SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 8)

SAN LEANDRO SQUARE

It receives this name by the convent of Augustinian nuns that occupies the eastern side of the square, "Convent of San Leandro". The square has a triangular shape, and the Alhóndiga, Zamudio and Imperial streets lead to it, and it extends to the corner between Francisco Carrión Mejías and Cardenal Cervantes. In the center of the square there is a 19th century fountain made of marble, known since ancient times as "Pila del Pato", very popular in the city. This fountain was originally located in the Plaza de San Francisco, first on the south side and later in the center. In 1870 she was transferred to the Alameda de Hércules. In the first half of the twentieth century was in the Plaza de San Sebastián, until in 1966 was finally established in the Plaza de San Leandro.  In this reform the square, which was of terra, was paved with cobblestones and enchinado. At the same time, the magnificent Laurel de Indias that already existed was respected and the perimeter orange trees were planted, which along with the fountain are the main elements of the square.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 7)

SAN ESTEBAN CHURCH

This temple was built on what was an old mosque, presenting three naves with apse,. The church has on the outside with two magnificent ogival covers in stone, flared and with archivolts; The most artistic, with beautiful images on columns and under the canopy, is placed at the foot of the church, and a magnificent body of polilobulated blind arches with sebka cloth topped by a fine line of stone carved horses in the form of lion head. The other, located on the side of the epistle, where the line of diamond tips of the inner arch protrudes. The date of these covers is estimated from the beginning of the 15th century.

Three longitudinal naves of brick, the central one more wide and high than the lateral ones, separated by high pillars also of brick on which they support the pointed arches that support the wood coffered ceiling and Mudejar style of the roof. And as is usual in this type of church, the presbytery, where the main chapel is located, is deep and finished in a polygonal apse, and is covered with a stone vault divided into sections by Gothic ribs.

The tower, attached to the front of the ship of the Epistle, is the product of several restorations. Built in the late seventeenth century by Juan Gómez, suffered the effects of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, then rebuilt according to project of Pedro de Silva in 1758 and executed by his son Andrew.

It had to be reconstructed after the damages suffered by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. In its interior there are altarpieces, images and canvases of great value, both artistic, historical and cultural, attributed to important artists such as Miguel Polanco and Zurbarán.

The church is the headquarters of the Brotherhood of the Christ of Health and Good Travel, which processions to the cathedral church on Holy Tuesday. Also of the Brotherhood of the Virgin of the Light, that makes annual procession with its image in the month of September.

       

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 6)

PILATOS SQUARE

Next to the one that was surely the layout of the Decumano Maximo of the Roman Seville and to the height of the present one, they build at the end of the XV century his palace D. Pedro Enríquez -Adelantado Mayor de Andalucía- and his wife Dª Catalina de Ribera. It is then when, in order to achieve a certain amplitude in front of him, to give him greater prominence, they buy several houses that they demolish, giving rise to a square that will be known as Plaza del Adelantado. It is known that she had houses with arcades and a fountain. At the end of the 16th century it will be called the Marqués de Tarifa square, a title granted to the son of the previous D. Fadrique Enríquez de Ribera who profoundly reformed the old palace, especially after returning from the trip made to the Holy Land between 1518 and 1520. According to the tradition, it is then when he decides to establish a Via Crucis that had its first station in the palace and the last in the humiliation of the Cross of the Field and that presented a distance similar to the existing one in Jerusalem between the Palace of Pontius Pilate and the Golgotha. Because of this, soon the palace is known as Casa de Pilatos, (its real name is Palacio de San Andrés), a denomination that will eventually take place after the end of the 18th century, after being also known as Plaza del Duque de Alcalá. title granted by Felipe II to Per Afán de Ribera, another of the descendants of the former Major Adelantado, which will later be included among those held by the Ducal House of Medinaceli, its current owner.

The palace is an interesting building that shows the first manifestations of the Italian Renaissance in Seville, especially its cover, giving rise to a group that today is an essential piece of Mudejar and plateresque Sevillians. After the reforms of Per Afán de ribera, viceroy of Naples, it also houses a good collection of Italian marbles. It also has interesting gardens inside. The square lacks a fountain today, the one it had at the end of the 19th century disappeared. It has undergone numerous reforms among which include the 1860 in which acacias are planted and is endowed with seats and gas lamps. In 1873 it is the object of the plantation of orange trees that, together with the acacias, are maintained until today. In 1977 the Plaza de Pilatos was remodeled again, installing its current paving.

