The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba Spain

It was originally the gate by which the Muslim emir and his officials entered the mosque and it presumably existed since the mosque's first construction by Abd ar-Rahman I in the 8th century. At the centre of the ensemble on the west side is a large episcopal throne, commissioned in 1752, that resembles the design of an altarpiece. The altar of the Capilla Mayor was begun in 1618 and designed in a Mannerist style by Alonso Matías. On the dome itself, are the images of the eight Fathers of the Church along the outer edge and an image of the Holy Trinity at its center, which together are part of a Counter-Reformist iconographic program. The elliptical dome of the crossing rests on four pendentives which are sculpted with images of the four evangelists.

• The cathedral’s first altar was installed in 1236 under the large ribbed dome at the edge of Al-Hakam II’s 10th-century extension of the mosque, becoming part of what is today called the Villaviciosa Chapel (Capilla de Villaviciosa) and the cathedral’s first main chapel (the Antigua Capilla Mayor).
• The tensions that grow from these subverted expectations create an intellectual dialogue between building and viewer that will characterize the evolving design of the Great Mosque of Cordoba for over two hundred years.
• The hall was large and flat, with timber ceilings held up by rows of two-tiered arches resting on columns.
• Located next to the altar, the cathedral’s Royal Chapel was completed in 1371.
• In the courtyard, there are citrus trees and palms planted in rows mimicking the columns found inside the mosque.
• The door on the right, Bab al-Sabat (“door of the sabat”), gave access to a passage which originally led to the sabat, an elevated passage over the street which connected the mosque to the caliph’s palace.
• Those were recycled by the Moors as they began work on the mosque.

Route of the Fernandine Churches

The courtyard of the mosque was planted with trees as early as the 9th century, according to written sources cited by the 11th century jurist Ibn Sahl. The narrative of the church being transformed into a mosque, which goes back to the tenth-century historian Al-Razi, echoed similar narratives of the Islamic conquest of Syria, in particular the story of building the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. A claim that the site of the mosque-cathedral was once a Roman temple dedicated to Janus dates as far back as Pablo de Céspedes and is sometimes still repeated today.

Mezquita Catedral de Córdoba

What is today the 17th-century Chapel of the Conception (Capilla de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción), located on the west wall near the courtyard, was initially the baptistery in the 13th century. According to Jiménez de Rada, Ferdinand III also carried out the symbolic act of returning the former cathedral bells of Santiago de Compostela that were looted by Al-Mansur (and which had been turned into mosque lamps) back to Santiago de Compostela. Upon the city's conquest the mosque was converted into a Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Santa Maria).
Over the centuries, Cordoba’s Mosque-Cathedral has been a testing ground for building techniques which have influenced both the Arabic and Christian cultures alike. Now standing 10 metres to the north of its original location, with a height of 54 metres, it is the tallest building in the city. After the tower had been damaged by an earthquake in the 16th century, a decision was made to build a new, Renaissance-style structure around it. The bell tower, Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba (1984) by Historic Centre of CordobaUNESCO World Heritage As time went on, a fascinating blend of styles began to emerge as Mudejar, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque elements were incorporated into the not only Islamic, but also Visigoth and Roman architecture of the former mosque.
The flames reached the Chapel of Expectation, and after the firefighters intervened, the roof of this chapel collapsed under the weight of the water. Further restorations of features like chapels and some of the outer gates have continued to take place up to the late 2010s. Further research work and archaeological excavations were carried out on the mosque structure and in the Courtyard of the Oranges by Félix Hernández between 1931 and 1936. Further restoration works concentrating on the former mosque structure were carried out between 1879 and 1923 under the direction of Velázquez Bosco, who among other things dismantled the baroque elements that had been added to the Villaviciosa Chapel and uncovered the earlier structures there. Patricio Furriel was responsible for restoring the mihrab's Islamic mosaics, including the portions which had been lost. In 1727 the tower was damaged by another storm and in 1755 pieces of it (mainly decorative details) were damaged by the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake.

Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba Plans

• This building is a temple and a monument.
• He also added a new, richly-decorated mihrab (a niche built into the qibla wall which indicates the direction of prayer) and a large maqsurah (an area that was reserved for rulers during prayers).
• The Great Mosque was built in the context of the new Umayyad Emirate in Al-Andalus which Abd ar-Rahman I founded in 756.
• To the people of al-Andalus “the beauty of the mosque was so dazzling that it defied any description.”
• The most exquisite decoration in the whole complex is found in the third mihrab, or prayer niche, a small octagonal recess roofed with a single block of white marble that is carved in the form of a shell and has walls inlaid with Byzantine-style mosaics and gold.
• It also would have served as a hall for teaching and for Sharia law cases during the rule of Abd al-Rahman I and his successors.

The ongoing debates over its religious designation further complicate discussions of heritage management, raising critical questions about architectural authorship and cultural ownership. The Renaissance dome, with its sculptural articulation, directly opposes the mosque’s structural restraint. Each expansion seamlessly extended the existing framework, reinforcing a sense of spatial continuity that was later challenged by the cathedral’s insertion. In 1236, Córdoba fell to King Ferdinand III of Castile, marking the beginning of the mosque’s conversion into a cathedral. Its design drew inspiration from the Great Mosque of Damascus, yet it also incorporated elements of the existing Visigothic structure on the site, reusing columns and capitals in a display of both practicality and symbolic continuity.

