselves. This memorial is less about Columbus and more about Spain’s reclaiming past glory at a time when the empire was dissolving. (Later, we’ll take a look at the Plaza de España, built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition. Its purpose was the same: to embody Mother Spain’s embrace of her worldwide colonies, even if the colonies didn’t want to be embraced quite so tightly.)

We focus on Columbus because we were reminded from grade-school history classes (or perhaps we learned anew!) that Seville was the epicenter of Spain’s construction of an American empire during the period from Columbus’s discoveries to the early 1700s. It grew very rich and powerful by controlling shipping, taxation, finance, and high-value trades like silver and slaves tied to the Indies. The final decades of the construction of the Cathedral coincide with the beginnings of this imperial process. 

In the Alcázar of Seville (about which more in a moment), we saw a painting that explicitly ties the identity of the city with Columbus and the explorers, the “natives”of the new world, and the Virgin Mary. 

In Spain in general, in Andalusia, and in Seville, you see Mary exalted and worshipped much more than her son. The people of Seville, including the monarchy, saw Mary’s beneficence as essential to their success.

All this shook us a bit out of grade-school propaganda about European discovery and civilizing the New World, and we wondered what it must have been like for the people of Seville to learn of new lands and peoples. Would it be like if today we discovered a full civilization beneath the surface of Mars?

One element of the original mosque remains, although in mostly new clothing. It’s the very imposing bell tower, the Giralda, much of which was originally the mosque’s minaret. You can still see some of the Moorish motifs on the lower parts of the tower.

We climbed all 104 meters / 342 feet to enjoy sweeping views of the city. Instead of stairs, we walked up 36 ramps that spiral up the tower. The purpose of ramps was to allow horses to ascend. Those couldn’t have been happy horses. Maybe they, like us, enjoyed the views.

The Alcázar

The Alcázar of Seville served as a fortified palace since Roman times. To this day, it continues to be an official royal residence and has hosted state and royal functions.

But for the visitor, the pleasure is to wander among extraordinary Mudéjar courtyards and rooms.

The original Roman fortress became a Visigoth fortress until Abd al-Rahman III arrived in the 10th century. We have met al-Rahman before; he was the great-great-grandson of the first Muslim emir of Cordoba, and he was the one who declared himself the Caliph of al-Andalus. He transformed the fortress into the Islamic Alcázar.

In 1248, Ferdinand III of Castile conquered Seville, and subsequent Christian monarchs, especially King Pedro I in the 14th century, transformed the palace. King Pedro I didn’t choose some Christian style; he chose the Mudéjar continuation of the styles of the vanquished Muslims. Why would he have done this?

In King Pedro’s time, Christian Spain was a place of competing noble factions and even internal civil war. In contrast, contemporary Muslim courts, especially that of Muhammad V of Granada, who was an ally of Pedro’s, were peaceful, rich, luxurious, and cosmopolitan. By adopting the visual language of the Muslim kingdoms of the peninsula, he presented himself as a powerful, cultured monarch whose court rivaled any in Iberia.

In addition, Mudéjar was simply the most advanced building and decorative technology available in Andalusia. Workshops in Seville and Toledo offered artisans skilled in carved stucco, artesonado ceilings (intricately joined wood ceilings), and glazed tiles. By exploiting that expertise at its highest level, Pedro commissioned a residence that was modern, comfortable in the Andalusian climate, and artistically riveting, reinforcing his image as a discerning and innovative patron. *

The Nasrid-dynasty emirs of Granada had recently built what is now the famous Alhambra (and subject of an upcoming post). The mudéjar art and design of the Alcázar derived directly from the design style of the contemporaneous Nasrid Palaces.

Still, when you look closely, you find details and symbols that tell the viewer that this was home to Spanish monarchs, not Muslim emirs.

Let’s take a little tour.

Hunting Courtyard: Grand exterior court in front of Pedro I’s Mudéjar palace, the main access plaza where royal huntsmen once assembled, framing the monumental façade of the king’s residence. Note the gothic script in amongst the designs and stylized Arabic script.

