Seville Cathedral

About

Seville Cathedral is not only the largest Gothic cathedral in the world; it is an intimidating, hollow mountain of stone. Its inception in 1401 was fueled by a famously arrogant declaration from its chapter: "Let us build a church so beautiful and so grand that those who see it finished will think we are mad!" And mad they were. This architectural behemoth literally "grew" out of the conquered ruins of an Islamic grand mosque. The base of the old minaret was forcefully converted into the towering Giralda bell tower, and the ancient Moorish courtyard of orange trees still perfumes the Andalusian air to this day. Stepping inside, you are assaulted by the sheer weight of imperial wealth. From the undisputed masterpiece of the main altarpiece—a "wooden Bible" coated in nearly three tons of gold—to the theatrical tomb of Christopher Columbus carried by four bronze kings, everything here screams of Spain's Age of Discovery. It stands not merely as a house of faith, but as the most audacious monument to a dual-faced empire that conquered the oceans with a mix of ravenous greed and fanatical devotion.