In the first half of the
fourteenth century, the Nasrid Sultan
Yusuf I
ordered the construction of a madrasa next to Granada's congregational
mosque.
Fragments from the original façade are preserved in the
Museo
Arqueológico y Etnológico de Granada, including an inscription, which
states that the building was dedicated in the month of Muhurram in 750
(March or April 1349).
It is located on the street now known as
Calle Oficios.
The madrasa was built at the heart of the city, near the main mosque (now the site of the Granada Cathedral) and the
Alcaicería, then the elite bazaar where silk, gold, linen and other cloth were traded.
Ibn al-Khatib
was an early student there; among his teachers were Ibn al-Fajjar, Ibn
Marzuq, and Ibn al-Hayy (language and law); Ibn al-Hakam and the poet
Ibn al-Yayyab (rhetoric); and Sheik Yahya ibn Hudayl (medicine and
philosophy).
The building
As was typical of the works of Yusuf I, the building was splendid,
with a white marble entrance. The
building was originally organized around a pool in the center.
The only surviving part of the school is the prayer
room. It is a square-shaped room oriented by its mihrab. Carved,
polychrome plaster covers the upper portions of the walls and doorjamb.
Calligraphy consistent in style and content with other Nasrid monuments
is an integral part of the decoration. Muqarnas in the four corners of
the room form an upward transition into an octagonal drum that has
sixteen windows with pierced screens.
Above the prayer room is an
octagonal wooden ceiling with interlaced star shapes, open in the center
and topped by a smaller octagonal drum with sixteen windows and a
plaster-decorated ceiling. (Segments of the ceiling have been modified
during restoration.)
The façade was decorated with inscriptions of poetry and philosophy.
Among these were the words "If in your spirit you provide a place for
the desire to study and to flee from the shadows of ignorance, you will
find in it the beautiful tree of honor. Make study shine like stars to
the great, and to those who are not, bring to them the same brilliance."
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| Baroque façade of the Madrasa of Granada (detail). |
After the completion of the
Reconquista and the conversion to the
Cabildo an adjacent house was
Baroque, so that what we have today is essentially an 18th-century building with elements of older buildings. The oratory or
mihrab is original from the 14th century; the Sala de los Caballeros XXIV is Mudéjar.
annexed to enlarge the building. The octagonal Mudéjar
Sala de Cabildos was constructed in this era; its 1513 decoration
included an inscription alluding to the Christian conquest of the city.
Eventually the pool was filled in and converted to other uses, although
even after the modifications of 1554–1556, Francisco Henríquez de
Jorquera describes a patio with a pool and a garden. The building was
subject to major modifications, especially in the 1722–1729 at the
height of the
The building, which belongs to the University of Granada,
underwent extensive archeological excavations in 2006–2007.
As of February 2009, restoration of the interior was just beginning, and the building is not currently open to the public.
History
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| The madrasa is located on this street called Calle Oficios |
The Madrasa functioned as a university until late 1499 or early 1500, under the
Treaty of Granada (1491), under which the sultan
Boabdil of the Emirate of Granada surrendered to the
Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.
However, towards the end of 1499, the policy of tolerance and compliance with that treaty under archbishop Hernando de Talavera, came to an abrupt end with the arrival in Granada of
Gonzalo Jiménez de Cisneros, who substituted a policy of
forced religious conversions.
This new policy led to an uprising in Granada, above all in the Albaicín.
Cisneros took advantage of the situation to assault the Madrasah, the
contents of whose library was brought to the
plaza of Bib-Rambla and
burned in a public bonfire. Once pillaged and closed,
the building was designated in 1500 by Ferdinand II to be the new
Casa del Cabildo (city hall).
In 1858 the town hall moved to the Plaza del Carmen, and the building
was sold to be used as a textile warehouse. Two years later, the
principal inscription of the
Mihrab was discovered. There was also some fire damage in this era; the Echeverría family, owners of the building, hired Mariano Contreras, the same architect who restored the Alhambra, to undertake the repairs.
The city bought back the building in the early 20th century, leading
to further restoration work in 1939. There was an unsuccessful attempt
in 1942 to turn the building into the seat of a new Instituto de los
Reyes Católicos del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas
("Catholic Monarchs Institute of the Superior Council of Scientific
Investigations"). In 1976, the building became part of the University of
Granada.
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