Courtyard of the Maidens: Central public courtyard of Pedro I’s palace, with a long reflective pool, sunken garden beds, and surrounding lobed arches richly decorated in stucco and tile. Note how the upper level is fully Renaissance — connecting with contemporaneous Christian Italy.

Hall of the Ambassadors: This was Pedro I’s throne room and symbolic heart of royal authority. The great gilded wooden dome is composed of intricate star patterns and concentric rings. It  evokes a vision of the heavens above a square “earth” below.  Light filtering through upper openings makes the dome read like a night sky in gold and dark wood, turning the king’s position beneath it into a visual metaphor for a ruler placed under, and in some sense aligned with, the ordered cosmos.

Alcoba Real / Royal Chambers off Courtyard of the Maidens: Intimate royal rooms with richly tiled dados, carved wood ceilings, and alcove sleeping spaces, illustrating the private side of Pedro I’s palace.

Gothic Palace tapestry map: You might want to inspect this image to figure out what you’re seeing.

The trick is that the map shows an “upside-down” Europe. The lower right is the Iberian peninsula, with France and Italy squeezed in on the left, and North Africa at the top.

The tapestry dates from the 18th century and is a copy of a 16th-century Flemish design that celebrated Charles V’s 1535 conquest of Tunis. It’s upside-down because it was designed from the perspective of the Mediterranean fleet sailing south from Spain toward Tunis. You might notice that Spain is shown much larger that its geographic reality. That’s because the reality that was important was political, not geographical.

Here are some more detail images just because they are so beautiful:

Las Setas

The third great monument of Seville is only 14 years old, and it is the third most visited destination in Seville.

Here’s an unrequested digression:
Perhaps you know the famous Mel Brooks bit “It’s Good to be the King” from his film History of the World: Part I. He mocks how the king gets to do whatever he wants, admittedly usually pushing his face in fresh decolletage.

So many of the palaces and grand monuments that we have had the opportunity to visit in Europe and around the world exist because of a very few rich powerful people. For millennia, powerful, most often oppressive, people concentrated wealth for themselves. Some used this wealth to trumpet their importance or to enjoy luxury and pleasure.

There’s nothing new with this observation. But, every time we have had the great fortune to experience places as beautiful as the Alcázar in Seville, the Alhambra, the Vatican, the Residenz in Munich, or the Grand Palace in Bangkok, we also hold questions of, “What did it take for this beautiful concentration of power to come about?” And the reassurance that many artists, craftspeople, builders, and laborers earned their living thanks to these places.

The next question is, “Are there palaces today that are not only enjoyed by an elite few? Are there palaces that anyone can enjoy — and not just as an invited or paying tourist?” We think Las Setas is a wonderful example of the opposite of palace as hoarding.

Stepping off the soapbox, we want to show you this amazing public square and its organic canopy.

With laudable vision in 2004, Seville’s City Council sought a catalyst to modernize and revitalize the neglected Plaza de la Encarnación. They launched an international competition. German architect Jürgen Mayer won with this remarkable futuristic organic design. The project included uses like restaurants and a market to attract locals and tourists alike, a canopy structure to provide shade in Seville’s searing summers and to offer a fresh attitude in the midst of the city’s historic center.

All we can say is that the result is fun! We stepped into the plaza from a traditional side street, and dropped our jaws at the gridded cloud above us.

It was obvious that plenty of other people enjoyed being there too. 

Originally, the project name was Metropol Parasol, but the folks in the neighborhood took to calling it Las Setas, which means The Mushrooms. The City listened and officially changed the name.

Remarkably, most of the Las Setas is wood. It’s the world’s largest wooden structure. There are about 3400 unique wood components and 3000 steel connector nodes, all custom-designed and fabricated via advanced digital modeling and Computer Numerical Control fabrication.

We bought tickets to ascend atop the canopy. In the evening darkness, LED lights created a slowly flowing light show, accompanied by spacey music. From our cloud pillow we looked out from everyone’s Palace to the bell towers of old Seville.

November 2025