Puerta de Sevilla

City Gate in Córdoba

The Puerta de Sevilla or The Seville Gate is a of City Gate into Córdoba, Andalucia, Spain. The gate leads to the district of San Basilio, which is famous for its beautiful gardens. San Basilio gets its name from the old convent of Basilian monks, of which only the church remains, today Parish of Our Lady of Peace.

What does the Puerta de Sevilla look like?

It is a small gateway, made up of a single entrance topped with a lintel. Its structure is erected with sandstone ashlars, its only simple vain bordered by granite, on which the emblem of Cordoba is displayed. The most striking features are the small twin arches, attached at right angles to the stretch of city wall to one side of the gate, with a square watchtower on the end. Recent studies have dated this building to the Islamic era, but they are not sure whether it was used for military purposes, or was in fact part of an aqueduct.

Where does the Puerta de Sevilla get its name?

Its name comes from the Middle Ages when it was the gateway which travelers set out from to reach the province of Seville.

History of the Puerta de Sevilla

Fragments if the gate date back to the 10th century.

Its building comes from Islamic times, having a purely military function. Ibn Baskuwal identified up to seven gates on the walled space of the Medina; among them he mentioned Seville Gate, known in Caliphal times as Bab al-Ishbiliya or Bab al-Attarin which means Gate of the Shopkeepers. However, we have evidence that, during the first years after Christian reconquest, the gate was already known as Seville Gate. It was a meeting place for women, where they could access the Souk – the market, which could have been located in the Alcázar Viejo.

The original gate was demolished in 1865, due to protests by the Cordoba who saw in it a nuisance for the transit of loaded carriages. The gate you see today was rebuilt last century. During the 1950s Mayor Antonio Cruz Conde ordered the reconstruction of part of the wall and the door, the architect José Rebollo.

Statue of Ibn Hazam

Just in front of the gateway there is a 20th century statue of Ibn Hazam, by the master sculptor Ruiz Olmos. Ibn-Hazm was a prolific writer, and wrote over four hundred works, on a wide variety of topics ranging from politics and theology to history or literature. His most important work was definitely The Collar of the Dove, a real milestone in Medieval literature which heavily influenced Romantic Medieval writing and paved the way for the genre known as Courtly Love.

The Puerta de Sevilla appears in our Complete Guide to Visiting Córdoba!

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