In the 3 main palaces of Seville we can find a beautiful decoration telling us the stories of gods and godesses of Rome and Greece. How can it be possible with the huge influence of the Church in the city in the old days? Read this article to know more about this.

The Catholic tradition in the art of Seville is very powerful as you well know. For lovers of painting and sculpture, we are familiar with the Christs, saints, virgins Mary and biblical scenes that since the Middle Ages have decorated not only religious but also secular monuments in our city.

Seville in the 16th and 17th centuries was flooded with churches and convents to combat the Protestant reform and left little space for other non-religious artistic manifestations.

However, one of the features of the Renaissance and also of the Baroque is that an attempt to return to Ancient times. Greek and Roman mythology became popular especially from Italy. But also the court in Madrid for the fondness of the Austrian monarchs quickly joined this fashion.

Thus, Charles V and the very pious Philip II were lovers of mythological art. They hired Titian or Rubens to decorate the palaces of the Spanish capital with gods and goddesses of Olympus.

But what about Seville? here the clientele of the artists was almost exclusively the Roman Catholic Church so there was not much room for different themes, but there was something.

The city of Seville itself would have been mythically founded by Hercules, a demigod.

It is then that myth meets History. And although some versions make a legendary Phoenician merchant named Hercules-Melkart the founder of the city, others speak directly of the god Hercules who was sent to the Hesperides, to the far western border, to carry out some of his famous works. He was specifically commissioned to steal the oxen of Gerion, the king of Tartessos. Meanwhile, Hercules had time, among other things, to found our Hispal city, that would be later Seville.

Today we can see an statue our hero in the Arch of the town hall. And also at the top of the columns of the square Alameda de Hercules.

But it was above all the nobles who, in imitation of what was happening in Italy, decorated their beautiful Renaissance palaces with classical myths. These are some examples that we can see in the main palaces of Seville.

Palaces of Seville 1. The Casa de Pilatos

A mythological theme also referred to Hercules was represented by a Sevillian painter that we would never imagine. He was Francisco Pacheco, overseer of the Inquisition, a painter who established in his treatises how religious figures should be painted in order not to depart from Catholic orthodoxy. But he is also the author of portraits and occasionally of mythological scenes as we see in this beautiful ceiling.

In one of the halls of the upper floor of the Casa de Pilatos we can see represented the Apotheosis of Hercules, that is, the rise of Hercules to heaven. Hercules was the son of Zeus and Hecuba, he was therefore not immortal, but he achieved this immortality by his own heroic merits. Painting the hero, Pacheco wanted to make a parallel with his client, the III Duke of Alcalá: Don Fernando Enríquez de Ribera, a perfect Renaissance man and lover of everything Italian.

Another daughter of Zeus is Athena, born from the head of Zeus. We have this formidable warrior goddess in this Palace of Pilate. We actually have two, one with weapons called belligera and the other unarmed, called pacifera. They are two versions of the same character, one as a goddess of war but also of the opposite of her peace. The giant sculpture is made of marble, 4 meters high, brought by the founder of the palace from Italy and is largely a Greek original, although the arms and the head were added later.

And in the main courtyard of this palaces of Seville we find a beautiful Renaissance fountain at the top of which stands the god Janus. He is an exclusively Roman god. Janus is the god of doors, of beginnings and endings. That is why he has two faces and they awarded him the opening of the year, one of his faces looks at the previous year and the other at the future.

In fact, the month of January owes its name to this god. Janus-Januarius-January. He is a god who ensures good endings and also Janus is the father of Fontus the god of fountains. You can see it in this video that we have made of the Art series in ONE minute (in Spanish).

Palaces of Seville 2. The Palace of Dueñas

And changing the palace we are located in Casa de Alba, that is, in the Seville downtown. it’s Las Dueñas, one the palaces of Seville recently opened to the public.

There we find Hermes, son of Zeus and therefore brother of Athena. We have it as the protagonist of the most valuable tapestry in Seville, in fact it is considered one of the ten best in the world and we are lucky to have it in our city.

