FORMER SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH OF THE CONVENT OF DOMINICAN NUNS

FORMER SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH OF THE CONVENT OF DOMINICAN NUNS

A fourth synagoguewas the Church of the Convent of Dominican nuns at the bottom of San José street. It was compared with the Transit synagogueof Toledo and some even say it was actually Samuel Ha-Levi who ordered its construction, the treasurer of Pedro I and builder of the Toledan synagogue. The convent was founded in 1447 but it was not occupied until forty years later. As regards the old structure of thesynagogue, the Mudejarreinforcements of thecoffered ceilingcan still be recognised.

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SAN JOSÉ STREET Seville.

SAN JOSÉ STREET

After the Christian conquest of the city, in 1248 the area around San José street was occupied by the Jewish population who lived in Seville. The current Santa Cruz and San Bartolomé districts had their own wall and gates (the Carne gate was the one which gave out onto the exterior) to mark out the Jewish quartersite.
In the Altamira palace area there were different rich Jewish houses, with this part of the city being the richest and most prosperous. In 1391 an impassioned population took the Jewish quarterand set fire to the district, destroying everything inside. The Jews were driven out of the city and their houses and buildings abandoned.

FORMER SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH OF SANTA MARÍA LA BLANCA

FORMER SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH OF SANTA MARÍA LA BLANCA

Built in the 13th century as a synagogue, it was transformed into a Christian temple in 1391 after the slaughters in the Jewish quarterof Seville. King Alfonso X in 1252, after the taking of Seville by his father, granted a synagoguefor their use to the Jews inhabiting the San Bartolomé and Santa Cruz area. And so it continued until 1391 when it was converted into a Christian church. The name and dedication of Santa María de las Nieves was imposed on it by the cathedral´s chapterhouse.
The side gateway, which can be accessed from Archeros street, conserves two Roman shafts crowned by several Visgoth chapters which correspond to the oldsynagogue.
The current church of Santa María la Blanca was built in 1662 in Baroque style and it has a structure divided into three naves which, in turn, is split into red marble columns. The vaults are decorated in plasterwork and attributed to the Borja brothers. Murillo was probably involved in the church decoration Works and it was he who painted the midpoints, plundered by Marshal Soult during the French invasion, subsequently being replaced with copies.

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SAN BARTOLOMÉ DISTRICT

SAN BARTOLOMÉ DISTRICT

An important part of the former Jewish quarter, in the San Bartolomé district you can enjoy suggestive streets packed with attractions. The artistic and sentimental aspects of San Bartolomé can be found in its temples and convents, its intricate labyrinth and its alleys. Time could not escape from this neighbourhood and underlies in every courtyard, gushing forth and emptying out its flow of history.
The fence at the old Jewish quartercommenced at Tintes street, went through Mercedarias square, Conde de Ibarra and Federico Rubio street until attaining Mateos Gago. It took in the two halves of the Jewish quarterwhich are the district of San Bartolomé and the district of Santa Cruz. To allow transit, the walls opened up at two or three wicket gates which connected with the other districts; at the other end the Perlas Gate looked out onto the fields and the cemetery of the community which may be located at the site of the current market at the Carne Gate.
Santa María la Blanca and San José streets are the backbone of the district which branches out into small alleys rife with charm such as Cano and Cueto, San Clemente, Céspedes or Levíes. The lungs of San Bartolomé are two guild squares which have a lot in common, Curtidores and Zurradores, as well as Mercedarias square. After the conquest Fernando III granted three mosques for synagogueworship. In addition to the one which existed at the plot of Santa Cruz square, in the district of San Bartolomé Santa María la Blanca and San Bartolomé were opened.

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MIGUEL DE MAÑARA PALACE

The Miguel de Mañara palace, situated on Levíes street, was built by the Almansa family in the 15th century on the remains of previous constructions, including a Mudejarhouse. The house fits in with Renaissance typology, though with slight modifications at a later date. As regards the first constructions on which the Renaissance palace was based, some plinths have been conserved its murals in one of the rooms on the ground floor, probably carried out in the second third of the 15th century.
The Mañara palace conserves a collectionof screens of Jewish origin. Curiously, they almost all have different designs. It is the Seville façade which best conserves these elements.
Levíes street where it is located gets its name from Samuel Ha-Levi, the treasurer and main book-keeper of King Pedro I.

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FORMER SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH OF SAN BARTOLOMÉ

FORMER SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH OF SAN BARTOLOMÉ

In the Jewish quarterof Seville there were three synagogues; one, in the area of what today is Santa Cruz square which later became the Parish church and disappeared in the early 19th century; the other, in the current temple of Santa María la Blanca and the third would occupy part of what today is the Parish church of San Bartolomé.
On January 9th 1396 King Enrique III confiscated the assets of the Jews and the three synagogues, granting them to his Chief Justice, Don Diego López de Zúñiga and his Butler, Don Juan Hurtado de Mendoza. These concessions were not actually implemented because the Secular Chapterhouse seized them and handed them over to the Cathedral´s chapterhouse, which stipulated that Santa Cruz and Santa María la Blanca should be assigned to the Cathedral of Seville as chapels and that which in the future would become thechurch of San Bartolomé was the only one whichwould continue as a synagogue.
The old synagoguemust have been erected where the Salesas convent is situated today and which used to be called San Bartolomé El Viejo (The Old). This convent, which already existed before the expulsion at that site, appears in a concord dated September 15th 1410 between the Chapterhouse of the cathedral of Seville and the Incumbents of the Church of San Bartolomé and whose original can be found on the Cathedral Archives.
In around 1470 the former Parish church of San Bartolomé El Viejo, was moved to what was thesynagogueof the Jewish quarter, near the wall of Seville and situated between the so-called Carne gate and the Carmona gate. In its conversion to a Christian temple, a series of adaptation and enlargement works were carried out as can be verified in the documents of the time. The remodelled temple was called San Bartolomé El Nuevo (The New) and opened for Christian worship in 1490.
The church was knocked down in 1779. In its stead a new temple was built in 1786 in accordance with plans by José Echamorro which is the one that can be seen today.

