The building of the Cathedral of Seville was started in 1401 after the destruction of the Moorish mezquita that was in that location. The legend is that it would be so large that when people saw it, they would think that the builders were madmen. The Church of Santa Maria de la Sede was inaugurated in 1507 and is the biggest Gothic church in Europe. It is also the 3rd largest church, after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London. Because the ceiling is so high, the cathedral is the largest volume church in the world. The church also has renaissance and mannerist designs. The dimensions of the church are 116m long, 76m wide, and 56m high at the crossing. The final cathedral was finished 3 centuries after the inauguration. When one enters the church, one has the sense of being very small in such a large church.
The retable of the high altar is huge, the largest in the world. It has an area of 264 square meters. The style is flaming Gothic, and it was designed by P. Duncart, A. Fernandez, and de Covarrubias. There are seven naves in all.
The best materials and furnishings were used in building the church. This included Flemish altar screens, 75 stained glass windows, sculptured portals, wrought iron grills, marble floors, and bronze candelabra.
The Sacristia Mayor has the treasures of the Cathedral. Some of the paintings here are by Murillo. There is also the Key of Seville, from 1248. The Capilla Real is a Renaissance structure with a high dome. It has the 13th century Virgen de los Reyes, the patron saint of Seville. It also contains the tombs of King Fernando III, the Saint (who liberated Seville from the Moors), and King Alfonso X, the Wise, and his wife Beatriz de Suabia.
At one corner in the front of the church, in the transept, is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, held aloft by 4 big statues of soldiers. Recent DNA analysis by scientists show that the remains in this tomb belong to Christopher Columbus, as they were compared to the bones of his son Fernando Colon, whose remains are in in a tomb at the west end of the nave. Hernando Columbus, son of the great navigator, bequeathed his collection of thousands of illustrated manuscripts and codices to the Cathedral. These documents form the bulk of the Columbus Library housed within the Cathedral. The library was founded in the 13th century, but the majority of its manuscripts and documents are about the discovery of America.
The cathedral has the Unesco World Heritage designation. Also it has 500 priceless works of art, such as paintings by Murillo (the Immaculate Conception and Saint Anthony), Zurbarán and Francisco de Goya.
The cloister has the beautiful Patio de los Naranjos. The garden is of Moorish origin and was built on top of the old mosque. There is an octogonal Visigothic fountain in the center that was used by the Moors for religious ablutions.
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