It represents the episode of Mercury in love with Herse, in which Mercury flies over the landscapes of Attica while contemplating the King’s daughters and falls in love with one of them, it is from the 16th century and was made by the prestigious Austrian tapestry maker, Willem Pannemaker. Click on this video (in Spanish) to admire it in all its splendor.

Palaces of Seville 3. The Palace of Lebrija

The palace of Lebrija is one of the palaces of Seville with a richest decoration. And here we have Zeus, the supreme god, father of the Olympian gods in a beautiful mosaic in the Lebrija palace.

This mosaic comes from Italica, roman ruins 7 km away from Seville. it was the Countess of Lebrija in the beginning of the 20th century who brought to her palace in Seville . In many ways she was heir to that aristocracy that loved classical antiquity.

We focus on the most important mosaic in the house that represents the loves of Zeus and is based on the metamorphoses of Ovid. Zeus is attributed dozens of stories of love, jealousy and various cruelties. A god with love affairs of all kinds, a rather harassing type, capable of kidnapping if necessary.

Let’s see some of the adventures recounted here:

In the mosaic we have him with Ganymede, a beautiful boy whom Zeus took a fancy to and kidnapped turned into an eagle. Ganymede had to conform and it was not so bad: Zeus placed him as cupbearer of the gods, that is, the one who served them their favorite drinks.

Another whim of the father of the gods was with Io, who had to transform himself into a cow in order to escape the wrath of Hera, Zeus’s aggrieved wife. She was of little use to her since Hera sent her a gadfly to permanently torture her.

The gods also had the gift of transforming and Zeus took advantage of it with Leda, whom he possessed transfigured into a swan.

And let’s not forget Danae, who, not being able to seduce her, he imaginatively possessed in the form of golden shower, represented by famous artists such as Titian, Rembrandt or the Italian baroque painter woman Artemisia Gentileschi.

As we can see, the imagination of Zeus when it came to seducing had no limits.

Greek and Roman gods

These gods of which we have spoken generally have a Greek and a Roman name, which is sometimes confusing. The characters are the same, but with different names. To avoid confusion, these are the equivalences of the characters that we have mentioned in the article, from Greek to Roman.

Zeus-Jupiter

Athena-Minerva

Hermes-Mercury

Heracles-Hercules

All these beautiful stories in the rich palaces of Seville were told in sculpture, painting, tapestry or mosaic. As you can see, our artists immortalized the classical gods who with their myths accompany us on these walks through the city of Seville and that although it is not comparable to religious production, they also have their place in this fascinating century of the Renaissance.

Have a look in our tours to discover the palaces of Seville : https://www.toursevilla.com/tours/

If you like classical mithology watch this website: https://portalmitologia.com/

These are the official websites of the 3 palaces of Seville we have mentioned in the article:

Casa de Pilatos http://www.fundacionmedinaceli.org/monumentos/pilatos/

Palacio de Dueñas https://www.lasduenas.es/info-al-visitante

Palacio de Lebrija https://palaciodelebrija.com/

Marta Casals, creator of Toursevilla and official guide of Seville, speaks in Tourguide Talks of her city, profession and hobbies with Alvaro Garza, American and currently a guide in the city of Barcelona.

Alvaro is the author of a podcast website, with this he wants to introduce different tourist guides, in principle from Spanish cities and soon also outside our Spanish borders.

After interviews with guides from Barcelona and Girona, Alvaro brings us closer to the south of Spain, to the city of Seville, where he will meet Marta Casals.

We will know what are the hobbies of our guide apart from showing her city and the countries to which she have traveled. During the trips abroad a guide also takes the tourist position and it is very enriching because being on the other side gives a much more complete vision. Because we have traveled and hired guides in other parts of the world, when we return to our work, we will know what the public likes to hear, what it tires them, what it is fun for them.

In the podcast Marta tells us anecdotes from her city, the most popular stories for her audience, including the controversy over the tomb of Christopher Columbus in the Cathedral of Seville. We will know which are the popular festivals of Seville, the famous Holy Week, with its aesthetic processions and the history of the Nazarenos , with their pointed hats, in which many visitors from the USA seem to see the KKK mistakenly. Nothing of that. Marta denies it to us.