The square has two spaces or different areas separated by a stretch of road that joins the streets San Esteban and Aguilas. The first of them is an enclosure of approximately triangular plant next to the building of the palace, landscaped with orange trees that in their alcorques have been recently adorned with masstero of bonetero (Euonymus japonicus) and with paving of enchinado. The other space, of greater dimensions and trapezoidal plant located on the other side, is the square itself. It is surrounded by buildings on three sides, leaving free the corresponding to the aforementioned road, which allows access to vehicles from San Esteban Street. These can surround the plaza on a cobbled road with granite, and return to join the traffic to Aguilas Street or Stables.

The gardening of this area is presided over by the monument to Zurbarán on a pedestal stone, (originally installed during the Ibero-American Exposition in the Extremadura Pavilion next to the avenue of Portugal) that presents the peculiarity of having at its base a flowerbed delimited by a small interior hedge of pitosporo and four specimens, in the corners, of lady at night (Cestrum nocturnum), which with its penetrating aroma contribute to make this place a relaxing haven in the warm Sevillian nights, only disturbed by the traffic of the street San Esteban This formula of the bed was frequent in many places of the XIX and that were organized around a central monument, being today only here and in the Museum (both reformed). The vegetation is completed with three palm trees (Phoenix canariensis) in raised circular basins and on which gracefully jasmine white climbing (Jasminum officinale). It is curious its triangular arrangement around the monument, instead of the usual square.



With the last reform of the square, which endowed it with isolated foundry banks - instead of the old stone ones - black acacias (Gleditsia triacanthos var. Inermis) have been planted in the perimeter, which have replaced the previous ones with thorns. The paving combines square stone pieces of Sierra Elvira, with small enchinados, also square, that form a checkerboard with the previous ones and coming, for the most part, from the aforementioned reform carried out by the municipal architect Amalio Saldaña.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 5)

Mercedarias Square



This square is located in the heart of the old Sevillian Aljama, surrounded by
rehabilitated buildings that let glimpse among their now modern traces the traces of
a noble past, and guarded by two convents,the Mercedarias and the Salesas,
which multiply even more if possible the calm and silent air that prevails in the 
neighborhood (who knows if it remained silent forever after the terrible events that 
in 1391 (they ended the lives of most of its inhabitants ...)

Taking a quick look at the history of the place, it was originally in
the shade of the church that gave its name to the collation, San Bartolomé el
Viejo; but transfer of the tempo to its current location motivated that in the
vacant lot The Marquises of Villanueva del Fresno established their houses,
which in turn they gave way at the end of the 19th century to the Salesas so
that they could be secluded after the magnificent façade of exposed brick that
since then closes its rooms convent. Miracle, because at the dawn of the Civil
War a fire was about to finish the building, which were barely saved some
equipment.

The same thing happened with San José de las Mercedarias Descalzas, which gives its name to the
square at the same time as finishes on the opposite side; this convent, more antiquity
(dating from 1625) and greater artistic wealth, suffered even more the ravages Arsonists
of the fratricidal war, barely saving the church and the cloister of flames
that that July 18 consumed almost all their assets, which forced the religious
community moved to the convent of Santa Inés, from where they returned later to
found in one of the dependencies that had been ruined after the fire the
College of the Mercedarias, in 1966.

In the square there is an old forge cruise on a white marble column that presides 
over the environment.


