Only in Seville by Duncan J.D. Smith

Introduction Introduction “Like Spain, I’m bound to the past.” WilliamS. Burroughs, Cities of the Red Night , 1981 This terse observation well reflects Seville since much of the Andalucian capital is a palimpsest. Consider Seville Cathedral, with its Moorish minaret and Visigothic font, or the Alameda de Hércules, a plaza where street cafés join Roman columns on a former riverbed. These places im- bue the city with a timelessness cherished by locals and visitors alike. Seville occupies a plain on a bend in the Guadalquivir River, Spain’s only great navigable waterway. With access to the Atlantic at Cádiz and a backdrop of mineral-rich mountains, the city was long coveted as a staging post by a colourful roster of invaders. All have left their mark. The Phoenicians came first in the 8th century BC (although a so- phisticated Iberian culture already existed). Trading ceramics for pre- cious metals, they founded Hisbaal in honour of their god Baal. Later, in 206 BC, the Romans appeared during a war with the Carthaginians. Attracted by the wealth of the Iberian Peninsula, they divided it into provinces. Hisbaal found itself in Baetica and became the trading col- ony of Hispalis, exporting olive oil and wheat to Rome. Baetica’s success was prolonged by the Visigoths, who arrived from northern Europe in 415 AD. They remained until 711, when Umayyad Muslims based in Syria made the peninsula part of their caliphate. Baetica was renamed al-Andalus and Hispalis became Ish- biliyya (hence eventually Seville). Moorish Andalucia was defined by its mosques, orange trees and a love of poetry. The fragmentation of the caliphate in the 11th century made way for the Abbadids, Almoravids and eventually the Almohads from Morocco, who made Seville their European capital. They held sway until 1248, when King Ferdinand III of Castile (1201–1252) captured the city as part of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Following Columbus’s establishment in 1492 of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, Andalucia entered a Golden Age, with Seville flourishing as Europe’s gateway to the New World. The vast wealth this generated dur- ing the 16th and early 17th centuries facilitated the construction of pal- aces and churches making Seville a symbol of Spanish imperial might. By the 1680s the Guadalquivir had silted up and Seville’s role as a port declined. Habsburgs and Bourbons occupied the Spanish throne and a series of wars and plagues reduced Andalucia to one of Spain’s poorest regions. In spite of this both flamenco and tapas originated in the region during the 18th and 19th centuries. 5