Please push F11 and click on "Full Screen."
Málaga, as seen here from high atop its Moorish defenses, is Spain's second busiest port. Just as important is its airport which shuffles in nearly 10 million visitors annually into Europe's Florida (called "Costa del Sol.") Habitation started here no later than the Bronze Age and its written history goes back nearly 3 millennia starting with the Phoenicians. Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and Christians and maybe even the Greeks have all taken a crack at running this place where the Guadalmedina river empties into the Mediterranean.
The river Guadalmedina drains into the Mediterranean and splits Málaga in two with its channel now cast in concrete. To Málaga 's west, descends another river, the Guadalhorce. The estuaries of these two rivers flow into the Bay of Málaga and form an alluvial coastal plain in the mountain amphitheater where the Phoenicians established a trading post in 1200 BCE. They found the place to be so fertile that they colonized and cultivated here as well as traded. But these rivers do not like men messing with their vegetation and frequently responded by flooding these interlopers out. (Thanks to the Wikipedia for use of this map.)
Rio Guadalmedina wasn’t always so docile. It drowned Málaga frequently until flood-control engineers tamed it in the 1930s. It's only 29 miles long and winds through the Sierra de Camarolos, a feisty mountain chain that insulates the coast from the much longer Guadalquivir valley that defines much of Andalusia. Part of the flood control effort was to re-introduce vegetation on the slopes that the Christians had stripped to make the land yield crops. The unexpected consequences of their tillage was a lot of erosion that created flood plains in Malagueños’ back yards. The resulting greenbelt became a protected area (now a park appropriately named "Parque Natural Montes de Málaga.") These Sierras look quite arid with interesting formations from the Jurassic era when African and European plates smashed into each other to create vertical rises such as this.
We look here east from the highest part of the city (558 feet) called Gibralfaro (Arabic for "Mountain of lighthouse" since those ancient Phoenicians had placed a lighthouse here.) The medieval Christian kings were not the first to make the mistake of stripping native plants in order to promote crop cultivation -- and inadvertently causing flooding through the subsequent soil erosion. The Phoenicians apparently had to abandon their first city at the mouth of the Guadalhorce in 580 BCE for the same reason. In the 20th century when the flood control engineers took back the slopes, they ripped out vineyards famous for sweet Málaga wines – but rendered all but useless by the phylloxera plague then destroying most of Europe’s vines. From this point on a clear day, one can see both African Mountains to the southeast and Gibraltar's famous rock to the west.
The current lighthouse is now at a shoreline that probably did not exist in the Phoenician's day. Its beacon illuminates Málaga's harbor, second only to that of Barcelona in shipping tonnage in Spain.
On this not-that-clear day, we look west over the port and the gray-sand beaches so popular with Europeans called the Costa del Sol which stretches on both sides of Málaga for a total of 100 miles. At far right is the Sierra de Mijas which separates modern Málaga from its western suburbs. Limestone and marble are quarried there. About a third of the time, vehicle traffic from this metropolitan area of about 800,000 gives Málaga high pollution days with enough suspended particles to keep tourists from seeing forever. Costa del Soot?
This painting shows Moorish Málaga at the time when the besieging Christians starved the city into submission in 1487 CE. It suggests the amphitheater bowl where the Arabs built their town just east of the Rio Guadalmedina at bottom. (Guadalmedina means "river city" in Arabic.) The city walls themselves formed the first of 3 encircling walls, with commerce controlled through 5 gates. All of that outer fortification is long gone but the double walls around the fort (about 2 o'clock in this picture) remain -- or at least have been restored. About 3:30 position, poking into the Mediterranean, are the forts built by the Genovese. The ocean, here lapping at the foot of the fort, has withdrawn considerably in the succeeding 5 centuries, creating a wide path for parks, public buildings, and a bullfight arena.
Traces of the Phoenicians remain in a largely unexcavated site near the mouth of the rio Guadalhorce -- and here. They built a city in terraces that climbed this hill. Let's look at the work of two of their successor cultures shown here: The Moors used stone from the Roman theater at bottom to build their Alcazaba at top. Over the centuries, both fell into disrepair. The theater was buried and forgotten; the Alcazaba (same etymological root as "Casbah") was pretty much a pile of rubble until 1937 when Malagueños started restacking the stones into the set of cubes that the tourist bureau calls Spain's "best preserved" Arab fortifications. It may be a stretch to call a restoration the "best preserved," but these are undisputedly the largest -- and its information center is among the best to explain the architecture of Arab fortifications in Spain.
