Churches and towers in Cordoba - Cordoba monuments - Spain
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Cordoba Information: CORDOBA CHURCHES AND TOWERS |
 Iglesias fernandinas. Cordoba gives this name to a dozen churches, of great beauty and originality due to their intelligent combination of late Roman, Gothic and Mudejar elements, the sobriety and elegance of their construction, the use of well worked stone and wood restricted to the roofing. Their organisation, which occurred immediately after the city's conquest, is due to Ferdinand Ill. Construction began in the thirteenth century and continued into the fourteenth. Particularly beautiful are the churches of San Miguel, San Lorenzo, with a superb Gothic-Mudejar rose window, Santa Marina and San Pablo. No one tells the history of a city better than its towers. With the exception of the cathedral's tower, the rest of the towers in Cordoba are hidden by the urban skyline. There are towers of all kinds. As occurred in many cities, the minarets of former mosques were reused as Christian towers. As a result of this, there are still towers in Cordoba dating from the tenth century. The oldest is the San Juan church tower; it is small, adorned with small blind horseshoe arches and slender marble columns that give the tower an almost feminine air despite its square, plain structure and well cut masonry work. Near la Plaza de las Tendillas, in Calle Rey Heredia, is the Santa Clara tower, built in the tenth century with the finest caliphate style; it is plain, with well cut and solidly set ashlars, though the limestone shows serious signs of erosion. The Santiago tower, by the river, was also an Arab minaret, as was the lower part of the tower of the San Lorenzo Church. 
A Christian tower, that of San Nicolas, albeit with all the features of Mudejar finesse and wisdom, was built by Christians and survived the bishop's fight with the nobility. Near la Plaza de las Tendillas, it is a solid, well built tower, with a certain grace, and with no more adornment than the courses of small blind arches and dissembled battlements, and the beauty of the design and of the stone. The lower square tier gives way to an airy octagonal tower, which was completed in 1496. Military towers. There are many military towers in the city walls of Cordoba; the two most legendary stand at the south and the north of the frontier city. By la Plaza de la Merced, la Torre de la Malmuerta struggles, amidst the surrounding modern buildings, to tell the false legend of jealousy and death with which it has become linked. The truth of the tower lies in the solidity of its ashlar blocks, interrupted by stone lintels and crenels. An arch joined the tower to the city's north wall. The tower dates from the fifteenth century. To the south, la Torre de la Calahorra guarded the entrance to the Puente Romano or Roman Bridge, built for the Via Augusta to cross the River Guadalquivir. The tower's continued use has led to it being remodelled time and time again throughout its history. Henry II took the original Arab defence and added towers, bridges, moats and a barbican. Today, the Garaudy Foundation has installed the Living Museum of alAndalus, with models of buildings and reconstructions of situations during the Islamic era, exalting Muslim religiosity over Christianity. From the tower's terrace there is a fine view of the province's fields to the south, the city, and the hills to the north. |
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