by Richard M. Dorsey, Hacienda Heights, CA
It has been said that the Andalusian city of Seville, Spain, is like a young dancing girl flinging her skirts. If that description is apt, then nearby Córdoba is an elegant Lady of the World, sedately dressed and cushioned in her Mozarabic patio, flush with sun-sprinkled flowers, a fountain and fruit trees.
An ancient city
Reclining along the reed-lined banks of the slowly winding Guadalquivir River, Córdoba is a city as ancient as any in the Middle East, with a cultured past as grand as that of Rome or Constantinople.
The oldest of Spain’s major population centers, dating back to the second century B.C., this river valley settlement has long been a trade nexus for Iberian and Celtic civilizations.
During the Pax Romana, Córdoba was an administrative center, a provincial capital and a hive for Rome’s emigrating Patrician population. The next 300 years of continuous prosperity under Visigothic patronage left the city with a 1,000-year-old legacy of refinement, combining agriculture, mining and trade commerce with the leisurely lifestyle of an international community.
In the eighth century, Córdoba came under Moorish rule, and within the next 200 years it became the greatest city in Europe, boasting paved streets; streetlights; public hospitals; libraries; thousands of mosques, churches and synagogues; 10,000 artisan shops; 900 public bath houses, and over 2,000 private residences.
As a grand lady, Córdoba presents her unique blend of culture and learning like a woman who wears her heart pinned on her sleeve and waxes nostalgic at the drop of a lace handkerchief. Accustomed for millennia to being the center of attention, lately she has too often been overshadowed by the flashing world around her.
To her visitors, however, she beckons with a smile and open arms.
Where to begin
Regardless of where you stay in Córdoba, start your visit near the center of the city at the Plaza de las Tendillas. This enchanting square is surrounded by boutiques in centuries-old buildings enclosing a small park of greenery and fountains overlooked by the equestrian statue of El Gran Capitan, Gonzálo Fernandez de Córdoba.
Have a cup of cappuccino at an outdoor café and take a moment to admire the bustle of the locals as they go about their business. Cross the square and take a sip of the mountain-fresh cold water spouting from any of the public drinking fountains.
More than half a dozen streets and lanes flow off the Plaza de las Tendillas in all directions, each offering its own worthwhile sightseeing tour. I suggest you begin your walk on one of the city’s most popular calles, Duque de Hornachuelos. This narrow lane winds its way southwest, and in less than a minute’s walk you will find yourself in the middle of a totally different world.
A step back in time
As you leave Tendillas Square, notice how the sounds recede. Walk just a little farther and, as you pass the Church of the Compania, you’ll find you have suddenly stepped back in time.
You are in a small plaza, the Plaza de la Compania, and the calendar could easily read sometime in the late 1500s, a period when Isabella and Ferdinand, the Catholic kings, already have passed away and the ever-present Catholic Church has begun to redirect the daily lifestyles of the Córdobans.
The tiny, tranquil Plaza de la Compania is surrounded by church property. Stand in the middle of the plaza next to one of the many triunfos de San Rafael, the guardian angel of Córdoba. Can you hear the shuffle of sandal-shod nuns as they wend their way from the 16th-century Greco-Roman Portico of the Colegiata de Santa Victoria past the stairway of the Church of the Compania? What a distance one travels in a brief moment of time.
The Catholic influence
The casual visitor should take the time to enter Córdoba’s many old church buildings. Whether religious or not, the inquisitive will discover a treasure of curios and objets d’art, from Churrigueresque retables, ornaments and architectural facades to religious relics and icons by such famed Córdoban sculptors as Pedro Duque Cornejo. The newer Iglesia de Santo Domingo, situated just behind the tower next to the triunfo de San Rafael, houses Córdoba’s historical archives.
Our walk continued more or less westward down the Calle Juan Valera to the corner of Calle Angel de Saavedra, where on the northeast side is the former house of the Marqués de la Fuensanta. (Today it houses the Music Conservatory.) The facade of its doorway is a blend of Roman, Plateresque and Gothic influences, typical of entrances created by Catholic artisans who built decorative facades over the plain exteriors of centuries-old Moorish construction.
