When Carlos V came to Seville to organise his marriage with Isabel of Portugal in 1526, it was decided that a Town Hall was to be built in a separate building in the Plaza de San Francisco.
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Until the 16th century, a building adjoining the cathedral known as the Corral de los Olmos was the seat of both the Town Hall and the Ecclesiastic Chapter House. When Carlos V came to Seville to organise his marriage with Isabel of Portugal in 1526, it was decided that a Town Hall was to be built in a separate building in the Plaza de San Francisco. The construction transformed the Plaza radically. the Town Hall was built next to the Court House and the Royal Prison - where Cervantes is believed to have been inspired to write his Quixote - which has not survived. Originally hosting a market, the square then became the seat of power and the centre of religious and popular celebrations. |
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Its importance in Imperial Seville was illustrated in the works of Mateo Alemán, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Vélez de Guevara, who depicted how wealth, power and artistic brilliance mixed with the picaresque, waste, and the intolerance of the Inquisition. The plan of the Town Hall was designed by Riaño. Hernán Ruiz II designed the elegant double-arched lodge facing the Plaza which was demolished during the reforms carried out in the 19th century. With the demolition of the Convent of San Francisco in 1840, Seville was provided with a Main Square. In 1854, Balbino Marrón's development of the new space led to what is today Plaza Nueva. The new building enveloped the old renaissance one which retained its original features on its south-eastern façade. |