This type of milestones abounded in the city until relatively recently, that the same was used 
to mark the limits of the collations, that to indicate the presence of an intramural cemetery as 
to simply give a touch of "spiritual" attention to walkers.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 4)

CHURCH OF SAN BARTOLOMÉ


It is considered that the original church of San Bartolomé, known as San Bartolomé, El Viejo, was located in the place now occupied by the Salesian convent of the Visitation, in the Plaza de las Mercedarias, (former palace of the Marquis of Villanueva del Fresno) , coexisting in time with the Jewish synagogue. With the beginning of the expulsion of the Jews, the church moves to the synagogue, in which the appropriate works of adaptation to its new use are carried out. In 1779, the old synagogue was demolished, due to the state of ruin that the property presented. A new temple was built between 1780 and 1796, according to plans by José Echamorro or Antonio Matías de Figueroa (controversy exists at this point), which was consecrated between 1,800 and 1,806. This exterior of the temple is very simple, and it highlights the main portal and the tower, both located on the wall of the Gospel. They respond to the classicist models of the late eighteenth century, with the use of Tuscan pilasters. On the square body of the tower there is a body of bells with alternating columns and pilasters, lacking in auction, something rare among the towers of the city.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 3)

PALACIO DE MARCHENILA
Located in the neighborhood of San Bartolomé, the house that occupies number 18 of the Conde de Ibarra street in Seville, is a clear example of Sevillian noble architecture, which evolved from the late medieval to the baroque, from nineteenth-century tastes to adaptation for administrative use with current criteria. The street where the house is located, today Conde de Ibarra, was named in the XV century of Toqueros, because it was installed in it by textile craftsmen who made toques.

Supported its facade on the old Jewish wall, the structure of the house recalls the typical Roman and Muslim houses, where the courtyards and gardens take center stage and symbolically lead us to Roman Olympus, Christian Eden and Muslim paradise. These open spaces have lasted over time adapting to new needs. The first documented references to his occupation lead us to the seizure of the assets of the Jewish religious minority expelled from the neighborhood of San Bartolomé and of his donation, by Enrique III, to the justice of the land Diego López de Zúñiga, who was also the owner of the neighbor Palace of Altamira.

In the second half of the 15th century it was again donated to the bachelor Fernando Díaz de Córdova, whose children would sell it in 1483 to Pedro Manuel de Lando, illegitimate son of a Sevillian family of nobility, councilor of the town council since 1474, who was benefited by the Catholic Kings for their frequent and loyal support for the crown. In 1502 it passed into the hands of the Alcocer family, contractors transporting goods and slaves to the Indies. Descendants of the latter occupied the house during the sixteenth and seventh centuries and will be in the last decades of the eighteenth century when it falls on the family of hidalgos of Santa Marina.

In the last third of the eighteenth century we saw the semi-ruinous state in which the house was located, so the municipal council urges its rehabilitation or forced sale to anyone who can carry out its reconstruction. The situation causes its sale by auction, being acquired by Don Francisco Keyser, a Ghent flamenco merchant based in Seville.

From this moment, the house takes on special splendor, endowing itself with the physiognomy that we recognize today, even modifying part of its exterior by settling one of its façade angles to remedy its narrowness, facilitating the passage of carriages. Likewise, the Flemish merchant tried to make his back - with access to the street that is still called Levíes and in which there was an alley that was always cause for complaint to favor the shelter of homeless and thugs - was part of the housing, at the same time that it allowed the private access of carriages, for which it urged in several occasions to the Cabildo in order to propose the new use always receiving the refusal of this one. This period of modifications ends with the century when the Keyser family lost the property due to a judicial embargo attributed to the efforts made by a partner of the merchant with whom he had contracted a large debt.

Throughout the nineteenth century sales and temporary transfers with their consequent changes of residents, until in 1854 the house is purchased by the Romero family, military high-ranking participants in the wars of independence and emancipation of the Spanish colonies .

The widow of the distinguished military man will bequeath to his grandchildren, being, among them, Cecilia who would maintain the property until the beginning of the 20th century, transferring it to her children, who will live there until 1934.

From 1937 the house was used as a free Catholic school, a residence for noble families and, from 1940 onwards, a printing workshop for a businessman from A Coruña. Subsequently it would be the property and commercial headquarters of Miguel Ybarra Pharmaceutical Industries, who was mayor of the city between 1940 and 1943. Small bourgeois representative of an emerging self-sufficient industry that would install in the house its laboratory and warehouse until, at the end of the years Sixty, the company will disappear.

Once again, the inheritance and the distribution led this farm to change owners, remaining in 1969 in the hands of the Discalced Carmelites of San José de Dos Hermanas, being mortgaged by them as an economic resource in 1977.

