* * * * *
When I entered Sevilla for the first time in 1968 via La Puerta de la Macarena, once the main northern
entrance to city, I followed calle San Luis, which
corresponds to northern section of the ancient cardo máximo, the main north-south
street of Roman Hispalis, which would
later be the main street of Islamic Ishbiliya. Along calle San Luis, after San Gil and Santa Marina, is the very important 14th
century Gothic-Mudejar church of San Marcos.
Tower of the church of San Marcos, originally the minaret of a Moorish mosque dating to the 13th Century.
The striking feature of the Iglesia de San Marcos is the 70-foot Mudéjar tower, which is thought to be the
minaret of an ancient mosque that stood on this site. It was likely built in
the 13th Century during the Berber Almohade dynasty rule that made Sevilla
their Iberian capital. The church, using
the minaret as its tower was built in the first half of the 14th
Century under the reign of Pedro I de Castilla (Pedro el Cruel), who was known
to love the Moorish lifestyle. The tower was directly inspired by the magnificent Almohade minaret La Giralda that is
now the bell tower of the Cathedral of Sevilla.
Like La Giralda the tower’s Islamic style window openings are spaced to give light to the interior staircase—in the
case of La Giralda, ramps on which a horse could be ridden up to sound the call
for evening prayer. And also like La
Giralda, the Almohade penchant for decorative and geometric sebka*
designs to adorn these buildings can be seen on the San Marcos tower. The San Marcos tower, like many other
buildings in Sevilla, was destroyed by the earthquake of 1396, but rebuilt in
the same style.In 1916, underwritten by
the Conde de Urbina, Sevillano architect Aníbal
González supervised the restoration of this magnificent tower.

Finished in the final years of the 13th Century, La Giralda was once the minaret of Sevilla's main mosque is perhaps the greatest symbol of the city.
(*The elaborate, but tasteful and aesthetically stunning stone and stucco work on Mudéjar and Islamic-inspired towers,
buildings, palaces of mosques of this period; this style may have originated in
the Great Mosque of Córdoba in the 10th Century. Sebka is believed to be inspired by patterns
left on the surface of dried-up salt lakes in the desserts that were the
original homelands of some of the Almohades.)
Above the Gothic arches of the portal are the sebka designs so typical of Mudéjar decorations.
Detail of the Mudéjar sebka adornments on the church of San Marcos.
The well preserved, or at least well restored, main portal was built in the
15th Century and has an ogival arch with nine archivolts, unadorned except
for sawtooth notches on the 1st, 2cd and 9th arches. The Mudéjar elements of this so-called Gothic-Mudéjar
style are what make such portals so distinctive and striking, especially to
western eyes. Above the Gothic archway
are more sebka designs beneath the tejaroz (eaves), which are supported
by corbels, decorative supports for the eaves in the shape of lions’
heads. If the three stone figures—God (center),
Gabriel (left) and the Virgin Mary (right)—seem to be not be of the same epoch,
it is because they were added in the 18th Century.
San Marcos is a perfect example of what a monument like this undergoes over
the centuries. First, it was an
important mosque, which was replaced by a Christian church, retaining the
minaret as a church tower in the 13th Century. Then it was destroyed
by an earthquake at the end of the 14th Century. The church was burned during internecine
struggles between the Dukes of Arcos and Medinia Sedonia in the 15th
century and rebuilt in 1478. In the 20th
Century, the interior of the church was sacked and burned my forces backing the
Republic in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (the church was not
re-opened for worship until 1987).
What is miraculous is that the minaret, which originally was built nearly
800 years ago, still stands even it is has been rebuilt, modified and restored
over several centuries. Except for the
Christian bell tower added in 1603, it looks much as it did when it was
originally built. Despite the ravages
over the centuries visited upon this church by man and nature, the church as a
whole appears as one of the finest example of the 14th Century
Gothic-Mudéjar style.
* * * * *
(Available
at Amazon, Despana (NYC), LaTienda.com, La Boca Restaurant (Santa Fe,
NM) and at Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore (NYC).
Comments are welcome and encouraged.
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* * * * *
Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
Poem
by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse
Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt
Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic
Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York
City.
______________________________________________________________________________________
In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50
Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in
2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019)
"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from
thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our
index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these
websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and
empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality
information."
36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine
enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless
crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce
Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's
culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel
Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019
Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)
Dawes
was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004,
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles
& Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the
2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature
in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about
Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
".
. .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià
in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again
brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane
Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher,
Food Arts, October 2009.
Pilot for a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
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