Ayuntamiento de Sevilla
Plateresque facade carved with mythical founders, hiding a coded medieval rebus above its doorway.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Ayuntamiento de Sevilla opens with a riddle carved above its doorway: three strange characters that Sevillanos read aloud as a Spanish phrase, though the cipher was never built to be read, only heard. You'll hear how the sounds unlock a coded message, and the family war behind it, a rift in the 1280s between King Alfonso the Tenth and his son Sancho that split Spain's towns between them while Seville stayed loyal. It follows how that thank-you found its way into the city hall's stone, and how far the same rebus has traveled since, onto manhole covers, taxis and flags across the city.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Palacio de San Telmo
Churrigueresque facade crowned with twelve sculpted portraits of illustrious historical figures.
Royal Alcázar of Seville
Fourteenth-century royal palace of carved plaster, cedar ceilings, and tilework by Muslim craftsmen for a Christian king.
Iglesia de Santa María la Blanca
Baroque church built over a medieval synagogue, its hidden torah ark rediscovered after three centuries.
Convent of Santa Clara
Medieval brick and stone watchtower from twelve fifty two, enclosed within a convent garden.
Casa de Pilatos
Renaissance courtyard covered in over a hundred distinct sixteenth-century Mudejar tile patterns.
Real Parroquia de Señora Santa Ana
Gothic-Mudéjar parish church holding a mysterious sixteenth-century ceramic tomb tile tied to a murder legend.