The journey to La Mezquita
Córdoba’s streets were notably clean, and the air was lightly perfumed with the fragrant aroma of orange blossoms. Morning sunlight created its own natural artwork, slashing fragments of stone and wood into geometric patterns of light and shadow.
We proceeded through this city of narrow, winding streets, lined with walls washed with pastel color and dotted with flower-laden balconies.
Following Angel de Saavedra southwest until it became Calle Blanco Belmonte, we turned southeast on V. Bosco. On the right, seen through an iron grill, was a Moorish bath house dating back to the 11th century.
Upon reaching Callejón de las Flores, we continued down to the small square at the end, filled with flowers and offering a view of the mosque/cathedral tower poking up through the rooftops. Returning to Calle Bosco, we continued a short way to the north wall of La Mezquita, a spot just east of the retable, to the Vírgen de los Faroles (the Virgin of the Lamps). The retable, a raised platform shelf butted up to the mosque wall, is protected by an ironwork fence and a roof. It houses an altar, holding candles, vases with flowers and other votive offerings, featuring Julio Romero de Torres’ “Assumption of Our Lady.”
The Virgin of the Lamps has become a traditional sanctuary of devotion in the city and is part of Córdoban folklore.
Many people identify Córdoba and La Mezquita as one, as if once the mosque has been visited there is no reason to prolong one’s stay in the city. All other buildings in Córdoba may be but shadows to the great mosque, but surrounding this towering edifice lie another 2,000 years of Córdoba well worth seeing.
Sanctuary in the city
The zigzagging streets of Córdoba surrounding the mosque create an intimate setting not found in any other city in the world. Every pathway has its own cultural and artistic merit. Some of these arm’s-length-wide streets date back to Roman times, when only small carts moved up and down them.
During the 800 years that the Arabs occupied the city, residents reveled in the twisting turns of the streets as reflections of life itself. Straight lines and grid patterns are prevalent in our modern age, but the Moors felt much more comfortable secluded along narrow passages where invading armies found no room to maneuver.
We walked northeast on Calle Encarnacion, where neighbors greeted each other with the colorful blooms of flowered balconies. Through protective, well-fashioned metal grills, one can find marble and stone patios, sculptured fountains and mixtures of Mozarabic, Baroque and delicate Andalusian architecture.
From any corner, you can turn in any direction and continue exploring the old center of Córdoba. Tucked away between the streets are tiny plazas with playful fountains — murmuring water flowing downward, level to level. Old iron benches provide ideal places to rest and contemplate the aged moss growing between cracks in the cobblestones. Around any corner you are likely to find small apartment complexes with balconies facing their own parks — an urban lifestyle wrapped in a peaceful setting.
Córdoban contributions
An ancient trading center, Córdoba was once an administrative precinct for the Romans and Visigoths and a cultural center that rivaled the golden ages of Greece and Rome.
Because of the Moors’ influence in Córdoba, Europe obtained algebra and Arabic numerals, surgery and herbic medicines, gunpowder weapons and papermaking. From Córdoba, Europe developed the age of reason, the poetic concept of chivalry and courtly love and the modern, standardized approach to scholastic education. Through Córdoba to the rest of Europe came the game of chess, the lute, choral music and poetry.
Without Córdoba’s astrolabe and Toledan tables, Columbus might not have sailed to the New World. Without Córdoba’s cheap paper, Gutenberg might not have invented mechanical printing. Without Córdoba’s philosophers, physicians and learning, the Renaissance may have been delayed for centuries.
Following the crooked lanes back to the Plaza de las Tendillas, we found the once-deserted, quiet streets filling up with Córdobans on their way home from work.
One day with the Lady of Córdoba seemed hardly enough. There are still the many churches of the city to explore, the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos (the fortress home of the Moors and the Catholic kings), the Jewish Quarter, Roman monuments, the country homes of the Caliphate and, most important of all, the historical corridors of the Great Mosque/Cathedral.
