The Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological Museum is just across the Popular Arts Museum. The building was also designed for the 1929 exhibition and the façade is a mixture of baroque and neoclassic architecture.

Its collection goes from prehistory to the 15th century. This museum has the most extensive collection of Roman works of art, collected from all of the province. There is a huge collection of Roman marble statues and many beautiful floor mosaics. The collection is one of the biggest in Spain. The museum showed marble statues of the emperors Augustus and Hadrian. They had life masks when the emperors died. The emperors were not handsome, yet when the marble statues were made, they appeared handsome, like gods. So this was their propaganda at that time. There is an important marble sculpture of Venus Italica, which dates from the time of the Emperor Hadrian (117-138 A.D.). This was found in the theater of Italica, and the statue represents Anadiomene, the goddess from the sea.

Also of interest in the museum are recreations of Roman tombs. They were like big cabinets with open shelves. On top were life masks of plaster done when the people died. Below on the shelves were ceramic urns where the ashes of the dead were placed.

The basement has the Treasure of El Carambolo, discovered in 1958 in Seville. This consists of sixteen belts and helmets, two breast plates, two wide bracelets, and two pendants, all done in gold. They date from the 7th and 8th centuries. It is thought that they could come from the Tartessian culture, although this is still in debate.

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Museo de Bellas Artes (Seville)

The Museo de Bellas Artes was founded in 1839 in the old Convento de la Merced Calzada, which was originally built in 1602. The building is an example of Andalusian mannerist architecture of the 17th century. At that time the government confiscated all the art in the convents and monasteries of Spain, and the art from Seville was placed in this museum. This museum is one of the most important in Spain.

The art in this museum dates from the medieval times to the modern times, with an emphasis on the Seville school. This includes artists such as Francisco de Zurbaran, Juan de Valdes Leal, and Bartolome Esteban Murillo.

The former church of the convent is a very large structure with the most beautiful architecture. The ceiling and the cupola are amazingly beautiful.

The Sevilla School painted mostly huge altarpieces, that could be seen from far away. There are about 15 large paintings by Murillo, the most beautiful he painted in his lifetime. Other painters found here are Francisco Pacheco, Velazquez, and Cano. You can also find El Grecos and Goyas in the museum.

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Maria Luisa Park Spain

The Maria Luisa Park is the largest park in Seville and one of the most beautiful in Europe. It has a very interesting history. Maria Luisa Fernanda was the younger sister of Queen Isabella II during the 19th century. She lived between 1832 and 1897. She was the youngest daughter of King Ferdinand VII of Spain.

Isabella II married Fernando I, her first cousin, who was supposedly gay. King Louis Phillipe of France had a plan to get the Spanish throne for his grandchildren. He married his youngest son Antoine (1824-1890), the Duke of Montpensier, to Maria Luisa Fernanda. He thought that Isabella II would have no children, so the Spanish throne would pass to her younger sister Maria Luisa Fernanda. He was wrong and Isabella II did have children (many think by a man other than her husband), so Maria Luisa Fernanda did not inherit the Spanish throne.

Maria Luisa Fernanda and Antoine had nine children. Later she and her husband, the Duke of Montpensier moved to Seville and lived in the Palace of San Telmo in the year 1848, after the French Revolution of 1848. The Duke would plot against Isabella II, his sister- in-law. When Isabella II was exiled in 1868, Maria Luisa Fernanda and her family had to follow her in exile. After her husband died in 1890, Maria Luisa Fernanda returned to Seville. Her daughter Mercedes married Alfonso XII, the son of Isabel II and became queen consort.

It was in the gardens of the Palace of San Telmo that King Alfonso XII declared his love for Maria de las Mercedes and had their love affair.

In 1893 Maria Luisa Fernanda left half of her gardens of her Palace of San Telmo to the city of Seville. After Maria Luisa Fernanda died in 1897, she was buried at El Escorial. However, the city of Seville did not take the gardens under their management until the Iberoamerican Exhibition of 1929.

Before the 1929 Iberoamerican Exposition, the city of Seville hired the famous French landscape architect Nicolas Forestier to redesign the gardens, now named after Maria Luisa Fernanda. Forestier was the landscape architect who designed the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.

