Granada’s massive cathedral is located in a wonderful older area of the city center. It’s difficult to comprehend the enormity of this building until you step inside, however, as the surrounding buildings in this quarter are built quite close to the church and don’t allow an overall view as you might find with a cathedral in a major plaza like with Notre Dame in Paris or St. Pete’s in Rome. But the surprise of the tremendous interior space is a wonderful experience.
Many consider this amazing structure to be the best example of Spanish Renaissance architecture still extant. It was built in a transition period from Gothic to Renaissance, and aspects of both periods are evident through the space. The main chapel, or Capilla Mayor, is simply beautiful, and the side chapels are all worth a peek.
Enormous carved piers, beautiful paintings and sculpture, and impressive illuminated manuscripts are some of the highlights. If you’re there midday, look for heavenly beams of sunlight coming through stained glass casting beautiful splashes of light on the marble floor.
The Capilla Real, is the royal chapel, as in the catholic royals: the infamous Ferdinand and Isabella. Paintings by Renaissance masters hang on the wall. There are fine examples from Italy by artists such as Botticelli, as well as some works by Northern Renaissance masters such as Van der Weyden. In a crypt below the chapel is the tomb of Isabella and Ferdinand, which should not be missed.
I found the visit to the royal chapel and crypt particularly haunting. Isabella and Ferdinand may be best know for their sponsorship of Columbus' voyage to the New World, but I associate them more with the initiation of an ugly phase of Spain's history: the Inquisition. In 1492 Columbus may have "sailed the ocean blue," but it was also the year that this pair officially expelled both Muslims and Jews from Spain after over 700 years of a relatively harmonious co-existence between the three majors religions thriving in Spain until Ferdinand and Isabella's reign.