Most of the Mediterranean players of ancient history displaced each other here including the Greeks (probably) and (for sure) the Carthaginians who subsequently lost Málaga to the Romans in 218 BCE after the Punic Wars. Málaga then became an important town on the Via Herculea, the first Roman road in Hispania. That road ran from the Rhone (today’s Italy/France border) all the way to Gibraltar, about 65 miles west of where this picture was taken as the pigeon flies. Eventually the Romans connected over 50,000 miles into their colossal road network. (The Americans tried to duplicate that feat with their interstate system starting in the Eisenhower 1950s. That road system is called the largest public works system in history – yet it’s 4000 miles shorter than the road system that connected Málaga to the Roman Empire.)
This theater was rediscovered by accident in 1951 when expanding the Cultural Center (town down in 1988) which rose over it. In the 1950s, other buildings were placed over the site even though by then the town knew there was this theater below. This part of the Roman Empire was called Hispania Ulterior and included at first primarily the Guadalquivir valley accessed through Cadiz where young officers on the rise, such as Julius Caesar, were assigned. Emperor Augustus later restructured the Spanish provinces and built this theater, one of the oldest in Iberia. Roman Spain was so peaceful that the Empire did not permanently station troops here.
About half of the original seats remain although these are obviously new. The theater fits the classic layout of the great Roman architect Vitrubio. Holes in the marble show where the poles would have been placed to hold a canopy to shield the Mediterranean sun from viewers’ eyes. The Romans used Málaga to feed Rome. Grains came from the fertile alluvial soil deposited by its two rivers. Fish from the sea could not survive such a long journey, but Málaga became famous for a fish sauce (made of fish intestines, pepper, and vinegar) which the wealthy Romans called "garo" and used much like we use soy sauce today. They also used it as an aphrodisiac as Pfizer had not created its mirable dictu yet. In 325, before Christianity became the official Roman religion, Málaga was known as a Christian center which often rioted against those still clinging to their pagan gods -- 1200 years before the Spanish Inquisition.
Technically, the Romans conquered Málaga twice: First was during the Punic Wars around 218 BCE. The decay of the Rome allowed Germanic Vandals to capture the town around 411 CE. The second conquest was by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527–565 CE) who attempted to restore the western Roman Empire and made Málaga the capital of his province of Spania. But the eastern Roman Empire could not hold the west from the invading Visigoths who took Málaga in 615 BCE. Within a century, came the Moors. They stayed 8 centuries -- longer than anyone else so far.
Let's now explore the proud remains of Málaga 's long Moorish past: the restored Alcazaba and its uphill partner, the Gibralfaro Castle which is pretty much in its original condition. The fort itself appears to be a long curtain wall frequently interrupted by square towers of various heights. In fact, it's a double wall with towers spiking up from both inner and outer walls. The curtain wall flows downhill making this resemble a brick dragon sleeping on a hill or perhaps a disheveled landscape by Georges Braque (a buddy of native Malagueño Picasso.) The square towers suggest that these were early fortifications. Eventually towers became rounded so that battering rams would not have corners to pulverize. Then attack artillery made both round and square obsolete – and that happened here in Málaga almost earlier than anywhere else.
This is the most misshapen fort you could imagine due to the constraints of the steep terrain. At left is the Alcazaba, the old fort built at the base of the hill with the old city enfolding around it. Its problem was that there was a higher hill to the east (right.) With the invention of artillery, cannons could be dragged to the top where they could send their cannonballs into the Alcazaba. Therefore the Moors (in this case the Nasrid ruler Yusef I) built a second fort on the higher hill (the "Gibralfaro") at right. The two were connected by a zigzag ramparts called the "Coracha." Think of giant (and grotesquely shaped) barbell sitting on a steep slope.
This fortification is really two castles built several centuries apart. The older, drawn here, is called the Alcazaba and this view looks down to the foot of the hill which rises steeply above Málaga. Note how the Mediterranean (now long receded) then came to the edge of the fort. Double walls with ramparts surround the entire site, with moats in some areas. Since each was built at the then state-of-the-art technology, we see a bit of the history of medieval fortification with this restoration. Above we have the older fort at the base of the hill. It’s a quadrangle -- typical of the Moors forts. Its original intent was to defend Málaga from pirates, explaining its proximity to the sea. It was completely rebuilt in the 11th century as the central Moor power in Córdoba splintered.