The Plaza de España is one of the park’s most popular attractions and was the centerpiece of the expo. The architect was Anibal Gonzalez, from Seville, and it is a mixture of Art Deco and Mudejar. There is a moat that has four bridges across it. The palace has two large towers and there are sections with benches with beautiful tile work (azulejos) that represent each of the provinces of Spain. In the center of the plaza is a very large and beautiful fountain. The Spanish like to be photographed at the benches of their provinces.

At another end of the park is the Plaza de America, which is also called the Plaza de las Palomas (Plaza of the Doves) because of the many doves that live there. It has many fountains, ponds, and gardens. There is a beautiful Mudejar building called the Pabellon Mudejar, which contains the Museum of Popular Arts and Customs. Across from it is a neo-Renaissance building, which now contains the Archaeological Museum, famous for its Roman statues and remains from Italica, the museum being one of the best in the country. The museum also has the Phoenician statue of Astarte-Tanit, the virgin goddess. The plaza’s gardens have palm trees and roses.

For the expo, there was a building constructed for every country in the Americas. Many of these buildings are now museums or consulates. One of the most famous is the building of Guatemala, beside the Avenida de las Palmeras.

The park has a plaza dedicated to the poet Gustovo Adolfo Becquer. There is a statue of him done by the sculptor Coullaut Valera. The poet wrote about themes of love. The park has many orange trees, palm trees, elms, and Mediterranean pine trees. There are also many ponds and the people of Seville enjoy this park everyday. They like to browse here with their families or go jogging for exercise.

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Plaza de España Spain

The Plaza de España is a beautiful Mudejar plaza with a section for every province of Spain and includes a very large palace behind the open plaza. It was designed by Aníbal González and constructed for the Latin American Expo (Exposición Ibero-Americana) of 1929. This is one of the most beautiful squares in Spain. The plaza has a semicircular form and is very large. The building has towers that are supposed to remind one of La Giralda. The facade of the building is Baroque and the rest of the building has the Renaissance style. There is a canal over which Venetian style bridges cross, with beautiful balustrades of ceramics. The canal follows the curve of the building.

Beside the palace there is a bench for every province, with beautiful ceramic tile that represents each province and its history.

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Real Alcazar of Seville

The Real Alcazar of Seville is the oldest European royal residence and is not one building, but a group of buildings from different time periods and each building has a different architectural style.

In the 9th century, the Moors built a military fort on top of a Visigothic basilica, and this was during the reign of the Emir Abdul Rahman II. Later Caliph Abdul Rahman II expanded it to make it a residence for the governor. In the 11th century, King Al-Mutamid of the Abbadid dynasty expanded the palace enormously.

The Christians then reconquered Seville and Don Pedro (Peter the Cruel) renovated the palace to his tastes in 1364. The Puerta del Leon (Lion Gate) became the main entrance to the palace. There is a heraldic lion on top of the gate, in a tiled panel. This gate leads to the Patio del Leon (Courtyard of the Lion).

The Alcazar is one of the most beautiful palaces in Spain. Actually it has a Mudejar Palace and a Gothic Palace by its side. The Mudejar Palace has the most beautiful patio, the Patio del Yeso with its reflecting pool and sunken gardens. It is surrounded by columns supporting Moorish arches. The pillars support a very decorative mesh of stucco. The tile work in the palace has some of the most beautiful tiles in Andalusia and the stucco work on the walls is impressive. The Mudejar ceilings also call attention for their beauty and color. There is a three tier gallery that is on the southern side.

There is an impressive hall called the Chamber of Justice. The ceiling is made of wood and is very elaborate. There is elaborate stucco work on the walls and the ceiling of the hall. On the floor is a small round fountain with a shallow channel that goes to the garden outside.

The Palace of Rey Don Pedro is one of the most important Mudejar style buildings in Spain and contains the second floor apartments of the King, which can now be seen. One has to pay an entrance fee of 4 euros to see the apartments. The visits last 20 minutes and are timed, and only 15 people are allowed at any one time, accompanied by a guard. Everyone is given a recorder in Spanish or English, which explains each room as one walks through it. The apartments are very luxurious and have beautiful furniture, chandeliers, and many Mudejar ceilings with gold decorations. The apartments are closed to tourists when the King is in Seville. This palace also contains the Salon de Embajadores, the Patio de las Muñecas, the Patio de las Doncellas, and many other rooms.

