Puerta de Córdoba & the Church of San Hermenegildo
Why is it significant?
Here the wall ends at a squat medieval gate, and pressed against it, almost leaning on its shoulder, stands a modest church with a simple bell gable. It is easy to walk past. Please don't, because this corner holds one of the oldest stories in Seville. First the gate.
Key Facts
| Place | Puerta de Córdoba & the Church of San Hermenegildo |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle Puerta de Córdoba, 41003 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.40030, -5.98520 |
| Part of Walk | The Macarena and the Almohad Walls: Seville's Barrio of Faith |
| Generated | Generated |
Here the wall ends at a squat medieval gate, and pressed against it, almost leaning on its shoulder, stands a modest church with a simple bell gable. It is easy to walk past. Please don't, because this corner holds one of the oldest stories in Seville.
First the gate. The Puerta de Córdoba was where the road to Córdoba left the city, and unlike the Macarena arch, which was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, it keeps much of its medieval fabric. Of the dozen or so gates that once pierced the walls of Seville, only a handful survive, and this is one of the most authentic.
Now the church. It is dedicated to Saint Hermenegild, a Visigothic prince who lived more than six centuries before the Almohads. His father, King Leovigild, was an Arian Christian, as the Visigothic rulers then were. Hermenegild, governing Seville, converted to Catholicism, encouraged by the city's bishop, Leander, and rose in revolt against his father. Leovigild besieged Seville, captured his son, and in 585 Hermenegild was put to death for refusing to take communion from an Arian bishop.
Sevillian tradition insists that the prince was imprisoned in the tower of this very gate, and that is why the church was built against it in the seventeenth century. Historians place his execution in Tarragona, far to the north-east, so treat the cell as legend. But the consequence is real history: a few years later his brother, King Reccared, converted the whole Visigothic kingdom to Catholicism in 589.
And the bishop Leander had a younger brother, Isidore, who became one of the most learned men of early medieval Europe and is still remembered as Saint Isidore of Seville. Faith in this city runs in layers, Roman, Visigothic, Islamic and Christian, one laid on top of the other. Now turn your back on the wall and head south-west through the lanes to Calle San Luis... a Baroque surprise is waiting a few minutes away.