Toledo declared on November 28, 1986 by UNESCO “World Heritage City” has managed to preserve an incomparable heritage that sinks its origins in the Neolithic.
All the peoples that have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula have left their mark of their culture in this city already defined by the Roman Tito Livio as “parva urbs, sed loco munitia” (small but well fortified place). Its entry into history occurs in the year 192 before Jesus Christ, when it was conquered by the Roman legions.
The Roman civilization already called it Toletum. Under his rule, temples, theaters, amphitheatres, circuses, walls and aqueduct were built.
Some of the remains of these buildings are still visible and can be visited, as is the case with the Roman Circus of Toledo in the Vega Baja area.
With the disappearance of Roman Hispania, the city was occupied by Germanic peoples.
The Visigoths will make it their capital, extending their kingdom to the entire Peninsula. The conversion of its king Recaredo, in the year 587, and the celebration in it of the Visigothic councils began the link of the city with Christianity, which would culminate centuries later with its designation as the primate seat of Spain .
With the arrival of the Muslims at the beginning of the 8th century, the city was renamed Tulaytula.
From then on, tolerance began to forge between the three cultures and religions (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) not exempt from times of tension and confrontation.
The Christian troops of Alfonso VI entered Toledo on May 25, 1085, putting an end to Arab domination, although the complete conquest of the Iberian Peninsula did not take place until 1492. In those medieval centuries, the city of Toledo was the seat of the Court and capital of the Castilian monarchy. It was in those centuries when the so-called “School of Translators of Toledo” was developed, giving it a good boost by Alfonso X the Wise.
Under the financial support and the protection of the Toledo archbishops, Mozarabic Jewish and Christian scholars were in charge of translating a good number of classical, Greek and Roman works, written by Aristotle, Ptolemy and Hippocrates, among others, and which arrived in Spain. in handwritten copies written in the Arabic language.
Toledo in the 16th century would reach its greatest splendor, even after the transfer of the capital to Madrid in 1561. The population then was around 70,000 inhabitants, a figure that has only been surpassed in the last years of the 20th century.
In this environment, a painter of Cretan origin named Domenico Theotocopuli, better known as El Greco, highly valued by contemporary artistic vanguards, produced his best paintings.
At this time, El Greco arrived in Toledo and lived half of his life, the most fruitful period of his work. Its cosmopolitan character, the existence of a powerful civil society and a rich cultural life, together with the international vocation of its ruling classes and the start of large construction programs aimed at modernizing the city, undoubtedly led to this choice.
In this sense, it must be taken into account that Toledo had been a great medieval city, the cradle of Hispanic humanism thanks to its secular multiculturalism and, as such, had become an internationally recognized cultural and symbolic reference, holding the primacy of Spanish church in memory of its past as the capital of the Visigothic kingdom.
Its ruling classes also became part of the kingdom and the fashions they imposed became paradigms of one of the most universal cultures we know of.
That was the environment that El Greco experienced upon his arrival in 1577.
Years later, the definitive departure from the Court marks the beginning of the stagnation of Toledo and its subsequent decline. Its rulers reacted by promoting the civic pride of its inhabitants, something in which our artist participated actively.
Thanks to this, Toledo went from being the imperial city that enjoyed the favor of the monarchy, to the city of God that enjoyed the protection of the saints that El Greco painted.
The only important institution that remained in the city was the church, which is why it came to be considered the second Rome, and there is no shortage of authors who describe it as a convent city in the 16th to 18th centuries.
The economic and demographic decline suffered since the 17th century only began to be alleviated in the second half of the 18th century with the revitalization of the silk weaving industry and the establishment of the Royal White Weapons Factory.
In the 19th century, the economic motor was made up of the military training centers (Infantry Academy, Shooting School) and the beginning of the arrival of countless travelers encouraged by its romantic image. Novelists like M. Barrés or poets like Rilke will spread the beauty of Toledo in their publications.
The bureaucratic and military city of the 19th century will give way in the 20th century to a city that promotes its heritage and artistic value and becomes one of the most important tourist centers in Spain.
All architectural styles and all cultures have left unique signs of their presence in the history of Toledo.
…it is certainly better to make Toledo revive by catching it in the poetic disorder of its diverse elements: an original, confused, surprising mixture of a triple civilization, in which the Gothic confronts the Roman, and the Arab rubs shoulders with the Jew; where next to the church stands the mosque, where the basilica rises above the circus, where one date covers another without erasing it, and where centuries, races, religions collide or merge; and at each step, finally, the past sprouts through the present …
Writing on women’s tits or ingesting semen in repulsive concoctions were part of the spells common in centuries past in Toledo. How were these ancient spells and potions? Who were the people who made use …
Julio Caro Baroja, anthropologist, historian and linguist nephew of the famous writer Pío Baroja, PhD in Ancient History at the University of Madrid, where he was a professor. Great traveller with long stays in the …
Toledo had a monumental importance in Roman times that is beyond any doubt: the great circus, aqueduct, a theatre, carriageways… Probably many Roman remains are still hidden under the current buildings, waiting for someone to …
Forbidden books, Moriscos, crypto Jews, blasphemers, voodoo dolls, invocations to the devil, hand readings, sexual deviations, curative filters and concoctions prepared to attract a man’s love… Crimes against faith, against morals, persecuted by the Inquisition …
María Pacheco is perhaps one of the most important characters Toledo has ever had, but I have the feeling that if we went house to house asking about this lady’s identity, few people would know …
Brief biographical notes of Santa Teresa de Jesús and her passage through the city of Toledo in the 16th century, by Carlos Dueñas Rey. ” Nothing disturbs you, nothing frightens you, everything passes, God does …
If there is a building in Toledo that keeps between its foundations the glories of a past of centuries, a mixture of Visigoths, Arabs and Christians, that is the convent of Santa Fe. Roman pretors, …
When in the route “Toledo monumental”, we cross the Cathedral of Santa Maria, sometimes we stop in a certain personage that on horseback appears majestically painted on the keystone of the central arch of the …
It is obvious that cities change a lot over the years. Toledo, thanks to its monumental character, has been photographed profusely since the appearance of the photographic technique, when cameras were not within the reach …
Yesterday October 13, 2011 was presented the number 5 of the magazine “Archivo Secreto”, dedicated on this occasion to the city during the Civil War, on the 75th anniversary of the conflict. Click on “read …
Toledo Cathedral has a dozen or so organs, if I don’t leave any. They are the following: the General, the Echevarría, Verdalonga, the Mozarabic Chapel, the two of the Chapel of the New Kings, the …
Although the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans already used the craftsmanship of the “Damasquinado”, it is in the city of Toledo where this decorative technique has reached the highest of fame and exquisiteness in the pieces …
2008 marks the bicentenary of the ” War of Independence” (1808-1814) against Napoleon Bonaparte and his armies. We join with this extensive article the initiatives that seek to recover the events that occurred in those …
I never tire of contemplating this city, which rises with gallantry over rough rocks encircled by the embrace of the Tagus. I like to sit among the rockrose on the shore, next to the bridge …