The farm, as it will happen in many of the surrounding manor houses, suffers from that moment the consequences of abandonment and degradation, being practically in a ruinous state. During this period is acquired by a real estate group that aims to unify several properties to convert them into garages and homes -in which we are concerned was built part of a basement in the rear area- without the management came to occur. P.G.O.U. of Seville in 1985 declared it as a palace, suggesting expropriation to avoid deterioration.

Of the building we can emphasize in the first place its facade, divided in three bodies and where the restoration has been more intense integrating the remains found, of classic drawings and avitoladas lines. The apilastrado of the same and part of his rejería shows us its richest aspect. The ground floor, the main door, centered, of great size crowned with blazon, that gives access to the vestibule. The second body is structured with large windows and balcony with tejaroz. The last floor has a series of windows with a gable roof, possibly destined for storage.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 2)

CASA PILATOS

In 1520, Don Fadrique Enríquez de Rivera, the first Marquis of Tarifa, returned from a two year long trip through Europe to the Holy Land.

His encounters with the marvelous Renaissance architecture in cities like Rome, Venice and Florence made such an impression on him that he decided to drastically alter his residence and turn it into a Renaissance style palace. His palace became a showcase for Renaissance architecture and his ideas had a large impact on the architectural scene in Seville.

Intriguingly, the royal palace of the Dukes of Medinaceli is commonly known as the House of Pilate. The name can be traced back to the first Marquis of Tarifa, who, on his trip to Jerusalem discovered that the distance from his house to a small temple at Cruz del Campo was exactly the same as the distance between the former house of Pontius Pilate and the Golgotha (the biblical name of the place where Jesus was crucified).

Back at home, the Marquis created a Way of the Cross with twelve stops along the path to the temple. Hence people started to identify the palace with the House of Pilate and over time it became referred to as such. Several rooms of the palace also have been given names referring to Pontius Pilate such as the Praetor's Room and the Praetor's Study.

The most famous part of the palace is the central courtyard, known as the Patio Principal. Construction of the courtyard started in the late fifteenth century.

Its current appearance dates back to the sixteenth century, after Don Fadrique's trip through Europe. Influenced by the Renaissance architecture he had seen on his trip to Italy, he transformed the courtyard by creating balconies, adding classical columns and placing a marble Genoan fountain at its center. The four impressive Roman and Greek statues in each corner of the Patio Principal were added in 1539. Around the same time busts were places in niches all around the courtyard. The intricate decorations on the walls are Mudejar in style while the balconies have beautiful Gothic balustrades.

The palace has two garden, simply known as large and small garden. The large garden, originally an orchard, is lined with Italianesque loggias. Inside the loggias are niches with classical statues. You can also find a small grotto in a corner of the garden.
The small garden has a pond with a fountain depicting a young Bacchus.

The interior is splendid with detailed Mudejar decorations on the walls throughout. Some of the rooms, such as the Praetor's Room and Praetor's Study have elaborately decorated coffered ceilings.

A staircase, considered one of the most magnificent in all of Seville, connects the ground floor with the upper floor where you can find several furnitured rooms with pieces from the art collection of the Medinaceli. The upper floor however can only be visited on a guided tour.