Here's a model showing the cathedral (at 7 o'clock position), and the older Alcazaba at 6 o'clock) on the hill. Nearly atop the mountain at about 11 o'clock is the Castillo (Castle) de Gibralfaro. The spindly double wall connecting them is the Coracha. Its zigzag shape allowed defenders to protect it without having to build towers jutting out from the wall.
Let's return to the bottom of the hill and enter the Alcazaba. The fort started in the 9th century as a simple watchtower ("Almería" in Arabic). In the 10th century, Málaga was enclosed in a wall and this became a citadel, ushering in the 11th century splendor of a Taifa kingdom as the central Moor power in Cordoba deteriorated into multiple city-states. In the tenth century Abd al-Rahman III surrounded the city with a wall and built his Citadel. The eleventh century was a time of splendor as Taifa kings expanded the fort. One of them, Al-Mutaslm, built his palace within the walls. Centuries later, Granada's Nasrid kings would revitalize this fort and palace complex.
The entrance into the Moorish Alcazaba is protected by a number of zigzagging curtain walls and gates designed so that attackers would have difficulty getting any momentum with either horsemen or battering rams. When the Nasrid kings upgraded this entrance on an older fort, they added such then state-of-the-art castle defenses.
Here’s another abrupt turn. The lower fort was originally built with limestone which deteriorated quickly in the salt spray. The Nasrid reconstruction replaced much of this with masonry using stones as seen here, held together by horizontal layers of brick. The piece of a pillar here was probably a remnant taken from the Roman theater below.
This model shows the set of twisting gates and passages allowing castle defenders many opportunities to stop an onslaught before the enemy could reach the flat Patio of Arms (the garden at top) where the munitions would be stored in the lower fort.
This interior gateway is called the "Puerta de las Columnas" after its columns (stolen from the Roman theater at the bottom of the hill.) The walkway doubles as drainage ditch during rainfall. The Sultan who built Málaga 's Alcazaba was Yusuf I, the 7th ruler of Granada's Nasrid dynasty that ran what remained of Moorish Spain after the Christians took the once great city of Córdoba in 1236. While Yusuf I had great interest in architecture and left some beautiful works behind in the Alhambra in Granada, his impact here was more practical. He was fighting the Christians and needed strong forts to withstand their sieges. In 1354, a maniac with a dagger killed Yusuf in a Granada mosque while he prayed. This explains why so many mosques have gazebo-like screened areas to protect their rulers who must prostrate themselves at the conclusion of the Islamic prayers. Yusuf was 36 years old and was succeeded by his 16-year-old son. Sultaning was a pretty hazardous occupation.
After Yusuf I, the Nasrids continued destroying each other, allowing the Christians to take their cities one-by-one. Finally the Christian king of Castile, Peter, lured Yusuf's nephew who was ruling as Muhammed VI into his kingdom and subsequently made a gift of his red-haired head to Yusuf's son Muhammed V -- who was then restored as sultan of Granada. Pedro, nicknamed "the Cruel," kept the torso. With family like that, fortresses such as these don't work all that well.
This view shows an interesting wall at the left, part of the old lower fortification where brick and mortar replaced the earlier limestone. This nearly serendipitous conglomeration of masonry, mortar, and stone does not make for a pretty castle wall! The newer fort rises on the mountain at center left.
Gardens of various sizes fill the many courtyards as the fortification climbs the hill. In the distance is the cathedral's bell tower. This broad and level area is the Patio of the Arms (Plaza de Armas.)
Fernando and Isabel conducted a long siege here on their route to the coup-de-grace at Granada. Isabel personally attended this siege and stipulated that the soldiers must follow strict rules against swearing, gambling, and frequenting with prostitutes. The long siege got even longer! But Isabel did much for her soldiers including setting up what was probably the first-ever field hospital. (This probably was not enough recompense for her conscripting all males in her kingdom between 20 and 70 years of age to fight.) Isabel’s presence at Málaga was somewhat unusual but requested in this case by Fernando: the Moors had spread a rumor among the Christians that Isabel was nagging Fernando to withdraw. He wanted to show one-and-all his Queen's unswerving commitment to Málaga’s capture.