The Gothic Palace is also beautiful with its tile work, of a different style than the Moorish tiles in the Mudejar Palace. It was built by King Alfonso X in the 13th century and underwent many alterations after that in the 16th and 18th centuries. There are also impressive tapestries hung on the walls of this palace. From the porch of this palace one can go to the gardens. The Vaulted Room (Sala de las Bovedas) contains tilework from 1577 and were designed by Cristobal de Augusta. They are made of polychromed glazed tile and are in the form of tapestries. The colors are very beautiful.

The Jardin del Estanque is a tank full of water with a fountain with the figure of Mercury. On one side is a pavilion and a building that goes to the Gothic Palace. This has a raised viewing gallery with round arches on marble columns. There is one garden after another. Among the gardens are the Jardin de la Danza, Jardin de Troya, Jardin de la Galera, Jardin de las Flores, Jardin del Principe, Jardin de las Damas, Jardin del Laberinto Viejo, and the Jardin de la Alcoba. All are beautiful, with many fountains. The gardens have many lemon and orange trees and are also planted with jasmine, so the gardens are perfumed, which is a wonderful sensation when one walks in the gardens. There is a very large area that contains the New Gardens, built in the 19th century in the English style. The gardens include the Jardin del Retiro and the Jardin de los Poetas. All the gardens should be viewed with plenty of time to be able to appreciate all their details.

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Giralda Tower Spain

Beside the church is the Giralda, the bell tower that is the symbol of Seville. It used to be the minaret of the old mosque and was designed by Abou Yakoub and built in 1184. The Christians topped the minaret with a five-story bell tower in 1568. On top of the bell tower is a weathervane in the form of a statue of Faith, called the giraldilla (something that turns), since it turns with the wind, and this is 4 meters high. The statue has a standard and a palm frond in his hands. That is how the tower got the name of La Giralda. The platform is 70 meter high and is reached by a ramp that two horsemen could pass abreast. One can go up the tower and get a bird's eye view of the city. The total height of La Giralda is 93m. The tower has 24 bells.

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Seville Cathedral Spain

The building of the Cathedral of Seville was started in 1401 after the destruction of the Moorish mezquita that was in that location. The legend is that it would be so large that when people saw it, they would think that the builders were madmen. The Church of Santa Maria de la Sede was inaugurated in 1507 and is the biggest Gothic church in Europe. It is also the 3rd largest church, after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London. Because the ceiling is so high, the cathedral is the largest volume church in the world. The church also has renaissance and mannerist designs. The dimensions of the church are 116m long, 76m wide, and 56m high at the crossing. The final cathedral was finished 3 centuries after the inauguration. When one enters the church, one has the sense of being very small in such a large church.

The retable of the high altar is huge, the largest in the world. It has an area of 264 square meters. The style is flaming Gothic, and it was designed by P. Duncart, A. Fernandez, and de Covarrubias. There are seven naves in all.

The best materials and furnishings were used in building the church. This included Flemish altar screens, 75 stained glass windows, sculptured portals, wrought iron grills, marble floors, and bronze candelabra.

The Sacristia Mayor has the treasures of the Cathedral. Some of the paintings here are by Murillo. There is also the Key of Seville, from 1248. The Capilla Real is a Renaissance structure with a high dome. It has the 13th century Virgen de los Reyes, the patron saint of Seville. It also contains the tombs of King Fernando III, the Saint (who liberated Seville from the Moors), and King Alfonso X, the Wise, and his wife Beatriz de Suabia.

At one corner in the front of the church, in the transept, is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, held aloft by 4 big statues of soldiers. Recent DNA analysis by scientists show that the remains in this tomb belong to Christopher Columbus, as they were compared to the bones of his son Fernando Colon, whose remains are in in a tomb at the west end of the nave. Hernando Columbus, son of the great navigator, bequeathed his collection of thousands of illustrated manuscripts and codices to the Cathedral. These documents form the bulk of the Columbus Library housed within the Cathedral. The library was founded in the 13th century, but the majority of its manuscripts and documents are about the discovery of America.

The cathedral has the Unesco World Heritage designation. Also it has 500 priceless works of art, such as paintings by Murillo (the Immaculate Conception and Saint Anthony), Zurbarán and Francisco de Goya.

The cloister has the beautiful Patio de los Naranjos. The garden is of Moorish origin and was built on top of the old mosque. There is an octogonal Visigothic fountain in the center that was used by the Moors for religious ablutions.

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