Spanish images

The first one (1D37) is from the Christopher Columbus sepulcher inside the Seville cathedral. Each of the four statues serving as Columbus’s pallbearers represent the Christian kingdoms involved in the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors: Leon, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre. The shells were found on the tunic of the Leon statue, which is also riddled with symbolism; he holds a large spear that, at the bottom, is penetrating both the Muslim crested moon and a pomegranate, the symbol of the last Moorish kingdom of Granada (Granada is the Spanish word for pomegranate as well) that Isabella and Ferdinand were eliminating while Columbus pleaded with them for his expedition.

1D102 is from inside the Alcazar palace/fortress in Seville. This was built by Pedro I after the reconquest of Seville in 1236, so the shells are likely direct illusions to St. James the Greater. The Spaniards believed that Santiago Matamoros (“the Moorslayer”) was directly on their side after the entire Spanish army claimed to have seen St. James leading an army of heavenly horsemen down from the skies in the 8^th-century battle of Clavijos. Therefore, his image reappears very very often in the context of pro-Spanish, anti-Moorish propaganda.

1D103 is also from Seville’s Alcazar; these shells are from the decorative stucco-work inside the Courtyard of the Dolls.

1D113 is from a hallway leading into the chapel in Seville’s Alcazar.  1D114 is just a close up version.

Finally, the last image is from Casa Pilatos, a Renaissance-era villa in Seville that claims to be the same floorplan and dimensions of Pontius Pilate’s house in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the builder claims that the distance of Casa Pilatos from a holy shrine outside Seville is exactly the same distance from Pontius Pilate’s house to Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. The “legend” has it that the builder went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he discovered the blueprints to Pilate’s Roman villa.