Converging Cultures: Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral, Andalucia, Spain
In keeping with my partiality for historical (and particularly medieval) things, I once watched a documentary series about how Dark-Age barbarians were less barbaric than generally thought. This is one of those regular revisionist theories historians like to come out with in order to keep their jobs and the past interesting, and I expect at some point future historians will change their views again, but hey ho. One of the places visited by the programme to illustrate this point about not being dark and actually being quite enlightened was Cordoba in Andalucia, Spain. Having watched the programme, I resolved to go there at some point, as it looked rather splendid. I was especially captivated by the Mosque-Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1984, and a building embodying the religious and political changes which shaped the city over centuries. So, a few years down the line, off I went to see it all.
A little bit
of history, for context: after the Western Roman Empire fell, the Visigoths
took over Cordoba in the fifth century AD. However, in the eighth century,
their rule was supplanted by the Muslim Caliphate of the Umayyad dynasty, and during
the ninth and tenth centuries, Cordoba became a major cultural centre of education
and economics. In the eleventh century the Muslim Caliphate disintegrated, and
the subsequent period of extended political turmoil was exploited in the thirteenth
century by the Christian King Ferdinand III, whose forces reconquered the city.
In the year 785
AD, a mosque was built on what was possibly the site of a Visigothic church dedicated
to St. Vincent of Saragossa (but that’s a matter of debate). It is thought that
the area may have been used as a religious site since pre-Roman times (but
that’s also a matter of debate). The mosque’s construction was ordered by Abd
al-Rahman I and completed by his son, al-Hakam II. Apparently, columns and capitals
in the mosque were reclaimed from earlier buildings, so they were obviously
into recycling (and not just in a haphazard kind of way). One of the mosque’s
most distinctive features is its red and white arched columns, of which there
are some 850! Some websites give a higher figure, but I wasn’t about to go and
count them all, so you’ll have to make do with 850. Over the next couple of
hundred years various expansions were made to the mosque, and it eventually
became one of the largest sacred buildings in the Islamic world.
Following Ferdinand III’s conquest in 1236, the mosque was reconfigured as a Christian cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Not an awful lot seems to have changed in the next few hundred years, although some additions were made in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, starting in 1523, a new nave and transept were added right in the middle of the mosque structure at the instigation of a certain Bishop Alonso Manrique. This was pretty controversial even at the time, and the local council strongly opposed the bishop’s plan. It reached a point where the king had to approve the works. However, when he later visited Cordoba, the king wasn’t too impressed, making a comment to the effect that if he’d known what the previous structure was like, he wouldn’t have consented to the building works, since the new construction could have been built anywhere, whereas what had been destroyed was unique. Oh well. Perhaps he ought to have checked before he signed it off, then. The alterations weren’t completed until the mid-eighteenth century, so are combination of Renaissance and Baroque architecture. It must be said, it is pretty impressive, despite the demolition of a chunk of the medieval mosque.
above: Architectural styles blended together.
Also worth mentioning
here and indeed seeing is Cordoba’s medieval synagogue, constructed in 1315, and
decorated with beautiful plasterwork. It is one of only three remaining
medieval synagogues in Spain. Notably, its arches and plant motifs are of the Mudejar
style, which combined Islamic, Christian, and Jewish elements, and developed
after the Reconquista (when Spanish Christians reconquered the Muslim kingdoms
of Al-andalus). If only people could intermingle so well as architectural styles…
After the Jews were expelled from the city in 1492, the building became a hospital
for rabies patients, and thereafter a community centre, chapel, and school,
before being declared a National Monument in 1885 and restored over several
phases throughout the twentieth century.
above and below: Detail from Cordoba's medieval synagogue.
So, all in
all, no unenlightened Dark-Age barbarians here. Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral is a
vast and exceptional building, a long story built in stone, and a must-see for
anyone interested in art, architecture, or history. The UNESCO site was
extended from the Mosque-Cathedral to encompass the whole of the historic
centre of Cordoba in 1994. Given its unique history and surviving architectural
evidence of successive religions and cultures, Cordoba’s World-Heritage status
is richly deserved.
Postscript: I do recall being mightily miffed
that we were rushed around the mosque by our tour guide, seemingly in order to
ensure that plenty of time was left to allow for lunch. Lunch, indeed. If
sitting down to lunch was all I was bothered about, I thought, then I’d have
booked a holiday in Torquay (no offence intended; it’s a very nice town, but it
doesn’t have a UNESCO-listed mosque-cathedral to look around). I was proper
livid that lunch had taken precedence over a matchless monument I’d waited
years to see. Still, never mind. As long as everyone else got their paella and
coffee, I suppose all was right with the world. I skipped lunch and went off
alone in a huff to have a look around the town. Rant over.
For more
information:
Website for
Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral: Mosque-Cathedral
Monumental Site of Cordoba | Official Website - Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba
(mezquita-catedraldecordoba.es)
UNESCO
information about Cordoba: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/313/
More about
Mudejar Art: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/378/
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