The fleet of Aragon blockaded the harbor and the Christians were able to defeat the Moors’ relief armies. Isabel convinced her husband to wait, as she wanted to minimize casualties. Eventually the defenders would be starved into submission. A Dervish fanatic convinced the royal guards that he could prophesy the future for the king and queen; but it was plot and he attacked them. Fortunately in these pre-media days, he didn't know what Ferdinand and Isabel looked like -- and so stabbed the wrong couple. The Christians graciously returned him to his compadres in the Alcazaba -- one version says by mule but another more interesting account was by catapult. Often attackers would send plague victims over the walls the same way in the medieval version of biological warfare, long before germs were discovered. It is possible that the Black Death which eventually wiped out a third of Europe was introduced onto the continent via catapult. Are humans the ultimate weapons of mass destruction?
Most medieval war consisted of long sieges against towns. Most ended with the attackers giving up and leaving or the town negotiating surrender which gave them many rights. (Often the Muslims would be allowed to live in the conquered city under Moslem law.) Not so here where the attacking Christians numbered 60,000 to 90,000 troops. The town held out too long and Ferdinand wanted to demonstrate why that was not a best practice. When Málaga surrendered unconditionally, Fernando was brutal. It was not really the townspeople's fault as they wanted to surrender early and made sure Fernando knew that through their emissaries; but the garrison was headed by an obstinate Moor named Hamet Zeli who refused surrender for four long months. Grain ran out. The town ate its own dog food, and then its dogs and horses and cats.
As in any good Arab garden, water flows to nourish this urban oasis. This channel starts near the top of the hill where a 40-foot deep well ensures the castle would never surrender due to thirst. In fact, this fortress, thought to be impregnable, held. But blood flowed here with the water after the surrender to the Christians in mid-August 1487. Much of the town was enslaved including 50 girls sent to the Queen of Naples. One-time Christians who had long before converted to Islam and were called "Renegados" were tied to stakes and used for target practice. Jews were ransomed. Fortress Granada watched and learned -- and negotiated a much more favorable settlement to its siege 4 years later including a favorable exit strategy for the Sultan.
The outer wall (left) and the inner (center). The stubby merlons at top do not seem to have been fully restored. But let's look at these crenellations a little more closely...
These pyramid tops are typical of the Moors merlons. These are quite wide; in Roman times, merlons were no wider than the width of a single defender...
... As defense technology improved and more weapons needed to be shielded, merlons widened to protect crossbowman and their larger equipment. Note the square towers protecting the corners. Behind the modern high rises of Málaga climb the foothills. Look closely and you may see Jane, a wizard among merlons.
A bit of war technology history was made here as many historians feel the siege of Málaga was the first time attackers used artillery, which up to that time was pretty much confined to stationary cannon inside forts. As siege artillery improved, merlons and castle walls became obsolete. Queen Isabel --a visionary in many ways-- was the driving force for introducing the northern European cannons into the Spanish war of Reconquista. Her logistical brilliance provided the men, material and road building needed to transport huge artillery to castle walls. Her guns were very crude 12 foot-long rectangular-shaped shafts of iron clamped together in a circle and called "lombards." Crude but capable of propelling 140 cannon balls per day up to a foot in diameter at walls such as these -- if only they could get into position. The siege of Málaga was a game changer, not unlike Nagasaki.
By the end of the war in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabel had deployed over 200 of those primitive cannons, mostly hired from Northern Europe. (Ferdinand was smart enough to couch this as a holy war and got the Pope to pay for a significant portion of the cost.) While the offensive artillery had some success against the outer set of town walls, these inner walls held -- the Nasrid garrison eventually had to surrender or starve. Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach. Here the defense failed for the same reason. As they ran out of food, Malagueños also ran out of negotiating capability and surrendered unconditionally. Not a good idea for an impatient King like Fernando who still had the mighty fortress of Granada to take. He wanted to set a harsh example of why not to wait out a siege.
But besides being a fort, this was a palace for the Nasrid rulers when they were in town (perhaps on a visit or perhaps fleeing their own family members in Granada.)
While this is not quite the Alhambra of Granada, it is considerably less crowded and has much the same layout including 3 separate courtyards. Unlike the Alhambra, we find here excellent (even if Spanish only) wall signage explaining Nasrid architecture and palace life.
Note the tower which, with its views -- port, sea, Africa, Gibraltar -- would provide an even better vista than the Nasrids had in their headquarters at Granada.
This portico...
...leads to another of the three courtyards of the Nasrid Palace. This area also serves as a museum of ceramics stretching back to Phoenician days.
A stop in the scenic mirador gives us two views of luxury. We stand in the Sultan's viewing point and see...
