It was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the adjoining Alcázar palace complex and the General Archive of the Indies. It is one of the largest churchs in the world as well as the largest Gothic church.
After its completion in the early 16th century, Seville Cathedral supplanted Hagia Sophia as the largest cathedral in the world, a title the Byzantine church had held for a thousand years.
The Gothic section alone has a length of 126 m, a width of 76 m, and its maximum height in the center of the transept is 42 m. The total height of the Giralda tower from the ground to the weather vane is 104.5 m.
Seville Cathedral was the site of the baptism of Infante Juan of Aragon in 1478, only son of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Its royal chapel holds the remains of the city’s conqueror, Ferdinand III of Castile, his son and heir, Alfonso the Wise, and their descendant, King Peter the Cruel.
The funerary monuments for cardinals Juan de Cervantes and Pedro González de Mendoza are located among its chapels. Christopher Columbus and his son Diego are also buried in the cathedral.
The Archbishop’s Palace is located on the northeastern side of the cathedral.
Construction and history
The Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf ordered the construction of a new grand mosque for the city in 1172 on the south end of the city. The new mosque was dedicated in 1182, but was not completed until 1198. It supplanted the one built between 829 and 830 by Umar Ibn Adabbas on the site of the present-day collegiate church of Divino Salvador as the main prayer hall in the city.
Larger and closer to the city’s alcázar, the mosque was designed by architect Ahmad ben Basso as a 113-by-135-metre rectangular building with a surface of over 15,000 m2, including a minaret and ablutions courtyard. Its prayer hall consisted of seventeen aisles oriented southward, perpendicular to its Qibla wall, in the manner of many mosques of Al-Andalus, including the mosque of Ibn Adabbas.
“Christianized mosque” (1248–1434)
Shortly after Seville’s conquest by Ferdinand III, Yaqub Yusuf’s mosque was converted into the city’s cathedral. Its orientation was changed and its spaces partitioned and adorned to suit Christian worship practices. The internal space was gradually divided into chapels by constructing walls in the bays along the northern and southern walls. Almost the entire eastern half of the cathedral was occupied by the royal chapel that would hold the bodies of Ferdinand, his wife and Alfonso the Wise.
Gothic cathedral (1434–1506, 1511–1517)
Seville Cathedral was built to demonstrate the city’s wealth, as it had become a major trading center in the years after the Reconquista in 1248. In July 1401, city leaders decided to build a new cathedral to replace the grand mosque that served as the cathedral until then. According to local oral tradition, the members of the cathedral chapter said: “Hagamos una Iglesia tan hermosa y tan grandiosa que los que la vieren labrada nos tengan por locos”.
The actual entry from 8 July 1401, recorded among others by Juan Cean Bermudes in 1801 but now lost, proposed building “una tal y tan buena, que no haya otra su igual”.
Construction continued until 1506. The clergy of the parish offered half their stipends to pay for architects, artists, stained glass artisans, masons, carvers, craftsman and labourers and other expenses.
Several factors, including royal resistance to the temporary relocation of the royal chapel delayed the start of construction until 1434. On that year, king John II of Castille allowed the temporary transportation of the royal bodies to the cathedral’s cloister for storage.
Five years after construction ended, in 1511, the crossing lantern collapsed and work on the cathedral recommenced. The crossing again collapsed in 1888, and work on the dome continued until at least 1903. The 1888 collapse occurred due to an earthquake and resulted in the destruction of “every precious object below” the dome at that time.
