Macarena Gate: Difference between revisions

Puerta de la Macarena was one of the gates of the Walls of Seville.

The Puerta de la Macarena (in Arabic: Bab-al-Makrin), also known as Arco de la Macarena, is along with the Postigo del Aceite and the Puerta de Córdoba the only three access that remain today of those who had the walls of Seville. It is located in the calle Resolana, within of barrio de San Gil, which belongs to the district of Casco Antiguo of the city of Seville (Andalusia). Facing it stands the Basílica de La Macarena, which houses the image of the Our Lady of La Esperanza Macarena, one of the most characteristic images of the Holy Week in Seville. and closely linked to the gate.

This is the entrance of the walls located further north of the city, and the higher of the set, and is one of the few remnants that remain from the walls of the city, along with the cloth of the walls that it connects with the Puerta de Córdoba through a wall in which are preserved seven towers. Although the enclosure walled of the city was built in time of Julius Caesar on the former Carthaginian defense, the gate corresponds to the extension made by the Sultan Ali ibn Yusuf in the 12th century, and its present appearance is the result of a remodeling carried out between the years 1723 and 1795, in which the Islamic architectural elements were replaced by the classicist air which presents today.

It was the gate used by the kings who visited for the first time the city, and to its walls it rose an altar in that performing their lawsuit tribute, and after which were handed the keys of the city to they, and so did Alfonso XI of Castile (1327), Isabella I of Castile (1477), Ferdinand II of Aragon (1508), Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and his fiancee Isabella of Portugal (1526), and finally Philip IV (1624).

Crowns the set the ceramic altarpiece by painter Manuel Rodríguez representing the Our Lady of La Esperanza Macarena, inaugurated in 1923 by the infanta Maria de la Esperanza of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

The remains of the walled city, among which includes this gate, were declared Bien de Interés Cultural in the year 1985.

Location and toponym

The gate is located in what was the arrabal de la Macarena was the access of the walled enclosure which was further north of the city and from where started the old mule to Extremadura. Its cloth of wall joined to one side with Puerta de Carmona and to the other with the Puerta de Córdoba, being located in this last stretch the Torre Blanca. Today it is located in the calle Resolana, against the Basílica de La Macarena (built in [1941) and near the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas (home of Parliament of Andalusia), in the barrio de San Gil and District Casco Antiguo.

Regarding its name, there are several theories about the origin of the Macarena word, and the historians do not agree on when setting a concrete one. The farthest proposals attributed to the word a Greek origin, being attached to the name of Macaria, daughter of Hercules, founder of the city. There is also hypothesis of its Roman origin, specifically of a patrician called Macarius, which would have had great properties in the area, Finally, the closest option and most common among historians is to its Arab origin, through Moor princess who lived next to the wall, or of a Moor of the same name, as recounted in 1587 writer Alonso Morgado in his Historia de Sevilla:

that the Puerta de la Macarena took its name from main Moor called Macarena, because he was leaving he for this gate to his inheritance half legua from Seville, where even today remains a turret named Macarena of the name of this Moor, who built on that his membership. And for still the same reason it is also called today Collado de la Cabeça de Macarena, in the way of la Rinconada, town of that time a legua from Seville

(written in Medieval Spanish)