... a distant cruise ship berthed in Malaga's port. If we only count creature comforts, most of us live better than the Sultans...
...and our chances of assassination are generally much less. When this palace was built, most Sultans feared their brothers. Those in Istanbul eventually figured out the solution...
... when they assumed the throne, they had all of their brothers killed. Above is a close-up of the pillars and arches.
This set of triple arches was erected in the 11th century as the Córdoban Caliphate disintegrated as a political power and the Moor states spun off into city-states called Taifas. Not all of the stucco decoration has been restored here.
Above this pillar was considerable calligraphy which typically has not been restored. The ochre support above it shows faint details of an abacus.
An elaborate multi-lobed portico on a blank, but probably once highly decorated, wall. This door may lead to the mirador or viewing tower.
Here's two ceilings, this one the traditional Mudejar inlaid wood from the 16th century made in homage to the great ceilings found in Granada's Alhambra ...
...and the low budget version made of brick (actually painted brick!)
Note the vegetable decorations around the top of this capital. Above these would typically be calligraphy reminding the rulers that their power and victories came from God.
In the rough centuries that followed the collapse of the Caliphate in Cordoba, Málaga became capital of its own small kingdom 4 different times.
This area also included Arab baths also fed from the well. Let's return now to the fortifications.
Here's a view of the Corach, the walled passageway leading from the lower to the upper fort on Mount Gibralfaro.
Here's a back view of the Alcazaba. The upper castle is called the Gibralfaro which means "hill of the lighthouse." The Moors once had their atalaya (signal fire) at the base of the hill. The Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans all had forts on this site before the Moors built theirs. As late as 1765, one of these towers was outfitted with a bell to warn Málaga of pirate attacks. Remember those pesky Barbary Pirates and the shores of Tripoli? It took 7 US Marines to do the job on those rascals. Lately we've been having more help and less success.
This watch tower still takes a commanding view over the countryside with its brick-brimmed derby hat.
The area of the upper fort (Gilbarfaro) has been restored as botonical garden.
This westward view shows the fortress, the cathedral beyond, and the mountains hazily in the distance.
The Corach, the long connection between the upper and lower forts, zigzags down the hill, allowing for its defense without towers jutting out from it.
Another view of the ramparts, merlons, and a watchtower.
Let's now trek down the hill and check out the Christian's most important building -- the Cathedral.
Málaga's Cathedral replaced a Moorish mosque which itself replaced a Christian basilica of the Visigoths. (This is the usual pattern as early bishops tended to get the best real estate.) When Ferdinand and Isabel took Málaga on August 18th, 1487, they first had the mosque undergo the standard Christian ceremony to convert it to a church. By 1500, work was in place to create a proper cathedral but first attempts were abandoned for a 1528 kickoff based upon a design by a famous Andalusian cathedral architect Diego de Siloe. (His Granada cathedral is one of the masterpieces of the Spanish Renaissance.) Two widely separated building efforts give us the still unfinished cathedral we see in these pictures: The first in the early 16th century and the conclusion in the 18th century.
This Wiki picture shows that the Diego de Siloe's overall layout is a Gothic cross with short transepts and the top of the "T" in a typical rounded apse. But instead of vaults, we see a collection of 12 domes in the nave with its larger center aisle. At the top right, you'd expect to see a second bell tower, balancing the first. More on that missing tower later. Styles that influenced De Siloe were the Gothic and Arabic that surrounded him as well as the Italian Renaissance he experienced during a stay in Naples.
Here we see the stub of the unfinished South tower which gives the cathedral its nickname of "La Manquita," the one-armed one. Building was financed through taxes on the iron ore exported at the nearby harbor; but during the American Revolution, work stopped on the South tower in 1782 while the funds were diverted to support that war effort. Those colonial upstarts took on Spain's great enemy -- the British Empire. Andalusia's second great Renaissance architect, Andrés de Vandelvira, who made Úbeda and Baeza into limestone jewels, also assisted here.
The tower that is not missing is part of the Baroque facade added in the 18th century onto the primarily Renaissance exterior. While Málaga's high-rise buildings now dwarf it, at 276 feet, this is the tallest cathedral tower in Andalusia except for the Giralda in Seville.
A gratuitous statue shot at the cathedral's baroque facade.
Today, Malagueños debate whether to complete the South tower or to leave it, like Schubert's 8th symphony, unfinished. (This might B a minor argument anywhere else. Proponents say cathedrals take a long time to build and finishing it now would mean this would be a 5 century build. In these Web 2.0 days, viewers can vote their preferences. What would Diego de Silo do?)
