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A FEW FACTS ABOUT GRANADA
by Lawrence Bohme
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| The Albiacin from the Alhambra Palace. |
Continued from
Just north of this square is a tightly-meshed grid
of alleyways decorated with Moorish arches, now containing Granada's
tourist souvenir shops: the Alcaicería. In the Middle Ages
this was the site of the Great Bazaar of Granada, to which merchants
came from all over Islam and Christendom: it stretched right up
to the foot of the Alhambra hill. These bazaars were famous for
their silk (of which Granada was a major producer) since the days
of the Roman Empire; and because Caesar had given the Moors the
exclusive right to sell the precious stuff (in exchange for the
appropriate taxes), to show their gratitude they called all such
bazaars Al-Caicería, literally "Caesar's Place",
in Arabic. But the Alcaicería we see today is a fake - the
real one burned down in the early 19th century. Matches had just
been invented and a shop selling them caught fire in the night,
leaving the entire bazaar in cinders. On a small part of the site,
a pseudo-Moorish imitation - already well the worse for wear - was
built to take its place.
Close by stands La Capilla Real - The Royal Chapel,
the mausoleum of the Catholic Kings Isabel and Ferdinand, who chose
to be buried in Granada because they saw its conquest as the crowning
achievement of their reign (they had no way of knowing that this
would soon prove to be their sponsorship of Columbus' journey).
Isabel of Castille was at heart a woman of the Middle Ages, as illustrated
by her precious collection of Flemish masters on view in the Sacristy.
She wanted a small, humble mausoleum for her and all her descendants,
befitting the follower of Saint Francis which she was. But she died
before the chapel could be built, and spent some twenty years in
a provisional tomb in the Franciscan convent which was built in
the Alhambra in the shell of the palace mosque (and is now an elegant
hotel, the Parador San Francisco, well worth visiting even if you
can't afford to stay there). The architects, out of deference for
her importance rather than her dying wishes, made the chapel larger
and more luxurious than planned, with the result that it is neither
humble nor truly grand; in any case, her successor and grandson
Carlos V - the master of the new Empire which she had founded -
judged it too unassuming for the masters of a reign on which the
sun never set, and the Royal Mausoleum, for all of Spain's subsequent
monarchs, was eventually moved to the blockbuster Escorial Monastery
outside Madrid, built by his son, Felipe II.
It may seem chronologically strange that the Cathedral
itself should have been built in the new Italian Renaissance style,
while the Royal Chapel - of which it is an appendage - is in the
earlier, Gothic style favoured by Queen Isabel. The explanation
is a significant one: immediately after the Reconquest, the "Cathedral"
was first set up inside the Great Mosque, creating the same bizarre
combination we see today in the Mezquita of Cordoba, with its baroque
chapel in the midst of the Moorish colonnades; but long after the
Royal Chapel had been built onto its north wall, the delapidated
mosque-cathedral contraption was torn down and rebuilt in the "new"
Renaissance style.
The above text was kindly provided by Lawrence
Bohme, artist, author and conference intepreter, lives at Cortijo
de los Siete Olivos Montefrio, Granada Province, Spain.
Tel: +34 958 31 01 24. Lawrences
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