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Magic of the Mezquita
David Whitley heads to southern Spain and finds a cathedral within a mosque
T
he grand patio of Cordoba’s Mezquita is a vision of all that’s lovely about Andalucia. Te centuries-old walls surround orange
trees, and meticulously-spaced water channels create a pattern across the stone floor. But once through the big, heavy, wooden
entrance doors, the Mezquita ascends to a whole new level. Hundreds of alternating white-brick and red-stone arches spread across the horizon. Te combined effect is utterly mesmerising. Technically, this is the mother church of the
local diocese, and it was consecrated as such in 1236. It was built on the site of the Basilica of St Vincent the Martyr, from the sixth century. A special glass floor looks down on the remains. But the point about the Mezquita is that it looks
nothing like a church, due to it being the main mosque of a vast Islamic caliphate for hundreds of years. From 785 onwards, it was the most important sanctuary of Western Islam. And under various caliphs, it grew ever larger and grander. Age and scale make it one of the world’s greatest
buildings by anyone’s standards. But it’s the bizarre mix of religions that makes it truly special. At the edges of that sea of arches are small side chapels full of gold-splashed decoration, marble-swathed tombs and figurines of the Virgin Mary. At the far end, a mihrab — the wall niche that
indicates the direction of Mecca — is surrounded by the most extraordinarily delicate mosaic tiling. Meanwhile, a side door to the left leads to the treasury containing a gigantic monstrance still used in Easter processions today. Te real head-scratcher, however, comes at the
Mezquita’s centre. Amble long enough through the field of red-and-white arches, and you suddenly hit the cathedral. Which is superbly, incongruously, inside the mother church. Which, should you be struggling to keep up, looks like a mosque. Te cathedral alone would be worth seeing.
Statues of girls, cherubs and nymphs climb high above the altar, surrounded by no-expense-spared lashings of red marble, while the domes above have undergone a blitz of showy decoration. But it’s as if everyone’s just agreed to ignore the
fact that there’s a massive mosque surrounding it on all sides. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve traipsed around one too many churches, the Mezquita will well and truly cure you of your ambivalence.
6 ABTA Magazine February 2015
A woman walking inside the Mezquita of Cordoba
countrybycountry.com
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