Plaza de la Corredera

Stand in the middle and turn slowly around: you are inside the only enclosed main square, in the Castilian style, in all of Andalusia. Its arcades, continuous balconies and reddish brick will remind you of Madrid’s or Salamanca’s, and that is no coincidence.

1A square built for spectacle

Since the Middle Ages there had been an irregular open space here outside the medina, where meat and fish were sold and festivities held. In 1683 the corregidor Francisco Ronquillo Briceño commissioned the Salamanca architect Antonio Ramos Valdés to turn it into a great rectangle of 113 by 55 metres. The work dragged on until 1687, and the owners of the houses, mostly clergy and nobles, bought the stretches of facade they wanted for their balconies.

Why Corredera? The most accepted explanation is the bullfights, the corridas, held here, although others credit its continuous, «corridos», balconies. It was also the stage for equestrian games, autos-da-fé of the Inquisition and the occasional execution.

One resident, Ana María Jacinto Angulo, persuaded King Charles II to stop her house from being demolished, and it still breaks the square’s symmetry today.

2The prison that became a market

The different building you can see is the old prison and residence of the corregidor, from the late sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century it became a hat factory, with Córdoba’s first steam engine, and today it is the Sánchez Peña market.

3What to look for

• The continuous balconies running round the whole square.
• The market, with its Renaissance stone facade.
• The arches linking the square to the surrounding streets.