List of chapels

Charles V only visited the cathedral after it was completed and was not too pleased. Over four centuries, the mosque was continually extended as Cordoba prospered. This agreement lasted until 784 when the Muslim Emir Abd al-Rahman I purchased the church and demolished it to make room for the grand mosque of Cordoba. Unlike any other building in Spain, the Great Mosque of Cordoba tells the history of the Iberian Peninsula, starting with the Romans. To get to the top of the bell tower, a separate ticket is required which costs 3€.
The first major addition to the building under Christian patrons is the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real), located directly behind the west wall of the Villaviciosa Chapel. It was probably instituted not only to make use of Mudéjar expertise but also to make up for the cathedral chapter's relative poverty, especially vis-à-vis the monumental task of repairing and maintaining such a large building. Some of them were kept on payroll by the church but many of them worked as part of their fulfilment of a "labor tax" on Muslim craftsmen (later extended to Muslims of all professions) which required them to work two days a year on the cathedral building.
Located next to the altar, the cathedral’s Royal Chapel was completed in 1371. The mihrab and the maqsurah (1984) by Historic Centre of CordobaUNESCO World Heritage Over time, Abd al-Rahman’s successors extended the mosque and enriched it with elements of Andalusian art. The ribbed dome at the entrance Al-Hakam II's 10th-century extension (1984) by Historic Centre of CordobaUNESCO World Heritage Using Roman and Visigoth elements and materials from the site’s previous structures, the mosque was completed in only two years.
It’s the fact that the building tells the story of over 1500 years. Its roof is held up by a series of double arches made up of its iconic alternating red and white bricks. This is one of the reasons why the mosque, along with Cordoba’s historic center, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. In 1994, the original World Heritage property was extended to include not only the Mosque-Cathedral, but also the surrounding area and a number of historic buildings and monuments from Roman, Islamic and Christian times. Added to and altered but never demolished, this architectural hybrid is today a truly unique artistic creation.
Some of the original building materials from the Visigothic basilica can still be seen in the first section of the Mosque built by Abderraman I. The interior space consists of a forest of columns and red and white arches giving a strong chromatic effect. The original structure was built by the Umayyad ruler ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān I in 784–786 with extensions in the 9th and 10th centuries that doubled its size, ultimately making it one of the largest sacred buildings in the Islamic world. Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, Islamic mosque in Córdoba, Spain, which was converted into a Christian cathedral in the 13th century. The conversion from mosque to cathedral reflects broader historical conquest and cultural transformation patterns.
About half-way up, the stairways were lit by sets of horseshoe-arch windows whose arches were decorated with voussoirs of alternating colours which were in turn surrounded by a rectangular alfiz frame (similar to the decoration seen around the arches of the mosque's outer gates). The main tower contained two staircases, which were built for the separate ascent and descent of the tower. The lantern tower was in turn surmounted by a dome and topped by a finial in the shape of a metal rod with two golden spheres and one silver sphere (often referred to as "apples") decreasing in size towards the top. The minaret has since disappeared after it was partly demolished and encased in the Renaissance bell tower that is visible today. Until the 11th century, the mosque courtyard (also known as a sahn) was unpaved earth with citrus and palm trees irrigated at first by rainwater cisterns and later by aqueduct.

The most exquisite decoration in the whole complex is found in the third mihrab, or prayer niche, a small octagonal recess roofed with a single block of white marble that is carved in the form of a shell and has walls inlaid with Byzantine-style mosaics and gold. This insertion disrupted the mosque’s expansive horizontality with a centralized vertical thrust characteristic of Christian cathedrals, initiating a dialogue of architectural dissonance that continues to provoke discourse today. The mosque was conceived as a hypostyle prayer hall, a typology emphasizing modular repetition, which allowed for gradual expansion. https://www.velwinscasino.gr/ Defenders of the ecclesial ownership argue on the basis of continuous and peaceful occupation of the building by the Church whereas defenders of the public ownership argue that the mosque-cathedral never ceased to be a State's property, initially belonging to the Crown of Castile (and henceforth the Spanish State). After the mosque's conversion to a cathedral in 1236, Spanish Christian designs were increasingly added to new or existing gates.

The Soul of Córdoba

He asked the authorities to offer adhan at the cathedral and was even allowed to offer his prayers there. Despite the demise of the Umayyad caliphate and the concomitant decline of Córdoba's political status, its great mosque remained one of the most thoroughly described and lauded Islamic buildings for centuries to come. The Puerta del Perdón (Door of Forgiveness) is one of the most ritually important doors of the cathedral, located at the base of the bell tower and directly opposite the Puerta de las Palmas. Al-Mansur's final expansion of the mosque a few decades later (starting in 987–988), which extended the mosque laterally to the east, copied the design of the earlier gates of Al-Hakam II's expansion. These later gates have even more elaborate decoration, particularly from the 10th century during Al-Hakam II's expansion (starting in 961), visible today on the western exterior façade of the former prayer hall. Next to the base of the tower is the Puerta del Perdón ("Door of Forgiveness"), one of the two northern gates of the building.
Some remains of the original eastern doors of Al-Hakam II's expansion, before Al-Mansur's displacement of the eastern wall, are still visible inside the mosque-cathedral today. The cathedral's main chapel (known from Spanish as the Capilla Mayor) is located at the cruciform nave and transept at the center of the building. It was designed by architect Hernan Ruiz III (grandson of Hernan Ruiz I), who built the tower up to the bell's level but died before its completion.