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.