The Santa Iglesia Catedral, Seville’s breathtaking cathedral, was built on top of the largest Almohad mosque in ninth century Seville, erected by King Abd-al-Rahman II, on the same site as the earlier Byzantine Basilica de San Vicente.

The old mosque’s minaret has been conserved, now the Cathedral’s nearly 100 meter-tall bell tower, crowned with a weathervane called the Giraldillo, from which it takes its name.   The Patio de los Naranjos was also preserved, it used to be the courtyard where necessary ablutions were performed before entering the mosque.

Following the Reconquest of the city of Seville by Saint King Ferdinand III in 1248, and after many years of civil and religious cohabitation, the construction of the present Santa Iglesia Catedral of Seville was decided, and began in 1401 under the direction of Alonso Martínez.

At the beginning of construction, they were heard to say:

“Fagamos una obra tal e tan grande que los que la vieren acabada nos tengan por locos”.

“Let us build so great a church that any who did see the finished result should think us mad.”

Today it is the largest Gothic temple in the world and the third in all of Christianity, occupying 22.720 square meters. Contemplating its majesty we can see that the affirmation of the Canon’s Council came true.

The monumental scale is only matched by the grandeur of the interior adornments.  The 18 meter-tall central altarpiece represents scenes from the Old and New Testament, with more than a thousand sculptures, and is considered one of the greatest altarpieces in all of Christianity.

The Cathedral boasts one of the richest artistic treasures in the ecclesiastical sphere in Spain.  Its collection is comparable to the Seville Fine Arts Museum, which has the second largest collection in Spain, after the Museo del Prado.  Its works span from the fourteenth century to our times, and includes works by Pedro de Campaña, Alejo Fernández, Pablo Céspedes, Francisco Pacheco, Juan de Roelas, Francisco de Herrera el Viejo, Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Lucas Valdés, Francisco de Goya, and Alfonso Grosso, as well as other important painters among its more than 550 paintings.

Its Flemish stained glass windows, dated from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, are magnificent.

 In the sixteenth century Royal Chapel, Nuestra Señora de los Reyes (Our Lady of Kings) is venerated.  Patron Saint of Seville and the Archdioceses, Per Me Reges Regnant, the thirteenth century gothic image of Our Lady belonged to Saint Ferdinand III, whose incorrupt body lies at the feet of the Virgin of Kings in a gold-plated silver urn.

The mausoleum in the interior of the Cathedral houses the remains of the discoverer of the New World, Christopher Columbus, whose coffin is borne by four heralds that represent the kingdoms of Castile, León, Aragón, and Navarre.

The Cathedral of Seville was declared a national monument in 1928 and in 1987 UNESCO declared it Heritage of Humanity.