It is the only quadrangular main square in Andalusia and is located in the historic neighborhood of La Axerquía . Despite the fact that the first evidence of an irregular plaza dates from the 14th century , the current plaza was built in 1683 by the architect Antonio Ramós Valdés by order of the corregidor Francisco Ronquillo Briceño . Its name comes from the bullfights that were held in this space, although auto-da-fe and executions of the Spanish Inquisition were also held .
The two buildings that stand out in the square are the Mercado de Sánchez Peña and the Casas de Doña Ana Jacinto, both built a century before the square. The Market was built as a jail and house of the corregidor until in 1835, after the transfer of the prison to the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos , the businessman José Sánchez Peña turned it into a hat factory and installed the first steam engine in the city.
On December 18, 1981, it was declared a Historic-Artistic Monument , a fact that led to restoration works that began in 1986 and concluded at the end of 2001.
History
It is believed that until the fifteenth century , the Plaza de la Corredera was a large esplanade outside the walls of the Medina or Cordoba upper city. Despite this, it was a symbolic place, as evidenced by one of the first mentions of King Pedro I of Castile in 1347 about the "Pilar [source] de la Corredera". Likewise, in the 15th century it was called " rastro " for the sale of meat and fish, and in 1478 the largest butcher shop in Córdoba was built; while in 1526 Emperor Charles V established a weekly market on the esplanade. Other relevant acts were the construction of a Renaissance fountain in 1568 that caught the attention of Felipe II during his visit to the city.two years later and the celebrations for the victory of the battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Despite the fact that the square houses a symmetrical morphology, two previous buildings have been maintained that contrast with this uniformity, which are the old jail and house of the corregidor , current Mercado de Sánchez Peña , built by Juan de Ochoa from Córdoba between 1583 and 1586, and those known as Casas de Ana María Jacinto, 1 previously called the "White Wall" as it was originally a simple wall, to which windows and doors were opened at the beginning of the 17th century .
Construction (1683-87)
The current morphology comes from the project of the Salamanca architect Antonio Ramós Valdés , who under the mandate of the corregidor Francisco Ronquillo Briceño , built a semi-regular rectangle 113 meters long and 55 meters wide, in 1683. The work, which had as older teachers of the city to Antonio García and Francisco Beltrán, had a cost of 752,972 reais and 8 maravedíes, and although it should have been completed in a year and a half, some areas were not completed until 1687. The construction was not comprehensive, as it was limited to their façades due to a lack of funds. The owners of the houses that overlooked the square, 46% ecclesiastical and 44% noble, were acquiring the meters of façade they wanted for their corresponding balconies.
Likewise, the primitive facades of the Pósito and the hermitage of Los Ángeles were demolished and they were built following the scheme of the square. The project also included the destruction of the Casas de Ana María Jacinto, although the owner managed to avoid it with a Royal Decree from the monarch Carlos II . An existing alley, Calle de Carreteras, was made useless, building the Alto arches, through Espartería street, and Bajo, through Socorro street, as an entrance to the square. 3 The descriptions that we find of the time show it as it was in the 17th century :
"(...) what is remarkable there is the main square, enclosed by beautiful houses similar to those of the Plaza de Madrid supported by porticos and arcades where the richest merchants of the city are established and on days One of the big festivals of the year, there are bullfights, as we live in Madrid. This square is at one end of the city (...)"
A. Jouvin ( 17th century )
"(...) almost all the facades of the building protrude outward with wooden terraces, most with three and a few with four levels, so when the festivities are held they are added around the wooden stairs, richly decorated with fabrics of various colors without leaving bare the pilasters that support them, where the ladies are located, they put huge velvet and brocade cushions on the tapestry and, in short, there is no part of the square that does not leave or full of people or embellished with ornaments. In the center of one of the larger sides there is a very good building, in which is the Public Prison. Next to it is the aforementioned house in which the Corregidor and the Twenty-four have their limited place city ??councilors..."
A. Guzman Reina. (Córdoba, 17th century ).
18th and 19th centuries
The celebrations and festive events had their zenith during the 18th century in the Corredera, for example, the proclamation of the monarch Felipe V in 1700, the celebration for peace with Great Britain in 1749, the visit of the Moroccan ambassador Sidi Hamed El Gacel in 1766 , the preaching of fray Diego de Cádiz in 1786 or the bullfighting celebrated due to the visit of Carlos IV to the city in 1796, an event that he hated and even prohibited by law. On the other hand, autos-da-fe and public executions of the Spanish Inquisition were held on multiple occasions; although the data is incomplete, some 40 executions are estimated between 1639 and 1739, and between 1810 and 1812 some 76 individuals died by hanging or garrotting . The last execution carried out in the Corredera took place in 1838, while the last bullfight took place in 1846, once the Tejares bullring was built .
In 1835 he acquired the building of the José Sánchez Peña prison , due to the fact that the prison had been transferred to the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos , and installed a hat factory, which housed the first steam engine in the city, until 1873, when it was It became a food market , a use that it maintains to this day. On April 5, 1893, construction began in the middle of the square, occupying 60%, of a building intended to house the food market of Plaza de la Corredera, being inaugurated on August 2, 1896 and granted to the son of Sánchez Peña, José Sánchez Muñoz, its exploitation for fifty years.
View of the square during a demonstration.
The Plaza de la Corredera was also the scene of various literary works, such as The Fair of the Discreet by the writer Pío Baroja , who described it as follows:
(...) He had not left cornered arches without a post or column without a stall at the foot. At the bottom of the proches appeared the portals of the inns, with their classic patios and their authentic names such as the Puya del Toro inn... The espadrille shops displayed their battle rings as a sign: the drinking establishments, their full shelves of colored bottles; the stores of the saddlers, their jáquimas, cinches and harnesses; triperías, bladders and sieves made of donkey skin from Lucena. Here a cane weaver was making baskets; there, a junk dealer was stacking some greasy storybooks, and nearby, an old crone took a slice of hake from the bottom of a frying pan and placed it on a sheet of tin.
Pío Baroja ( 19th century )
20th and 21st centuries
At the beginning of the 20th century , the creation of Calle Claudio Marcelo and Plaza de las Tendillas in 1923 diverted the commercial epicenter towards this point, leading to a decline in Corredera.
On July 14, 1951, information was received from the head of the city's Veterinary Services, in which the poor hygienic conditions of the food market were reported. The administrative concession of the space that the market occupied expired in 1956 and it was two years later when Antonio Cruz Conde , mayor of Córdoba, definitively approved the demolition of the market to build one in the basement of the square. During said demolition, twelve Roman mosaics were found and the municipal architect, Víctor Escribano Ucelay , was informed, who advised their removal. The archaeologist Antonio García y Bellido , who was visiting the nearby archaeological remains of the Roman temple of Córdoba, was able to analyze the finding. A few months later the majestic mosaic of Polyphemus and Galatea was found and could be restored along with the rest. Because the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos was being restored, it was decided to move to it to decorate the rooms of eight of the twelve mosaics.
At the end of 1981, the Plaza de la Corredera was declared a Historic-Artistic Monument, a fact that led to the creation of a special protection and improvement plan. In 1986, the rehabilitation works of the square began, culminating on December 9, 2001 and whose inaugural act was attended by Manuel Chaves , president of the Junta de Andalucía, as well as the mayoress Rosa Aguilar .
On May 21, 2021, the Casas de Ana María Jacinto opened new lighting on the façade that visitors can modify in six lighting scenarios through a mobile application .
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