Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville

This guide to the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville opens with a puzzle: a drawbridge, sentry boxes, and a moat built around a cigar factory that no army was ever going to besiege. You'll hear how royal engineers broke ground in 1728 on what became Spain's second-largest building, how a failed choice of stone and stalled funding dragged construction out for decades, and what the fortifications were actually built to guard. It follows the thousands of women who later worked the factory floor under armed watch, whose lives would go on to inspire Bizet's Carmen.