No shortage of Corinthian capped pillars here on the facade.
Except for the baroque facade, the exterior is Renaissance. Here we have the half-circular apse at left and the Gospel-side transept.
The same view of the curving apse from the inside which is primarily Renaissance. Notice rising on the right is...
... one of the Baroque organs between long pillars with elegant Corinthian capitals reminiscent of those designed by the 14th century Italian Brunelleschi (who is best known for putting the egg-shaped dome on Florence's cathedral).
Some consider Diego de Siloé to be Spain's first Renaissance architect. He started as a sculptor and his cathedral houses some outstanding woodcarvings (although not by him.) His father was probably a Flemish Sculptor and Diego himself was schooled in the Italian Renaissance during a stint in Naples (which was part of the Spanish Empire at that time.)
The main altar is flanked on both sides by elaborate marble pulpits.
Perhaps the most famous painting here is the Immaculate Conception by troubled Andalusian artist Alonso Cano. Check out the cherub at far left hitting the bishop on the head with his own crosier.
The inset is the Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother) by Pedro de Mina (who also did the cathedral choir which we will see in a minute.) The sculptor was highly influenced by the expressions he saw in Alonso Cano's work.
The chapel of San Sebastian contains this 17th century statue by Jeronimo Gomez.
At center is the 1802 Pietra by the Pissani brothers. Salvador León's 19th century Mary Magdalene is at left. It looks marble but is, in fact, wooden.
Claudio Coellio's 17th century Immaculate Conception is nicely framed by sets of Baroque pillars.
The Chapel of the Incarnation (namesake of the cathedral) shows a neoclassical altarpiece designed in 1785 by Juan de Villanueva...
... and carved by Antonio Ramos and Aldehuela with sculptures by Palomino Salazar.
This Flemish Gothic retable is in the Chapel of San Barbara.
A final painting: this gruesome depiction of the beheading of the Jewish prophet John the Baptist upon orders from Herod Antipas.
Let's end our visit of the cathedral interior with the outstanding choir carved by the 17th century baroque sculptor Pedro de Mena. He finished the job started 28 years earlier by sculptor Jaén Luis Ortiz de Varga.
Signage is good (and multilingual) inside the cathedral. But for someone with a fetish for cathedral detail, this is my favorite sign in all of Andalusia: all the icons carved on the choir stalls are charted with Peter and Paul at top: If you've got the time, we've got the saint! The cathedral chapter (which would meet in these chairs) dictated the list of saints to the sculptors.
You can't tell the players without a scorecard! Per the preceding chart, we see Saint Christopher on the far right. The Catholic calendar quit venerating him in 1969 but he remains here raising the Christ child on his shoulders. In the next century, the important Spanish painter Antonio Palomino would call this 1658 choir "the 8th wonder of the world." Obviously he had never visited Houston’s Astrodome.
Let's look at a few areas more-or-less attached to the cathedral. Above is the former bishop’s palace across the street from the Cathedral sharing the Plaza del Obispo. This Baroque gray doorway with its pink Corinthian pillars and 3rd floor Pieta is from the 18th century. Inside, American architect Richard Gluckman has converted it to an exhibition museum. Its opening show was on Picasso – a bit of coals to Newcastle as he has a whole museum dedicated to him in this town of his birth.
In the cathedral gardens stands a smaller church called "el Sagrario" with this elaborate Isabelline Gothic portal called the Door of Pardon (Puerta del Perdón). This appears to be the remnants of the mosque -- with this Christian doorway added. The rest of the mosque was torn down in the early 16th century to create room for the present cathedral. Despite its Gothic structure, it's attributed to Diego de Silo who laid out the Renaissance interior of the cathedral. The top row contains carving of the two bishops who funded it. God the Father holds the center, holding a globe of the world between seals and coats-of-arms of bishops. Like a good Gothic portico, it is filled with saints’ statues including here the Evangelists, Gabriel, Mary, and even a few Old Testament prophets.
Here's a bit of local color clinging to an exterior wall of the cathedral: a statue of Málaga 's one time mayor and long-time gynecologist, José Gálvez Ginachero. Tour guides here claim Galveston Island in Texas was named for him. He must have also been a time traveler -- the rascal Jean Lafitte and a band of pirates built on that Texas site 50 years before this Gálvez was born. This would also surprise Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez and governor of Louisiana at the time of the American Revolution. His troops first captured that island from the mosquitoes (the insects, not the Indians) in 1777. That Gálvez greatly helped those rebellious Americans by fighting the Brits throughout the deep South in hopes of getting Florida back (which he did.) Were it not for him, we might all be speaking English on this side of the Atlantic. At least both Senors Gálvez are natives of Málaga province.
