Seville Cathedral stands on the site of the great Almohad mosque, and it keeps two parts of the mosque. The first is the ablutions courtyard, now the Patio de los Naranjos, the Court of the Orange Trees. The second is the minaret, the lower part of the Giralda: above it, in the sixteenth century, the bell chamber was added, topped by a statue of Faith that turns with the wind.
On the official website the ticket costs 13 euros online and includes the climb up the Giralda and the church of El Salvador. The cathedral is a working church, though, and its hours change with the services: on Sundays the visit opens only in the afternoon.
Why do you climb the Giralda by ramps rather than stairs?
The mosque that came first
The Almohads made Seville the capital of al-Andalus, and its great mosque was built between 1172 and 1198, under the direction of the architect Ahmad Ben Baso. After the Castilian conquest of 1248 the Christians used it as a church for more than a hundred and fifty years.
The Patio de los Naranjos was the courtyard where worshippers washed before prayer: a rectangle of 43 by 81 metres, which after the conquest served as a cemetery and a place for ceremonies.
The Giralda, from minaret to bell tower
The Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf ordered the minaret on 26 May 1184, and work began that autumn under Ben Baso; another master, Alí al-Gumari, later took it up again, in brick. On 10 March 1198 the minaret was finished, with four gilded bronze spheres at the top. The spheres were lost in an earthquake in the fourteenth century.
In the sixteenth century the architect Hernán Ruiz the Younger added the Renaissance top above the minaret, between 1558 and 1568. On 13 August 1568 the Giraldillo was set at the summit, the statue of Faith cast in bronze by Bartolomé Morel: it is three and a half metres tall, weighs 1,300 kilos and is a weather vane. Today the tower rises to over a hundred metres.
Inside the tower, you climb 35 ramps, wide enough, tradition says, for the muezzin to ride up on horseback to call the faithful to prayer; no document, however, proves it. After the ramps, seventeen steps lead to the bell chamber, which is the part of the tower open to visitors.
“Let those who see it take us for madmen”
On 8 July 1401 the cathedral chapter decided to pull down the old mosque, damaged by the earthquake of 1356, and to build a new church. Seville tradition puts a sentence in the canons’ mouths: “let us build a church so beautiful and so grand that those who see it finished will take us for madmen”. The chapter’s record of that day is more sober, and asks for a work “such that there is no other like it”.
Building began in 1434, and on 6 October 1506 the last stone was laid at the top of the crossing tower. The annexes, from the main sacristy to the Royal Chapel, were finished in 1593.
The retablo mayor
Behind the high altar stands the retablo, the great golden altarpiece that closes the end of the chapel. It is considered the largest in Christendom. Pieter Dancart began it in 1482, and three more sculptors worked on it before it was finished.
Every panel is a carved scene, and you look at the altarpiece through the Renaissance grille that closes the chapel. The restoration, begun in 2011, took thirty months.
Columbus’s tomb
Who carries Columbus’s coffin?
Four bronze heralds, 2.60 metres tall, with faces and hands of alabaster. They are the kingdoms of Spain: Castile and León in front, Aragon and Navarre behind. The monument is by Arturo Mélida and was unveiled on 17 November 1902: you will find it in the south arm of the transept, opposite the Puerta de San Cristóbal.
Three kings of Castile are also buried in the cathedral: Fernando III, who conquered the city, his son Alfonso X, and Pedro I, the king who built the palace in the Alcázar.
The Saint Anthony that was cut out
In the baptismal chapel hangs Murillo’s Vision of Saint Anthony, from 1656: the saint, in half-darkness and with his arms open, looks up towards the Christ Child in a blaze of light.
How did the saint in this painting end up in New York?
On 4 November 1874 someone cut him out of the canvas and stole him. The fragment was sold to a New York dealer; a collector bought it and, once he learned where it came from, returned it to Spain. In 1876 the saint went back into the painting.
Practical information
Details checked on 29 October 2026 on the official website, catedraldesevilla.es. Prices and opening hours change: check again before you leave.
Next to the cathedral is the Real Alcázar, the palace of Pedro I, which you can also see with the combined Alcázar and Cathedral ticket, at 42 euros against 28.50 for the two official tickets bought online. For a Gothic and Mudéjar noble house in Seville, there is the Palacio de las Dueñas. And for another mosque that became a cathedral, with the church built inside the prayer hall, the Mezquita of Córdoba.
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons: the Giralda from Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0; the side of the cathedral, by Jynus, CC BY-SA 4.0; the Giralda at night and the retablo mayor, by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0; Columbus’s tomb, by Pom², CC BY-SA 3.0; the Patio de los Naranjos, by Jebulon, CC0.
