Seville

On the whole, the chief relic of the Arab dominion in Seville is the Alcazar, a palace comparable in interest and beauty only with the Alhambra of Granada. It was begun in 1181 during the best period of the Almohades, and was surrounded by walls and towers of which the Torre del Oro, a decagonal tower on the river side, is now the principal survival. The Torre del Oro (1220) has an 18th century superstructure. Among other Moorish remains in Seville may be mentioned the Minaret of San Marcos, the Casa de Pilatos, the 15th century Casa de los Pinelos (Casa de Abades) and the 55th century palace of the dukes of Alva (Palacio de las Duenas or de las Pinedas).

The churches of Seville are enriched by paintings or sculptures of Pacheco, Montanes, Alonso Cano, Valdes Leal, Roelas, Cam pana, Morales, Vargas and Zurbaran. The church of La Caridad has six admirable Murillos. The museum was formerly the church and convent of La Merced. It now contains priceless examples of the Seville school of painting, which flourished during the 56th and 17th centuries. Among the masters represented are Velazquez and Murillo (both natives of Seville), Zurbaran, Roelas, Herrera the Elder, Pacheco, Juan de Castillo, Alonso Cano, Cespedes, Bocanefra, Valdes Leal, Goya and Martin de Vos.

The school founded in 1256 by Alfonso X. became a university in 1502 ; its present buildings were originally a Jesuit college built in 1567 from designs either by Herrera or by the Jesuit Bartolome de Bustamente. The Lonja or exchange was designed by Herrera and completed in 1598; a brown and red marble staircase leads to the Achivo de Indias, which contains 30,00o volumes relating to the voyage of Spanish discoverers, many of which are still unexamined. The archbishop's palace dates from 1697; the most notable features are the Churrigueresque doorway and staircase. The palace of San Telmo was formerly the seat of a naval college founded by Ferdinand Columbus. Other noteworthy buildings are the Mudejar palaces of the duke of Osuna and the count of Pena flor; the house occupied by Murillo at the time of his death (1682) ; the civil hospital built in 1559 and enlarged in 1842 ; the foundling hospital (1558) ; the bull-ring with room for 14,00o spectators ; and fragments of the city walls, which once had a cir cumference of more than 50 m., with 12 gateways and 166 towers.

Commerce and Industries.

The port of Seville, in 37° io' N. and 5° 1o' W. has always been one of the chief outlets of the wealth of Spain. It is the terminus of three railways to Madrid, and of other lines to Cadiz, Almorchon, Ciudad Real, Huelva, Badajoz and Lisbon. Three of these lines have branches down to the water-side of the quays. The quay on the left bank 4,500 ft. long is provided with powerful cranes, and sheds for merchandise. Navigation up the Guadalquivir from its mouth to Seville (where the river is still tidal) is less dangerous for steamers than for sailing vessels, but is nevertheless uncertain. The construction of a ship-canal 4 m. long from the Punta de los Remedios to the Punta de los Verde—two points between which the windings of the river make navigation especially difficult—was first proposed in 5859 and was undertaken in 1907. Dredging operations were begun at the same time, so that on completion of the canal vessels drawing 25 ft. (instead of 16 ft.) could come up to Seville. The principal exports are Manzanilla, Amontillado and other wines. oranges and lemons, iron and lead ores, mercury, olives, oil, cork and wool. The royal artillery works and iron foundries and the porcelain and earthenware factory in the Carthusian convent are important. Pottery has been the characteristic industry of the Triana from time immemorial; the patron saints of Seville, Justa and Rufina, are said by tradition to have been potters here. Equally important is the great tobacco and cigar factory.

History.

Seville appears originally to have been an Iberian town. Under the Romans the city was made the capital of Baetica in the second century B.C., and became a favourite resort for wealthy Romans. It was captured in 45 B.C. by Julius Caesar who gave it the name of Colonia Julia Romula, and made it one of the conventus juridici. The emperors Hadrian, Trajan and Theo

dosius were born in the neighbourhood at Italica (now Santi ponce), where are the remains of a considerable amphitheatre. The chief existing monument of the Romans in Seville itself is the remains of an aqueduct, on four hundred and ten arches, by which water from Alcala de Guadaira was supplied to the town. At the beginning of the 5th century the Silingian Vandals made Seville the seat of their empire, until it passed in 531 under the Visigoths, who chose Toledo for their capital. After the defeat of Don Roderick at Guadalete in 712 the Moors took possession of the city after a siege of some months. Under the Moors Seville continued to flourish. Idrisi speaks in particular of its great export trade in the oil of Aljarafe. The district was in great part occupied by Syrian Arabs from Emesa, part of the troops that entered Spain with Bali in 741 at the time of the revolt of the Berbers. It was a scion of one of these Emesan families, Abil 'l-Kasim Mohammed, cadi of Seville, who on the fall of the Spanish caliphate headed the revolt of his townsmen against their Berber masters (1023) and became the founder of the Abbadid dynasty, of which Seville was capital, and which lasted under his son Mo'tadid (1042-1069) and grandson Mo'tamid (1069-1091) till the city was taken by the Almora vides. The later years of the Almoravide rule were very oppres sive to the Muslims of Spain; in 1133 the people of Seville were prepared to welcome the victorious arms of Alphonso VII., and eleven years later Andalusia broke out in general rebellion. Almohade troops now passed over into Spain and took Seville in 1147. Under the Almohades Seville was the seat of government and enjoyed great prosperity; the great mosque (now destroyed) was commenced by Yusuf I. and completed by his son Almanazor. In the decline of the dynasty between 1228 and 1248 Seville underwent various revolutions, and ultimately acknowledged the Haf site prince, but Ferdinand III. restored it to Christendom in 1248. Ferdi.and brought temporary ruin on the city, for it is said that 400,000 of the inhabitants went into voluntary exile. But the position of Seville was too favourable for trade for it to fall into permanent decay, and by the 15th century it was again in a position to derive full benefit from the discovery of America. After the reign of Philip II., its prosperity waned with that of the rest of the Peninsula ; yet even in 1700 its silk factories gave employment to thousands of workpeople ; their numbers however by the end of the 18th century had fallen to four hundred. In i800 an outbreak of yellow fever carried off 30,000 of the in habitants and in 1810 the city suffered severely from the French under Soult, who pillaged to the extent of six millions sterling. Politically Seville has always had the reputation of peculiar loyalty to the throne from the time when, on the death of Ferdinand III., it was the only city which remained faithful to his son Alphonso the Wise. It was consequently favoured by the monarchs, and frequently a seat of the court. For its loyalty during the revolt of the Comuneros it received from Charles V., the motto Ab Hercule et Caesare nobilitas; a se ipsa fidelitas. In 1729 the treaty between England, France and Spain was signed in the city; in 1808 the central junta was formed here and removed in 1810 to Cadiz; in 1823 the Cortes brought the king with them from Madrid; and in 1848 Seville combined with Malaga and Granada against Espartero, who bombarded the city but fled on the return of Queen Maria Cristina to Madrid.

See P. de Madrazo, Sevilla y Cadiz (Madrid, 1884-86) : Contreras, Estudio de los moment. drabes de Sevilla y Cordova (Madrid 1885) ; J. Gestoso y Perez, Sevilla monumental y artistica (3 vols., Seville, 1889-92) ; A. F. Calvert, Seville (1907) ; J. Guichot y Parodi, Historia del Ayuntamiento de la ciudad de Sevilla (3 vols., Seville 1896-98) ; J. Cascales y Munoz, Sevilla intellectual (Madrid 1896) ; W. M. Gallichan, The Story of Seville (19o3).