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ARCHEROS STREET

ARCHEROS STREET

Archeros street, which used to be called Sinagoga street, is a short, narrow street endowed with a somewhat irregular layout, deriving from its medieval origin.
At the façades, particularly on the synagoguewalls, there were some frescos originating from the 17th century. The residents called these frescos the colorines (goldfinches).
In 1526 during the wedding of Carlos V in Seville, it was occupied by the los royal archers, hence their current name.

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CARNE GATE

Carne Gate, called Minjoar by the Moslems and of Almoravide origin, was the only exit to the exterior from the fenced Jewish quarterdistrict. It was situated at the point at which the current Santa María la Blanca street meets Cano Cueto street where the market was located.
During the course of it history it has received various names such as the Perlas gate, the Jewish quartergate, as it was the direct entry from the city to the latter and, the one that stuck, Carne (meat) gate as there was an abattoir on the outskirts of the city constructed at the time of the Catholic Monarchs and immortalized by Cervantes in his Coloquio de los perros (Colloquy on dogs), said to be one of the three places which the King had yet to conquer in Seville and where Berganza was born, one of his characters.

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FUNERAL STELE OF RABBI SALOMÓN

FUNERAL STELE OF RABBI SALOMÓN

The 14th century saw RabbiSalomón shine, a doctor, astronomer and exegete of great worth, born in Seville where he also died in 1345. His funeraral stele, engraved on a fragment of Roman column, was discovered in 1580 in the Jewish cemetery at Carne Gate.
The column, broken into three parts, was later taken to the door of the cathedral Campanilla; then it went to the flight of steps of the Colombine library and finally to the Seville Archaeological Museum where it is currently conserved.

JEWISH NECROPOLIS

JEWISH NECROPOLIS

On Cano y Cueto street, the area outside the walls of the medieval city, stood the Jewish necropolis which covered a large zone. This can be surmised from the findings of tombs during different excavations carried out to construct the car park on Cano y Cueto street and the Diputation building. Proof has also been found as far as Marqués de Estella street in the San Bernardo district, around 500 metres from the wall. The size of the necropolis illustrates the importance of the Jewish community in Seville.
The archaeological information has characterised a necropolis defined in two major stages, an initial one comprising family tombs in small concentrations under brick vaults and another stage, subsequent to the slaughter of 1391, of which there is little, much poorer evidence in simple graves.
When the Carne gate was fortified in 1843, manytombs were found there when excavating the moat which defended the fort, some of them still containing human bones
This evidence from the last two decades is not the only manifestation of the Jewish necropolis which did not occupy a uniform area, but rather comprised parcels surrounded by inhabited sites which until the 17th century had not begun to be urbanised.
In 1580 owing to the famine brought about by a major drought, some unfortunate and destitute people profaned some of the tombs on the outskirts of theCarne Gate. They destroyed and opened an indefinite number of them, finding bodies dressed in rich garments, jewels, gold and silver objects and a certain number of Jewish books, some of which ended up in the hands of Benito Arias Montano, saved in this way from the destruction and barbarity.
A deathinscription was also discovered, engraved on a piece of Roman column. This epitaph - which, after traipsing around Seville, ended up at the Archaeological Museum – belonged to a brilliant Sevillian of the 14th century called RabbiSalomón who was a doctor, astronomer and exegete of great worth who died in Seville in 1345.
The archaeological remains have been removed, except for a tomb conserved in the underground car park.

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FORMER SYNAGOGUE-SANTA CRUZ SQUARE

From Alfaro square we reach Santa Cruz square. This square is surrounded by a small gardened, tree-lined area and around it there are numerous manor houses including the old house of the architect Juan Talavera, one of the most important figures in the regionalist architecture of Seville.
In the past the parish church of Santa Cruz was in the square which lent its name to the district. The Mudejarstyle church took advantage of one of the threesynagogues which was in the Jewish quarterin Seville and it was converted into a Christian churchafter the events of 1391. The church was in ruins when it was knocked down in 1811 by the occupying French government which put into a reurbanisation plan for the city. The square occupies the church plot. Three of the columns of the synagogue-church are conserved at La Rábida street, supporting a large screen.
Murillo was buried at this old church and his remains have been buried in the rubble as is borne out by a plaque at la western façade of the square.
In 1921 the Cruz de la Cerrajería (locksmith´s cross)is placed in its centre. This monument dates from 1692 and is the work of the grate maker Sebastián Conde and it was originally situated at the confluence of Sierpes and Cerrajería streets (hence its name). Owing to the disruption it caused to circulation it was dismantled and re-assembled on numerous occasions until finally, in the 19th century, it was taken to the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1921, owing to the urbanistic remodelling of the Santa Cruz district, it was placed permanently presiding over the garden of this square.

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