San Bartolomé, history of a Jewish neighborhood

The Jewish Quarter of Seville included the current neighbourhoods of Santa Cruz, Santa María la Blanca and San Bartolomé, and was separated from the rest of the city by a wall, which went down from the beginning of Conde Ibarra Street, passing through Mercedarias’s Square , to the wall of the city. In general, historians agree to recognize that from the earliest times the children of Israel established commercial relationships with the Iberian tribes. Since then, the Hebrew ships began to arrive at the famous Tarsis, that is to say, to the magnificent Spanish region that owes its name to the Tartesio or Guadalquivir.
It is possible that the Jewish quarter of Seville was, if not the oldest, one of the oldest in Spain. Híspalis (Seville) was, in fact, the key place of the Peninsula and Scipio later became its capital. The Jews must have been attracted to the great city that gave its name to all of Hispania. During the Visigothic period the Sevillan Jewish quarter we suppose that it had a considerable influence since, given how they were to trade and industry, they should prosper where there was greater wealth and population. In addition, Seville was the most populated city in Spain, the intellectual capital of the kingdom, the centre of Catholicism, the inspiration for the councils of Toledo and the political capital from Teudis to Atanagildo. Therefore, it was there that they normally had to use their activity and capital.
During the conquest of Spain by the Arabs, the Jews who had contributed to the invasion were respected and treated with generosity by the Muslims and settled in all the cities taken, enjoying great influence in the new society, thanks in part to their importance financial The Sevillian Jewry was one of the most numerous and without doubt the most laborious of all. At that time, Seville not only stood out for its commercial relations facilitated by the importance of its river, but also for its medical schools, where the main doctors of Spain, including those of Córdoba, like the great Averroes, came to study; It also stood out for its great philosophical movement, which had been separated from the Koranic orthodoxy and attracted the most illustrious thinkers, such as Tufail, perhaps the most original of the Spanish philosophers, and finally for their arts, since according to a well-known proverb in that time, when a musician died his instruments were sold in Seville. The prosperity enjoyed by the city allows us to believe that its extensive Jewish quarter should go hand in hand.
The Jews were the most numerous and important minority of late medieval Seville. Before the Christian conquest, in 1248, it is likely that the Jewish quarter was depopulated in the mid-twelfth century because of the Almohad invasion, which expelled Christians and Jews from their territories. What is certain is that most of the Jews who settled in Seville with the conquest came from Toledo, in a reflux movement of those who had fled from Andalusia to Castile in the 12th century, fleeing the Almohad persecution. This does not mean, however, that there were no Jews in the Almohad Seville. Alfonso the 10th donated to the rabbi Yuçaf Cabaçay, his Jew, a store in Seville, in front of the church of Santa María, and behind the stores of the Jewish changers, a Jewish store "así commo la ouo en tiempos de moros".
The legal framework of their collective life was similar to that of the Mudejars: the kings protected the practice of their religion, allowed them to have their own judges for internal civil cases, and charged them some special tributes. But the life of the Sevillian Jewry was much brighter than that of the Mudejars, at least until the late fourteenth century. First of all because it was the second Hebrew community in the kingdom, after Toledo, with a maximum of four hundred families in the best moments of the fourteenth century, about two thousand people. Also, because there was a group of rich Jews, real and municipal almojarifes: names like those of Zulema Pintadura and his son Zag de la Maleha, almojarifes or senior treasurers of Alfonso the 10th, Yuçaf Pichón, who was Enrique the 2th a century later. Yuçaf Levi, nephew of the famous Pedro the 1th almojarife, Samuel Levi, or the Aben Pex, go beyond the framework of local history. Other typical professions, more or less lucrative were those of doctor, tailor, weaver, silversmith, merchant, some merchants and artisans of various kinds.
From the first moments of the Christian conquest, the Jews occupied in Seville a neighbourhood of their own, located practically outside the walls, north of the Alcázar. We know that, in 1252, Alfonso the 10th donated to the Jews three mosques in the Jewish quarter, to be converted into synagogues. These synagogues correspond to three current churches: Santa Cruz, San Bartolomé and Santa María la Blanca. The free neighbourhood that the Jews occupied in Seville covered a wide area of the city. The wall that surrounded it extended from the current College of San Miguel to the centre of the right aisle of the cathedral and, crossing the place occupied later by the Corral of the elms, followed by the Borceguinería until the Puerta de Carmona and fitted in the wall that surrounded the city until the foot of the Tower of gold. After the Reconquista, the Jewish quarter was reduced to the part described by the authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The wall that surrounded the Jewish quarter was, on the outside, that of the city, but outside the precinct was the mole of the Alcázar, as well as the neighbourhood of the mosque and part of the Borceguinería; the Jewish quarter was limited by the wall that, starting from the Puerta del Alcázar, very close to the Vida Street, penetrated the Soledad Street, reached the area where the church of San Nicolás rises today and ran along from Toqueros Street and The Vidrio Street to enter the Tintes Street through the Callejón de Armenta (formerly La Rosa Street) to finally join the outer wall of the Puerta de Carmona.
