History of Seville

In al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) the city was first the seat of a kūra (Spanish: cora),[1] or territory, of the Caliphate of Córdoba, then made capital of the Taifa of Seville (Arabic: طائفة أشبيليّة, Ta'ifa Ishbiliya), which was incorporated into the Christian Kingdom of Castile under Ferdinand III, who was first to be interred in the cathedral.

The Late Middle Ages found the city, its port, and its colony of active Genoese merchants in a peripheral but nonetheless important position in European international trade, while its economy suffered severe demographic and social shocks such as the Black Death of 1348 and the anti-Jewish revolt of 1391.

Coinciding with the Baroque period of European history, the 17th century in Seville represented the most brilliant flowering of the city's culture; then began a gradual economic and demographic decline as navigation of the Guadalquivir River became increasingly difficult until finally the trade monopoly and its institutions were transferred to Cádiz.

The city was revitalised in the 19th century with rapid industrialisation and the building of rail connections, and as in the rest of Europe, the artistic, literary, and intellectual Romantic movement found its expression here in reaction to the Industrial Revolution.

[6] Commercial colonisation activity in the region changed dramatically in the 6th century BC when the Carthaginians achieved dominance of the western Mediterranean after the fall of the Phoenician city-states of Canaan to the Persian empire.

Before returning to Rome, Scipio settled a contingent of veteran soldiers on a hill close to Hispalis, but far enough away to deter belligerents, and thus founded Italica, the first provincial city in which the inhabitants had all the rights of Roman citizenship.

During this period Hispalis was the district capital of the Hispalense, one of the four legal convents (Conventi iuridici, judicial assemblies the governors summoned with some frequency in the major cities) of the imperial province of Baetica.

After the defeat of the Franks in 507, the Visigothic Kingdom abandoned its former capital in Toulouse, north of the Pyrenees, and was gaining ground on the various peoples scattered throughout the Hispanic territory by moving the royal residence to different cities until it was fixed in Toledo.

[34] On 1 October 844, when most of the Iberian peninsula was controlled by the Emirate of Córdoba, a flotilla of about 80 Viking ships, after attacking Asturias, Galicia and Lisbon, ascended the Guadalquivir to Išbīliya, and besieged it for seven days, inflicting many casualties and taking numerous hostages with the intent to ransom them.

According to the Arabist Lévi-Provençal, over time, the few Norse survivors converted to Islam and settled as farmers in the area of Qawra (Coria del Río), Qarmūnâ (Carmona), and Moron (Morón de la Frontera), where they engaged in animal husbandry and made dairy products (reputedly the origin of Sevillian cheese).

[43] Inhabited for a time by the Abbatid, Almoravid, and Almohad kings, its embattled enclosure became the dwelling of Ferdinand I, and was rebuilt by Peter of Castile (1353–64), who employed Granadans and Muslim subjects of his own (mudejares) as its architects.

The principal features of the Alcázar are: the Patio de las doncellas (Court of the Ladies), restored by Charles I, with its fifty-two uniform columns of white marble supporting interlaced arches and its gallery of precious arabesques;[44] as well as the Hall of Ambassadors, which, with its cupola, dominates the rest of the building—its walls are covered with fine azulejos (glazed tiles) and Arab decorations.

The spirit of the king's desire to gather all knowledge, organise it, and disseminate it with missionary zeal is clearly reflected in the Siete Partidas (Seven-Part Code), one of the great foundational works of the Middle Ages.

[63] Before his death, Ferdinand III had long planned the invasion of North Africa, and at the beginning of his own reign, Alfonso X appealed to Pope Alexander IV to endorse such an incursion as a religious crusade, and even built shipyards at Seville for that purpose.

The influence and prestige of Seville expanded greatly during the 16th century following the Spanish arrival in America, the commerce of the port driving the prosperity which led to the period of its greatest splendour.

The city developed into a multicultural centre that nurtured the flowering of the arts, especially architecture, painting, sculpture and literature, thus playing an important role in the cultural achievements of the Spanish Golden Age (El Siglo de Oro).

This structure was badly damaged in a 1356 earthquake, and by 1401 the city began building the current cathedral, one of the largest churches in the world and an outstanding example of the Gothic and Baroque architectural styles.

The College of the Annunciation of the Professed House of the Society of Jesus in Seville was one of the intellectual pillars of the Spanish Counter-Reformation, and also served as a starting point for Jesuit expansion in overseas lands.

He began his art studies under Juan del Castillo, and became familiar with Flemish painting; the great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was also exposed to influences from other regions.

Between 1825 and 1833 Melchor Cano acted as chief architect in Seville, most of the urban planning policy and architectural modifications of the city being made by him and his collaborator Jose Manuel Arjona y Cuba.

This led to the installation of multiple ovens on the facility (the site continued to produce tiles until 1982, when the factory was transferred to the municipality of Santiponce to allow for development of the island for the Universal Exhibition of 1992).

[12] By the second half of the 19th century Seville began an expansion supported by railway construction and the demolition of part of its ancient walls, allowing the urban space of the city to grow eastward and southward.

Not long before the opening, the Spanish government also began a modernization of the city in order to prepare for the expected crowds by erecting new hotels and widening the mediaeval streets to allow for the movement of automobiles.

One of the most significant events of this period occurred on 13 March 1941 with the explosion of the gunpowder stored in the magazine of Santa Barbara, located in the Cerro del Aguila (Eagle Hill), destroying ten surrounding blocks and damaging many more.

In 1953, during the full autarky of Franco, the shipyard of Seville was opened, eventually employing more than 2,000 workers in the 1970s despite the production of the larger vessels demanded by the maritime market being hindered by the shallowness of the Guadalquivir River.

Trade unionism in Seville began during the 1960s with the underground organizational activities of the Workers' Commissions or Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), in factories such as Hytasa, the Astilleros shipyards, Hispano Aviación, etc.

Several of the movement's leaders were imprisoned in Spain in the Process 1001 of November 1973 by the courts of the Tribunal de Orden Público, including Fernando Soto, Eduardo Saborido, and Francisco Acosta.

In 1992, the Universal Exposition was held for six months in Seville, on the occasion of which the local communications network infrastructure was greatly improved: the SE-30 beltway around the city was completed, new highways were constructed, the new Santa Justa train station had opened in 1991 and the Spanish High Speed Rail system, the Alta Velocidad Española (AVE), began to operate between Madrid-Seville.

Seville began the century under the leadership of the socialist Mayor Alfredo Sanchez Monteseirín (PSOE), who had held the position of alderman since June 1999 with support from the PA, the PP being the largest party.

Thus Sánchez Monteseirín ranks as the first mayor in the history of democracy in Seville to serve three times on the city council in power, despite having been only once the candidate with the most votes from the electorate and the filing of corruption charges of illegal financing through the issue of false invoices.