Seville

Located 70 miles from the Atlantic coast on the Guadalquivir River, the Spanish port of Seville controlled the burgeoning transatlantic trade that developed after Columbus's voyages. Between 1503 and 1717, the Spanish crown declared that all people and goods headed to America must be registered at Seville. The city became an international distribution point that attracted people from all over Europe. By 1600 its population had grown to at least 80,000, with some estimates as high as 130,000.

Two important institutions in Seville handled matters relating to Spanish America. The Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) had responsibility for the commerce, navigation, and movement of people between Spain and its overseas colonies. It also collected and studied maps and reports prepared by returning mariners. The Casa Lonja de Mercaderes (Merchant Hall) oversaw the traders and business transactions that provided supplies for the empire.

Seville grew into a cultural and intellectual center as well as a commercial capital. Spain's most active publishing city during the early 1500s, the city boasted a university and several schools founded by the Jesuits*. Columbus's son Hernando Colon collected humanist* texts that now form the core of a library at the Cathedral of Seville. The city also became a leading center of drama. Examples of Spanish Renaissance architecture in Seville include Merchant Hall, the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas (Hospital of the five wounds), and city hall. In the 1480s, the monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile launched the Spanish Inquisition* in Seville.

The 1600s marked a period of decline for Seville. Plague* struck the city in 1599–1601 and again in 1649. Also during this time, Madrid was gaining power as the seat of royal government, and the city of Cadiz took over much of the transatlantic shipping once handled by Seville. By 1717 the city had lost its control over trade with Spanish America.

(See alsoAmericas; Art in Spain and Portugal; Spain. )

see color plate 5, vol. 4

* Jesuit

belonging to a Roman Catholic religious order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola and approved in 1540

* humanist

referring to a Renaissance cultural movement promoting the study of the humanities (the languages, literature, and history of ancient Greece and Rome) as a guide to living

* Spanish Inquisition

court established by the Spanish monarchs that investigated Christians accused of straying from the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly during the period 1480–1530

* plague

highly contagious and often fatal disease that wiped out much of
Europe's population in the mid-1300s and reappeared periodically over the next three centuries; also known as the Black Death