The Jewish neighbourhood communicated with the countryside and the city through three doors. The one that was outside the city seems to be, according to most of the authors, the current door of the Meat, which the Arabs called Bab el Chuar or Puerta de las Perlas. The second door had access to Mesón del Moro street and was made of iron. The third, that of San Nicolás, was in front of Rodrigo Alfonso Street. Finally, there was a small door, called the Atambor because at night it closed to the drum beats of the guard's body. This door faced Rodrigo Caro street. The three doors closed at the touch of the Angelus and did not open until the next morning.
As for the door that faced the Prado, it was located in a neighbourhood that communicated with the necropolis. Alfonso the 10th granted the Jews three synagogues, but the Jews were erecting new ones as their prestige increased, as they did not cease to obtain the favours of the Court. The square of the Açuyca or Azueica occupied a separate place in the topography of the Jewish quarter; located at the end of Archeros street, proudly showed the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca located behind the Puerta de la Carne.
The Sevillian aljama counted on some Jewish personages of great wealth and much influence, reason why their activities transcended, in the majority of their occasions, of the urban frame of Seville, to be developed to level of all the Castilian kingdom. Some of them were great scientists, emphasizing medicine among their professions, others performing public functions, which had been delegated to them by the kings. Among them we can highlight the following: Samuel Levi, trusted man of King Mr Pedro: Treasurer and trusted man of King Mr Pedro. Samuel Abrabanel, glorious John of Seville Ibn Gauison, famous Talmudist Yosef ibn Rabia Elazar: Wise astronomer Rabbi Solomon, tree of science: Physician, astronomer and exegete of great merit that shone in the fourteenth century. Moshé ibn Zarzal, excellence in Medicine: Doctor of Pedro the 1th. Yusaph Pichón: Named by Enrique the 2th of Trastámara almojarife for the city of Seville and his archbishopric, becoming the king's chief accountant.
The Sevillian Jews had their own institutions, as it did in the other aljamas of the kingdom. Its system of organization coincided in many points with that of Christians. Thus, the highest authority the Jew Major, Old or Judge of the aljama of the Jews of the very noble city of Seville that governed it helped by a council of Jews. As far as religion is concerned, the Sevillian Jews sought to safeguard their idiosyncrasies with greater vehemence. They had, of course, their rabbis, who provided the spiritual needs of the aljama and celebrated the worship in the synagogues.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth century, the Jews contributed to reactivate the Sevillian economy. Many of them became servants of the royal house, landlords of the rents of the border, who had to collect the royal rights of the almojarifazgo of Seville by Fernando the 4th. During his reign, Seville became the centre of great international trade. It is very possible that the Hebrews participated in all activities related to maritime exchanges, although in the absence of documents, cannot be stated categorically.
The influence of the Jews in the Court increased when Alfonso the 11th began to exercise power effectively. The king made an almojarife mayor to Mr Yuçaf de Écija, whom he named his advisor. This Mr Yuçaf built a synagogue in Seville, in 1343.
Also from the institutional point of view, another fact that differentiated Jews from Christians was the special tribute they had to pay, both to the king and to the Church. The Sevillian Jewry reached its apogee under the reign of Pedro the 1th, King of Castile from March 26, 1350 until his death and great patron of Jewish Seville. Surrounded by people who continuously betrayed him, Mr Pedro gave his trust to his treasurer, Samuel ha-Levi. Mr Samuel achieved such power and prestige that he aroused the envy of the court, who accused him before the king of having stolen his rents. He ordered him arrested, taking him to Seville, in whose Atarazanas he died, after being tormented, around 1361. His property was confiscated, it is said, very large, since he was found in large quantities of gold and silver, and They seized their properties in Toledo and Seville. This decision of Pedro the 1th has been explained not only by the accusations that were made to Mr Samuel, but by a desire to change economic policy, at the same time that it pleased the clergy and ruled the murmurings that showed the king as benefactor of the Jews.
The animosity towards the Jewish community, present for a century, but more or less disguised, was unleashed openly in 1354, when the Sevillian Jews were accused of desecrating the host. The black plague, of 1348, had unleashed tempers and the Jews suffered the consequences of the years of depression after the epidemic.