Not everything is history and art. Tapas and flamenco, two of the most representative elements of Andalusian culture also have a space in our podcast.

The main places you cannot miss in Seville: The Cathedral, the Reales Alcazares or the Plaza de España, but also the secret places for our guide can be heard in this podcast.

We will even have the opportunity to talk about Game of Thrones, the famous television series that has been partially shot in the Alcazar and in other locations in Seville.

Why a tour guide?

A tour guide gives personality to your tours, it is not simply a sequence of facts or data, for that we have a book or a mobile application. The idea of our work is to contribute with a point of view, make a selection of places and historical moments and transmit the passion for our cities to visitors. In this lies the value of a guide, somehow they are like a friend who accompanies you for a few hours and shows you their favorite places. It is the what and it is also the how.

A good guide will make a visit of 3 or 4 hours fly by, so you want continue learning more. Likewise, this 45-minute podcast has gone by quickly. The good harmony and feeling between the interviewer and the interviewee have been noted. There has been time for historical information, for personal information, for a sense of humor and curiosities about Seville.

If you want to know a little more about Marta Casals, your guide in Seville, I invite you to spend a few minutes on this podcast. https://tourguidetalks.com/ep-4-sevilla-marta-casals/

If you plan to go to other cities, Alvaro’s podcast offers us the option of personally meeting other guides: https://tourguidetalks.com/

If you want to know more about the interesting work of Alvaro Garza, this is his website: https://uncommontourist.com/

In the Plaza de los Venerables, in the heart of the Santa Cruz neighborhood, we have now the opportunity to contemplate since last November 8th an interesting exhibition of two of the most famous artists of Seville. It is one exhibitions of the autumn that is part of the events of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Murillo (1617-2017).

The paintings come mainly from the Prado Museum, also from the National Gallery of London, private collections and the collection of Focus Abengoa that houses the exhibition.

Diego de Silva Velazquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, two illustrious Sevillians, have in common many features that this exhibition, organized by the Focus Abengoa Foundation, now show us.

Diego Velázquez, the painter of the Court

The eldest of them, Diego Velazquez was born in Seville in 1599, he began to work and painted his first works in this city, first like disciple of the painter Herrera the Elder, after with Francisco Pacheco, also painter and writer, of who soon would become son-in-law after marrying his daughter.

Nevertheless the career of Velazquez took an unexpected turn when he received in 1624 the call of the young king Felipe IV to go to Madrid to become the painter of the court. The rest of his career was done in the capital, so today only a few of the pictures of the brilliant painter are in Seville. Velazquez died in Madrid in 1660.

Bartolomé Murillo, the painter of the Immaculate

Bartolome Esteban Murillo was also born in Seville but in 1617. Unlike Velazquez, he remained in this city until his death in 1681 and in his long life he worked for churches, convents, monasteries and for the famous Cathedral of Seville where even today there are some of his best works.

Both painters represent the baroque style and left to us the best works of the painting of seventeenth century.

The exhibition raises as a common thread the fact that the artists could get to know each other. There is no documentary evidence, but it is quite probable that Murillo knew the works of the first period of Velazquez, in those time in churches and schools in Seville. And also it’s quite possible that the mature Velazquez had news of the fame of a young Murillo, who in the middle of the seventeenth century became the best and most famous painter of the southern city.

The exhibition of the Hospital of Venerables bring us pictures of the two painters on the same themes. They represented scenes such as The Holy Family, the Immaculate Conception, the patrons of Seville Justa and Rufina or the endearing customs scenes that reflected the society of their time.

The study of light, the use of chiaroscuro, colors, themes .. similarities and differences between the two Sevillians, one from the Court of Madrid and another from the perspective of southern convents and monasteries.

A curiosity about Velazquez and Murillo

The graves of both artists in Madrid and Seville respectively are today missing.

Velazquez was buried in 1660, the year of his death, in the church of San Juan Bautista, in the Madrid of the Austrias, that was destroyed in time of Napoleon. Some remains of the crypt have been found in the Plaza de Ramales, where a column with a cross recalls the famous painter.