Brits now thrive on Spain’s Costa del Sol, making up for losing Florida. We could speculate that more English is spoken here than in Miami. While we're on famous sons of Málaga , let’s talk about Pablo Ruiz. Never heard of him? Then you probably weren’t around in 1901 when Pablo, starting his blue period, decided to use his mother’s surname (Spanish tradition allows children to take maternal surnames; another famous living Malagueño named Antonio uses his mother’s surname: Banderas). Maria Picasso’s son was born in a house on this square and played here, attending San Rafael school, until he was 10. His father was an artist and the town’s museum director. Today Málaga has a new museum (in an old palace) filled with just Pablo's work, donated by his family.)
The square is named Merced after the sisters of Mercy; several convents and a hospital once occupied this land including one which contained the tomb of Pedro de Mina, the sculptor who carved the Cathedral's choir. Long before that stood a gate in the city wall which led to Granada. The Moors unconditionally surrendered to the Christian forces at that gate in 1487; afterwards it became a market. When the city tore down its outer defensive wall, houses were erected to form this square. Things went downhill until 1842 when Malagueño architect Rafael Mitjana erected this monument commemorating the 49 men who were on the wrong end of a firing squad with José Torrijos in December 1831. Shot on a nearby beach, their remains are under this obelisk. Notice the fence – it surrounds French territory. After Torrijos’ death, his liberal side won. Isabella II of Spain (who was a Bourbon) made this spot French so that succeeding Spanish rulers couldn’t mess with the tomb.
Ironically, Picasso, who was born on the rented first floor of this mansion spent most of his life in France -- like Torillos, a liberal dissatisfied with an autocratic regime. Above, we see the Pablo Ruiz Picasso Foundation which now occupies the artist’s early childhood home. It’s part of a two-block long stretch of buildings with similar façades called "Casas de Campos," after the real-estate magnate who developed it. The 1861 design is by Diego Clavero. Picasso was the first male descendant of his paternal grandfather's eleven children and was thought to have been still born by the midwife who didn't bother to start his breathing. (Sometimes it's good to spank a kid.) He died 91 years later. While the foundation is headquartered here, this is NOT Malaga’s famous Picasso museum.
Nor is this... However, Plaza de la Merced gets the prize for the best accommodations for pigeons. Maybe this is to make up for the lack of equestrian statues. (Picasso was known to depict dovecotes as well). The Picasso Museum is housed in a nearby historic 16th-century Mudejar palace called Palacio de Buenvista which is built over a Nasrid palace and shows excavations going back to Phoenician times. It displays nearly 200 works provided by Picasso’s daughter-in-law and grandson. Picasso hated to part with his art and was so commercially successful that he needed to sell little of it to survive. Therefore it accumulated. He offered to donate some of it to Spain but Franco despised Pablo and refused. Long after both men died, Málaga opened the museum in October of 2003.
While Pablo was long gone by the time I got to Málaga, I was able to channel him while my Nikon gently wept and took this cubist shot of the cathedral.
Málaga has recovered a significant strip of land from the Mediterranean between its present harbor and the hills that rise to its Alcazar. On it they've placed parks and monumental buildings in a lovely space that seems to flow into a contiguous tropically verdant space between the arid brown castle hill and aqua sea.
At center is the city hall, a lovely building abutting an Italian garden with long pools reminiscent of the Moors. It's at the base of the Alcazaba hill (right). In the Moors' days, the Mediterranean came to the base of the hill. Will global warming bring more water to these gardens?
The 19th century Ayuntamiento (City Hall) is a dramatic building which begins a set of similar buildings that line Cervantes Avenue.
A street level view shows some of the ornamentation on the neo-Baroque Ayuntamiento symbolizing the long history of this city. Two local architects -- Vera Manuel Rivera and Fernando Guerrero Strachan -- designed the building. Inside it has its hall of mirrors like many elaborate European city halls.
Elaborate symmetrical gardens and swan-filled pools occupy the strip of land just east of the Ayuntamiento.
Even the traffic circles in this area are impeccably maintained and make a good impression on tourists driving into town. Parking is well marked and readily available -- and very close to the main attractions of the cathedral and Alcazaba.