But the anti-Jewish mentality grew after the accession to the throne of the Trastámara dynasty, in whose program of government there was talk of ending the power that the Jews had reached in earlier times, especially with Pedro the 1th. Enrique the 2th received the complaints of the Castilian prosecutors against the Jews in the Courts of Burgos of 1367, in which the king was asked to reduce and postpone the payment period of the debts owed to the Jews, the seizure of the castles and fortresses owned by the Jews and the removal of the Hebrew communities in closed neighbourhoods. The king reduced the payments of debts by a third party and postponed the payment two years, accepted the seizure of fortresses, if it did not come some disservice, and rejected the move arguing that "non es razón de lo facer, ca se destruirían los Judíos".
In a similar way the Sevillian juries expressed their requests to the king in 1371. The king granted the juries privileges, to prevent them from feeling left out by the aldermans and legislated against the buildings built by Christians next to the Jewish quarter, so that they do not exceed it in height.
In such a tense environment, many well-placed Jews converted to Christianity, even before the massacres of 1391. In the spring of this year, the Archdeacon of Écija, Ferrand Martínez, began touring the city of Seville, haranguing and exhorting to the Sevillians against the Jews. On the 6th of March the hatred planted by the Archdeacon of Ecija finally broke out, prompting a popular uprising, in which the people entered through the Judería neighbourhood, looting the shops, mistreating and chasing the narrow streets of the Jewish quarter. After some time, and not without mistrust, some Jewish families returned to Seville, rebuilding their shops and their houses. However, there was never again a Jewish neighbourhood. The neighbourhood, its palaces and synagogues were Christianized. It was respected, only temporarily, to the converts, but the important buildings were transformed into palaces for noble Castilian, convents or squares. The remaining Hebrew community slowly withdrew, crouching in the inner streets where the only synagogue had remained, fearing the worst and only under the laws of the same king who sought to avoid further assaults.
Of the three synagogues, two were expropriated, and converted, one in the parish of Santa Maria de las Nieves, vulgarly called the White, and another in the parish of Santa Cruz, but not the current one, but the one that was on the ground today occupies the Plaza de Santa Cruz.
After some years, when Enrique the 3th reached the age of majority to reign, one of his first acts of government was to prosecute and jail the Archdeacon of Ecija, Mr Ferrand Martínez. The king also imposed a very high fine on the neighbourhood of Seville and its City Hall, so high that it was not possible to pay it in cash, and for more than ten years the municipality of Seville was paying amounts of gold, to pay the penalty imposed for the destruction of the Jewish quarter, as we see in the accounts of the Mayorazgo Book in the municipal archive. The Jews of Seville did not recover from that extermination. The Jewish Quarter, which had reached more than five thousand residents, was reduced to a few dozen, who could hardly compose enough to organize a synagogue, which is now converted into a parish church of San Bartolomé, built after that killing.
In the middle of the fifteenth century there were Jews scattered throughout all the snacks in the city, the walls and much of Judería itself disappeared, although in Santa Cruz, Santa María la Blanca and San Bartolomé there were still many Jewish families. The Court of the Holy Office, installed in the church of the Magdalena in Seville in 1480 to judge and punish heresies, marked the end of the Jewish quarter. Already in 1481 there were cases of condemnation of the stake for the simple fact of being a Jew.
The decline of the Jewish quarter was such that at the end of the fifteenth century there were practically no Jews in Seville, so the decree of expulsion of the Jews dictated by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492 was noticed in all the cities of the kingdom, except in Seville, from where practically no one was expelled, because there were no longer Jews in the city. In general, it can be said that the development of the life of the Sevillian converts, in the last years of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century, was not easy at all. Thus, along with his great desire to return to normal and try to rebuild their lives and fortunes, we can see the lack of sincerity of many of these conversions, so, in a short time, this confession as they were called documentation of the time, they returned to practice their old beliefs and, in many cases, they decided to go into exile in Portugal or Granada.
The Sevillian converts conserved and increased in the fifteenth century, on the contrary, their economic and social power. Some came to constitute important lineages incorporated to the citizen knights or to the exercise of municipal power: Marmolejo, Sanchez de Sevilla and Martinez de Medina, conversos before 1391, Fernández Cansino, Susán, Lando maybe. Others retained their banking functions of lending money, rental income, liberal professions and, in general, their previous means of living. A good part of them turned sincerely to the Christian faith: others did not, and the common people extended all their suspicions about the cryptojudaism of some, as an argument to insist on their social marginalization and to carry out at times assaults on houses of converts in the moments of greatest social tension of the century, as well, in 1465 and 1473-1474; in the end, the result was, for the Jews, the expulsion, so that their presence could not religiously attract the converts, often their relatives, or provide reason for them to suffer "various desires with infamy". But many converts had to suffer something worse perhaps: the operation of the Tribunal of the Holy Office since 1480.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (Jewels of our neighborhood 1)

