Seville City Hall

You are in Plaza de San Francisco, for centuries Seville's great public stage, and before you is the Casa Consistorial, the city hall, one of the most refined works of the Spanish Renaissance.

1A building for Castile's richest city

Work began in 1526 under Diego de Riaño, the city's master builder. Seville was at its peak: trade with the Americas flowed through its port, and the council wanted a building to match. Riaño died in 1534 and Juan Sánchez carried on with the design; the upper floor was finished between 1550 and 1561, with Hernán Ruiz the Younger lending a hand.

2Myths carved in stone

The façade is covered in Plateresque carving: grotesques, medallions and coats of arms. Among them appear Hercules and Julius Caesar, the two founders Renaissance Seville liked to claim. Hercules is pure mythology; Caesar, on the other hand, really is linked to the city's Roman past. You will also spot columns bearing the motto Plus Ultra, emblem of Emperor Charles V.

Sixteenth-century Seville chose to tell its own story as a city founded by heroes.

Walk round the building and you will see that the façade on Plaza Nueva is completely different: Neoclassical, by Balbino Marrón, completed in 1867.

3What to look for

• The arquillo, the old gateway to the convent of San Francisco, burned in 1810 and later demolished.
• Hercules and Julius Caesar among the carvings around the arch.
• The contrast between this façade and the one on Plaza Nueva.