You are at the western edge of the old medina. This wall along calle Cairuán largely follows the line of the Roman one, and the gate in front of you is the best preserved of the three the city still has. In Islamic times it was called Bab al-Chawz, the Walnut Gate; its present name comes from the road that left from here towards Almodóvar del Río.

1A fourteenth-century gate

What you see is the Christian rebuilding of the fourteenth century over the Islamic gate: two ashlar towers joined by a pointed arch, with their wall-walk and full set of battlements. In the early nineteenth century the great arch was walled up and a smaller doorway was opened, the one you walk through today.

2Seneca, Córdoba’s man in Rome

At the foot of the wall waits Lucius Annaeus Seneca, born in Corduba around 4 BC. A Stoic philosopher, author of tragedies and of the Letters to Lucilius, he was tutor and adviser to the emperor Nero, who eventually ordered him to take his own life in AD 65. His nephew Lucan, the poet, was also from Córdoba.

The statue, by Amadeo Ruiz Olmos, was unveiled in 1965, nineteen centuries after his death; it was paid for by the bullfighter Manuel Benítez, El Cordobés.

A little further down the wall, another statue honours Averroes, the great commentator on Aristotle, born in Córdoba in 1126.

3What to look for

  • The battlements and wall-walk crowning the gate.
  • The walled-up pointed arch, framed by a raised border.
  • Seneca, in his toga and with a calm expression, beside the pool.
Bronze statue of Seneca in a toga on a pedestal beside the city wall on calle Cairuán
Seneca has stood guard by the wall next to the Almodóvar Gate since 1965.

Documented

A gate of Islamic origin rebuilt in the fourteenth century; the statue of Seneca, by Amadeo Ruiz Olmos, was unveiled in 1965.

Sources and credits

Junta de Andalucía, Digital Guide to the Cultural Heritage of Andalusia (IAPH), entry on the Puerta de Almodóvar; Teodomiro Ramírez de Arellano, Paseos por Córdoba (1873-1877); Seneca, Letters to Lucilius (Loeb Classical Library).

Photos:

  • The Almodóvar Gate: a golden stone arch between two crenellated towers, with a street of the Jewish quarter beyond: Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0.
  • Bronze statue of Seneca in a toga on a pedestal beside the city wall on calle Cairuán: Robot8A, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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