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Religious Architecture

Religious Architecture

Seville is a city with a large number of churches, all of them of splendid beauty and behind whose walls exist true works of art.

Immediately following the conquest of Seville, 24 parish churches were established, some of them building on existing mosques. There weren't as many in any city of Castile. The Santa Ana church located in Triana was erected at the end of the 13th C. During the 14th C, ancient synagogues were transformed into Christian temples, such as Santa Cruz and Santa María la Blanca. Due to the growth of the city in the 16th C, the San Bernardo and San Roque churches were built on the outskirts. The colorful market, Nuestra Sra de la O of Triana (Our Lady of the O) was constructed during the 17th C.

Most of these temples today conserve their original religious purpose regardless of various restorations that occurred over time. In the 14th C a Sevillian parish, gothic – mudéjar (Moorish influenced architecture) style was created, consisting of three naves and a minaret tower, which in many cases recalls the ancient mosque style. This was apparent in various works carried out after the 1356 earthquake, as in the case of churches such as Santa Marina, San Vicente, San Isidoro, San Lorenzo, Omnium Sanctorum, San Andrés, San Esteban, San Marcos, Santa Catalina y San Pedro.

Aside from their architectural interest, they house numerous works of art that can be visited around worship schedules.

Many churches were built between the 16th and 18th C, primarily Renaissance and Baroque in style.

Worth noting and visiting is the Baroque – Seville (Hispalense) style, of enormous beauty and monumental characteristic, found in structures such as San Idelfonso or El Salvador. Also noteworthy are the churches of Santa María La Blanca and San Luis de los Franceses.

During the 17th C, Seville was unable to avoid the grave economic crisis which affected Europe in general and Spain in particular. This decadence, further aggravated in the city by ongoing public calamities, such as flooding and epidemics of the plague, fortunately did not coincide with the flourishing of the Arts in all of its manifestations.

Seville, with its aroused counter-reformist spirit, was transformed urbanistically into a convent-city. In 1671 there were some 45 monasteries for Monks, 28 of them exclusively for women. Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustins and Jesuit orders all settled here. Amongst those monasteries we highlight those that today are churches, such as the case of San Jacinto, La Magdalena, Capuchinos.

Seville was a city particularly rich in hospitals and foundations dedicated to charity and in assisting the needy. For this reason many of these institutions were founded, especially between the 15th to the 17th C. Many were later eliminated with reductions of hospital facilities dictated by King Felipe II, causing the disappearance of some and the joining up others. Today there are many hospitals that remain standing, such as the Pozo Santo, Misericordia, Cinco Llagas, Nuestra Señora de la Paz. We would like to make special mention of the churches of Hospital de la Caridad (Charity Hospital) and the Hospital de los Venerables.

The city also has a large number of chapels and shrines, more than any other city in Spain. The majority of these chapels are seats to religious fraternities (Hermandades), that participate in the processions of the famous Holy Week (Semana Santa). A few worth mentioning include the Capilla de los Marineros (Chapel of the Sailors) with the statue of Esperanza de Triana (Hope of Triana), and the Capilla del Patrocinio (Chapel of the Patronage), with the famous statue of Cristo del Cachorro, (by Ruiz Gijón).

We'd like to make special mention of two Basilicas: the Basílica de la Macarena (Basilica of Macarena) and the Basílica del Gran Poder (Basilica of the Great Power).

The Archdiocese of Seville has the largest number of Monasteries for women in all of Spain. Presently there are nineteen enclosed convents left of the thirty the city once had.

The nuns that reside in these convents today come from various provinces of Spain and from other regions of the province of Seville. However there are two convents that host women primarily from Andalusia.

They are: San Leandro, of the Agustina order and Santa Inés, Franciscanas nuns. All of these enclosed convents cover a wide chronological scale coinciding with the time in which they were founded, ranging from the oldest, the San Clemente (1248), to the most modern, the Salesas (turn of the 19th C). Nobles and even kings covered certain convent's debts, while exposing their saintly desires to be buried at the base of a main altar or next to or inside a certain choir.

The unwonted aspects of these convents is linked to the lifestyle of the resident nuns. The degree of austerity and rigor varies. The most noteworthy being the way in which the nuns from the Convento de Carmelitas Descalzas (Santa Cruz area) live. Just as dazzling legends and tales claimed to have taken place within the walls of the Convento de Franciscanas Clarisas de Santa Inés. Yet the most marvelous feature is the artistic wealth that remain on these grounds, in spite of most of their heritage was decimated during the Francescada period, or in 1835 and the consequent disentitlement, not to mention as consequences of the Civil War.

The original rules set down by Santa Paula del "Ora et Labora" are still today followed word by word. The work rooms are the same daily gathering spots and served as the backdrop a thousand times over for renowned painters Alfonso Grosso or Rico Cejudo. Embroidering, binding of books, picking of garden vegetables, patchwork, cloth making or the labored love behind the famous sweets and pastries was never in short order here.

In the 16th C Seville received the well deserved name of a "Conventual" city.

Of all of the original convents, some have disappeared. A few examples of those that remain today include: la Plaza de San Francisco, la Glorieta de San Diego, la Plaza de la Encarnación. Other churches have been preserved although they are no longer sites of worship. This is the case of the ancient Jesuit church of San Hermenegildo, today an exhibition hall used for conferences or the San Luis de los Franceses, an ancient novitate of the same order.

Other convents have been transformed for different uses: the Antiguo Convento de la Merced is today the Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum), the Monasterio Cartujo de Santa María de las Cuevas was converted into a canvas factory during the mid 19th C, later becoming an emblematic site of the Expo '92. Today it is the Centro Andaluza de Arte Contemporáneo (Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art). The ancient Convento de los Remedios is today the Museo de Carruajes (Carriage Museum). Both the Santa Inés and San Clemente convents continue to enrich the city culturally serving as temporary exhibitions sites while maintaining their religious purpose.

Various convents produce handmade pastries which are sold on site , such as in the case of the famous Yemas de San Leandro (egg yolk pastries) or other specialized establishments.

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