Monumento a la Tolerancia: Fidelio Facing the Inquisition's Castle
Why is it significant?
On the riverbank of the Muelle de la Sal stands a massive sculpture of pale concrete, two great curved arms that seem to hold the air between them. This is the Monumento a la Tolerancia, by the Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida.
Key Facts
| Place | Monumento a la Tolerancia: Fidelio Facing the Inquisition's Castle |
|---|---|
| Address | Muelle de la Sal, Calle Reyes Católicos, 41001 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.38620, -6.00090 |
| Part of Walk | Opera City: Carmen, Figaro and Don Juan in Seville's Arenal |
| Generated | Generated |
On the riverbank of the Muelle de la Sal stands a massive sculpture of pale concrete, two great curved arms that seem to hold the air between them. This is the Monumento a la Tolerancia, by the Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. Now look straight across the water, to the Triana bank, beside the market: that is where the castle of San Jorge stood.
Of all the operas set around Seville, one is not about love at all. Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, takes place in a Spanish state prison a few miles from the city. Leonore disguises herself as a young man called Fidelio and takes a job with the jailer, to rescue her husband Florestan, a political prisoner left to starve in the dark by the governor, Don Pizarro. Beethoven reworked it for nearly ten years, from 1805 to 1814.
Beethoven's prison was imaginary. The one across the river was not. The first inquisitors appointed by the Catholic Monarchs reached Seville in 1480, and the tribunal soon settled in the castle of San Jorge, with its cells and its courtroom. In February 1481 the city saw the first auto de fe: six people accused of secretly practising Judaism were burned. The tribunal kept its seat in Triana for some three centuries, and the Spanish Inquisition was only abolished for good in 1834.
Chillida's sculpture was unveiled in 1992, five hundred years after the Jews of Spain were ordered to convert or leave, and it was set here on purpose, looking at the castle. Seville's Jewish quarter had already been attacked by a mob in 1391, a century before the expulsion. The monument says nothing in words... the empty space it embraces does the talking.
And Beethoven answers too. In Fidelio, the prisoners are let out into the courtyard for a few moments of sunlight, and they sing, almost in a whisper, of the joy of breathing free air. It is one of the most moving choruses ever written, and it was composed about a prison near Seville. Now walk south along the river on the Paseo de Cristóbal Colón, to the bullring's main façade and its grandest gate.