Christian forces captured the Umayyad capital in 1236, but left its glorious house of worship largely untouched when converting it to a cathedral
On June 30, 1236, King Ferdinand III of Castile entered the city of Córdoba, putting an end to the five-month siege that his troops had staged around the square. The Spanish Reconquista of Islamic Andalusia was advancing, and Córdoba, capital of the Umayyad caliphate in the 10th century, was the latest to fall. It had once been the brightest and most populous city in Al Andalus. It was also home to one of the world’s marvels of architecture: the Aljama Mosque.
A few decades later, around 750, power in Damascus changed hands from the Umayyads to another powerful Muslim faction, the Abbasids. Afraid for his life, Abd al-Rahman, a son of an Umayyad prince, fled from Damascus. After a harrowing flight across North Africa, he escaped to the Iberian Peninsula and crossed into Al Andalus.
A focal point in the prayer hall is the mihrab, a prayer niche used in mosques to signify which wall faces Mecca, birthplace of Islam. An intricately decorated golden arch frames the mihrab, calling attention to the sacred space. Soaring above, a roof of intersecting ribs form a spectacular, segmented dome.
In the first two centuries of Christian rule, existing spaces were adapted for Christian worship, but structural alterations were few. Much of it was carried out in the Mudejar style, which combined Christian artistic currents with Muslim architectural and decorative traditions. The so-called Royal Chapel was one of the earliest. Built in the 1370s, it combines a tiled plinth, plasterwork, a beautiful ribbed vault, and stalactite-like.
The building of a new Main Chapel and a new choir designed by Hernán Ruiz was a turning point in the mosque’s transformation. The project involved moving the Main Chapel to the cathedral’s center, where, according to Bishop Alonso Manrique, “it would be better than where it is now, as that is a corner of the church.”
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