Cor'dova

Cor'dova, or CORDOBA, a city of Spain, capital of the province of Cordova, 81 miles ENE. of Seville by rail. It stands on the right bank of the Guadalquivir, here crossed by the Moorish 'Puente Viejo' of sixteen arches, and occupies a slope connected with the Sierra Morena. The old turreted walls inclose gardens and vineyards; but the interior shows narrow and dirty streets. Cordova was from the 9th to the close of the 12th century a Moorish town of the first rank, renowned for its rich mosques and palaces, and still more for its university. Among the principal buildings is the cathedral, built as a mosque in the 8th century, the most magnificent Mohammedan temple in Europe, and converted (1236) into a Christian church. Cordova was at one time celebrated for its manufacture of goat leather, called cordovan, whence the term cordwain, but that industry is now almost entirely gone from it. Cordovan, still prepared in the Levant, is used in bookbinding and for finer boots and shoes. Cordova has a bishop's palace, a lyceum, a theatre, a fine casino, museum, &c. It manufactures silverware, silk fabrics, paper hats, &c. Called by the Carthaginians the 'gem of the south,' Cordova was (152 B.C.) founded by the Romans as Corduba. Taken by the Goths in the 6th century, it fell (711) to the Moors, in whose hands it remained till 1236, when Ferdinand III. of Castile struck it a blow from which it has never recovered. In 1808 Cordova was taken and plundered by the French. Cordova was the birthplace of the poet Lucan, and the philosophers Seneca and Averroes. Pop. (1895) 57,450. — The province of Cordova has an area of 5190 sq. m., and a pop. of 420,000. See ANDALUSIA.