History of the
Alcazar of Sevilla

Once the city was conquered by the Castilian hosts, King Ferdinand III the Saint decided to turn the Almohad palaces into the Royal Seat of the Court, a function that continues being fulfilled today, carrying out some non-structural reforms. In the second half of the thirteenth-century, King Alfonso X El Sabio modified some old structures for their convenient use and built the Gothic Palace whose anteroom was the Transept Courtyard. During the fourteenth-century, in the reign of Alfonso XI, this complex took on a marked Mudejar character and the Hall of Justice was built, among others.

As Pedro I ascended to the throne of Castile in 1350, Seville was elected capital of the kingdom. After the earthquake in 1356, King Pedro I built a palace of more than 2 hectares on the Islamic palatine buildings, called the Mudejar Palace. This style, considered as a continuation of Islamic art on Christian soil, floods this area full of tiles, plasterwork, wooden coffered ceilings and Arabic epigraphy, rivaling and resembling the Nasrid ensemble of the Alhambra.

In 1503, the Catholic Monarchs created and established in the Alcazar the Hiring House of Indies (Casa de la Contratación de Indias) after granting Seville the monopoly of trade in the Americas. During the Renaissance, and due in large part to this reason, the Alcazar was artistically enriched. The work of two important artists stands out. One is the work of Vermondo Resta, major master of the Alcazar during the first half of the seventeenth-century, who made the Grutescos Gallery, among others. And the other remarkable work is the decoration by the innovative Italian ceramist Niculoso Pisano, who at the beginning of the sixteenth-century, made among others the Oratory of the Catholic Monarchs and the Altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin. From the eighteenth-century, the Carlos V Rooms stand out, with a monumental entrance by the Spanish architect, born in Brussels, Sebastián van der Borcht. Also the modifications of the Gothic Palace, which was affected by the 1755 earthquake whose epicenter was in Lisbon and which had replica in the city of Seville.

During the nineteenth-century, many rooms were renovated and decorated to the taste of nineteenth-century aesthetics with paintings, furniture, tapestries and clocks. In addition, the gardens, which since the Renaissance were in constant transformation, were finished off with new facades, galleries, pavilions, ponds and fountains, to turn them into one of the most beautiful lovely landscaped spaces in Spain.