PALACIO DE MAÑARA

The Palacio de Mañara, located in Seville’s old Jewish Quarter, represents a perfect example of architecture from city’s Renaissance. However, beyond its artistic value and strategic location, it attracts travellers due to its history, for one of the most illustrious Sevillians was born in this building- in this building was born one of the most illustrious Sevillians- the Venerable Servant of God Don Miguel de Mañara. After years of restoration, today it is home to the Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía.

Miguel de Mañara, a great promoter of the Holy Charity of Seville, was one of the most outstanding figures of his time and became the subject of legends passed down from generation to generation. This famous personality from the Baroque period was born into a wealthy family originally from Corsica, Italy, that was attracted to Seville due to its commercial dynamism and monopoly of communications with the New World. Miguel de Mañara was born and lived in the family’s house on Calle Levíes, which is now named after them.

Dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, the building, which is of the Mudejar and Renaissance style, barely preserves the original façade and central patio. After the death of Mañara, the palace passed through various hands and was even used to accommodate Marshal Soult’s troops during the Napoleonic occupation of Seville at the beginning of the 19th century.

And yet, today, the Casa Mañara remains an elegant palace thanks to the extensive rehabilitation of the San Bartolomé neighborhood at the end of the 20th century. The visits are organized next to the Altamira Palace.

An old jewish legend

At some point during the 14th century, two star crossed lover met: a Christian boy, and a Jewish girl named Susona. Just like Romeo and Juliet, this love was strictly forbidden and families on both sides disapproved. Thinking it to be children being young and foolish, neither side did much about it other than to admonish their children. However, things took a sinister turn when the enamoured youths wanted to get married. A Jew and a Christian marrying was simply not allowed. One of them would have to convert. Fearing the worst for their wayward daughter, Susona’s family resolved to murder her young lover. However, she got wind and warned him. This young man was a man of action, and concluded that he couldn’t be killed if he got to his would-be-murderers before they got to him. Under cover of darkness, he climbed up through Susona’s window and stealthily murdered her family before fleeing Santa Cruz to safety. By the next day, word had spread of what had happened and the Jewish community got together to decide what to do. The solution they came to was an ultimatum for Susona: if she would renounce her love for the man and her new Christian faith and revert to Judaism and apologise for the whole thing she would be off the hook, but if she would not, she would be killed. Susona was nothing if not stubborn. So lovestruck was she that she would sooner choose death over a life without her man. So be it. She was taken by the community and brutally murder. Her skull was placed on a shelf outside her window as a macabre reminder of what happens to those who would turn their back on their culture and religion.

SAN BARTOLOMEW ,OLD JEWISH QUARTER,SEVILLE (The light of Seville)

If something defines the Seville of spring is its light. The same one that crosses corners and alleys and that goes composing the neighborhoods of a Seville that without being the same that in the past preserves all its essence. Our neighborhood is San Bartolomé, old Jewish quarter, which is defined in its narrow alleys where the hidden gives rise to the surprise and the visible, which seems to end more here continues in the beyond to turn the corner.

To know Seville is to see its light, the same one that bounces on the centuries-old stones that make up streets, squares, palaces, churches, convents and houses like the Judería del Buen Viaje that rises above a historic building from 1875 where elements of the old building factory to give a romantic air to a new apartment with all the comforts of the 21st century.

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