Seville - Cathedral

On the east side of the Patio de los Naranjos in Seville is the Biblioteca Colombina, founded in the 13th century and enriched by a bequest from Fernando Colón, Columbus's son, which contains rare works on the discovery of America and valuable manuscripts, including some by Columbus himself.

In the southeast corner of the Patio de los Naranjos in Seville is the Capilla de la Granada, another relic of the old mosque, with a fine horseshoe arch.

The Seville Cathedral choir has a beautiful reja (grille) of 1519 and Gothic choir-stalls of 1475-79.

The finest of the Seville Cathedral's doorways, all of which are richly decorated with statues and reliefs, are the Puerta del Bautismo (Doorway of the Baptism) and the Puerta del Nacimiento (Doorway of the Nativity), to left and right of the Puerta Mayor on the west front, with figural decoration by Lorenzo Mercadante and Pedro Millán. In the south transept is the modern Puerta de San Cristóbal or Puerta de la Lonja; on the east side are the Puerta de las Campanillas (Doorway of the Little Bells) and the Puerta de los Palos.

The five-aisled interior of the Seville Cathedral (117m/384ft long, 76m/249ft wide, 40m/130ft high) is one of the most impressive among the Gothic churches of Spain, notable for the clarity of its proportions and the beauty of its lines as well as for the abundance of art treasures it contains. Of the 75 stained glass windows (16th-19th century) the oldest are those by Cristóbal Alemán (1504) and Arnao de Flandes (1525-57). At the west end of the nave is the tomb of Columbus's son Fernando (d. 1539).

The Sacristía de los Cálices in the Seville Cathedral, to the right of the Capilla Mayor, contains a famous crucifix by Montañés as well as numerous pictures, including works by Goya, Zurbarán, Morales and Murillo.

The side chapels of the Seville Cathedral contain numerous tombs and altarpieces. Particularly notable among the altarpieces are two by Murillo, the "Guardian Angel" to the right of the Puerta Mayor and another in the Capilla de San Antonio (the second in the north aisle), with the "Baptism of Christ" and "The Infant Christ appearing to St Antony of Padua"; this chapel also has a picture by Jordaens. Among the finest of the tombs are the Gothic monument of Juan de Cervantes in the Capilla de San Hermenegildo and the Plateresque tomb of Archbishop Mendoza in the Capilla de la Antigua.

In the southeast corner of the Seville Cathedral the Plateresque Chapterhouse (Sala Capitular; 1530-92) contains Murillo's ''Immaculate Conception''.

In the south transept of Seville, just inside the Puerta de San Cristóbal, can be seen the monument of Columbus (by Arturo Mélida), originally erected in Havana Cathedral in 1892 and brought here after the loss of Cuba in the Spanish-American War of 1898.