Something similar happened to Murillo. When the sevillian Church of Santa Cruz (in the present Square of Santa Cruz) in the time of the Napoleonic invasion was demolished, the remains of Murillo got lost. There is only one plaque on a facade of the plaza that reminds of the city’s best-known painter.

Where you can see the exhibition

Foundation. In addition to being a beautiful example of the Baroque Seville arquitecture, it has an interesting cultural activity organizing conferences, courses, organ concerts and exhibitions such as this that we are lucky to see until late February.

Don’t miss

The magnificent baroque church, decorated with Valdes Leal frescoes and the best painters and sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries. Mention aside it is the modern organ of baroque inspiration that is considered one of the best of this type in Europe and that is usually used in the season of concerts in the same church of the Venerables.

The recessed patio, an original aesthetic solution of the architect Leonardo de Figueroa and that also had the practical function of collecting much more water of rain than a well or normal cistern. Essential thing in a building dedicated to Hospital.

In the middle of the desert heat in the summer in Seville, the Barrio de Triana provides us an oasis at the end of July. And it is in the pottery-maker neighbourhood of Triana. That period that takes place each summer the trianeros call it “señalaítos days” on Velá Santa Ana. In this edition of the Velá it will be held from 21 to 26 July, having its epicenter in the Square Altozano, Betis street and San Jacinto street.

If we go back to the historical context of this festival, the Vela de Santiago and Santa Ana (that’s his full name) has its origin in a procession that was held in the parish of Santa Ana in the late thirteenth century.

This holiday, so ingrained in the Triana district, has a large impact on the city, not only for being one of the events of the summer, but for having maintain the flavor of the traditions that developed in it for centuries, so it is a reference in all parties and block parties that take place in Seville and surroundings.

Within these acts and traditions maintained over time, the opening takes place in the courtyard of the Hotel Triana. This patio is decorated typically creating an environment of considerable beauty.

The Velá (the Fair)

The most striking thing is the environment that created between Calle Betis and Isabel II bridge. El Puente de Triana shows lanterns and flags that provide the historical and special colorful bridge at nightfall. A typical Triana picture by adding the ephemeral tents that are mounted in the Calle Betis next to the bridge. These tents have a similar structure and aesthetics to the stalls of the Feria de Abril in Seville but it is reduced the space and it is free entry.

Meanwhile, San Jacinto Street looks completely dressed and artistic lighting . Many activities are organized, especially since in recent years this central street has been pedestrianized. At the junction of this road with calle Betis is the Plaza of the Altozano, in which a large scenario serves as an attraction for all present performances quite varied and satisfied young and old.

As with all festivals in Sevilla, cuisine enjoys a prominent role within the Vela de Santa Ana, being one of the main attractions the grilled sardines on the backs of the tents, a pleasure to taste them with views of the bridge and classic festive Seville.

Of the most striking activities in the Velá definitely is the “Cockaigne”. An ancient game that involves trying to catch a flag located at end of a greased wooden pole, placed horizontally on a barge by the bank of the Guadalquivir. Young trianeros make a display of skill on the pole for the award also taking a dip you will definitely compensate for the high temperatures that summer living in Seville.

The religious sphere

In the religious sphere, the most relevant events cluster around 25 and July 26 (Days of Santiago and Santa Ana, respectively) and always in the popularly known as Triana Cathedral: The parish of Santa Ana wreaths she succeed, liturgical worship as rosaries, levees and some special moments of beauty. In the night of 25 to 26 there is a concert of Band of bugles and drums of the Three Falls of Triana, this year they have received one of the most impportan awards of its type. They play some short musical pieces called “Joys of Santa Ana “from the bell tower of the ancient parish accompanied by luminaries.

Since July 26, Triana say good-bye to his Velá Santa Ana with a firework display at midnight from the Puente de Triana. A week worth living by both: Sevillian opting for the city instead of the nearby beaches, and tourists to be decided by the Guadalquivir City as a holiday destination in summer.