This 1936 Art Deco jewel with traditional Corinthian columns is one of the monumental buildings on the Avenue de Cervantes. It faces the long park and harbor.
Parks are filled with statues and tiles commemorating important people and places in Málaga province. (That's the Ayuntamiento in the background.)
Between the monumental buildings at the base of the Alcazaba hill and the harbor lies a long strip park called the Paseo del Parque.
It's a lovely cool space with a tropical feel to it. Wide promenades, shrouded by palms, line each side with Renaissance and Baroque gardens in between.
The park was built primarily between 1897 and 1921. But since then, Málaga has been adding statuary to the park and integrating it with the water gardens. For example, this 5' tall cast iron statue, called "The Nymph of Caracola," is French and was built 20 years before the park started but first moved here in 1922. After 70 years of vandalism, it was in fragments but luckily had appeared in many postcards that guided its recent recreation.
Elaborate tile works commemorate Málaga's sister cities in Andalusia.
Also built on the land taken back from the sea are many high rises in an area called "Malagueta" which includes the bullfight arena. This 1874 stadium by Joaquin Rucoba is not round -- it has 16 sides. Just beyond is a beach fortified with white sand from the Sahara.
Our visit was on a day no bulls would die. (Most days are such, as there are bullfights here only during festivals. Málaga has its biggest celebration in mid-August to commemorate taking the city from the Moors 5 centuries ago.) In the 1800s, Madrid built a new bullring in a style called Neo Mudéjar, and any ring built after that copied this style (although the iconic horseshoe arches are not all that obvious here.) The field is about 170 feet in diameter and the seats hold 14,000 -- more often for concerts than bullfights. Not all horns here end up in the sand.
A much more utilized sports palace is the modern equivalent to the Plaza de la Toros: the soccer stadium called La Rosaleda. It holds 37,000 spectators who watch Malaga's Spanish first division club. Many fans are Brits who flock to the Costa del Sol.
Let's end our tour of Málaga with a visit to two unique religious sites, both dealing with burials. The first is a museum featuring processional floats. Many Andalusian towns stage elaborate religious processions complete with huge floats that require sometimes hundreds of bearers. Most display these in churches when not in use. In Málaga, however, the brotherhoods who support these floats often have their own "casas" to display their "thrones." The most elaborate of these museums which holds two spectacular floats is near Málaga's cathedral. The smaller float is pictured above with its pyramid base rising above wood reliefs of the apostles.
Here's a silver float that takes over 200 bearers and was so wide that the parade route had to be changed when it was first put into service in 1952. Many more pictures of these floats are available at our overflow page: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/MalagaOverflowAlbumForTheRealHermandadDeNuestroPadreJesusDelSantoSepulcro#slideshow .
The next site looks like a simple church built on the site where the Christians made their camp as they assaulted the Málaga fortress. It's called the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Victory (Santuario de la Virgen de la Victoria.) This Victoria's secret is one of the most elaborate burial crypts in all of Spain. When Málaga surrendered, the Catholic Kings entered behind a poly-chromed wood icon of Mary holding Jesus on her left knee. Minimos monks (probably so called because they fasted their whole lives) were given custody of the icon and built a monastery (now used as a hospital) at this spot. The above church building is from 1700.
Inside the nave is an almost austere neo-baroque exercise in restraint. However, the crypt below is almost high camp. The Counts of Buenavista are buried here. While alive, they used their elaborate palace that now houses Picasso’s museum. Here they lie surrounded by macabre art.
The Counts must have seen everything in black and white. At least they do now.
Most statues are in relief except for these above the caskets of the countess and...
...her count.
Drums and scythes. We have lots more pictures of the crypt, the high Baroque camarin above it, and the austere nave at: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/SanctuaryOfOurLadyOfVictoryMalagaSpainOverflowSlides?authkey=Gv1sRgCL7c6czj14WI2wE#slideshow .
Thanks for viewing. Please visit our other travel pictures at http://www. dickschmitt.com/travels.html . For more pictures on the Crypt, check out: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/SanctuaryOfOurLadyOfVictoryMalagaSpainOverflowSlides?authkey=Gv1sRgCMPBkcnChcjMvAE#slideshow . For more pictures of the religious floats carried during Holy Week, try http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/MalagaOverflowAlbumForTheRealHermandadDeNuestroPadreJesusDelSantoSepulcro#slideshow .
