“Outside Seville, on the other side of the Bétis river, and near its western bank, there exists a very noble Carthusian monastery, called Santa María de las Cuevas. It is a very superb construction, with a beautiful refectory and white marble tables on which the monks eat; there are none better. How beautiful is the chapter chapel! It has excellent cells, and above them the dormitories, beautiful gardens and preciously constructed cloisters in front of the cells. In the central part, such a lovely garden, with various designs of myrtle, wax myrtle and jasmine, that it is almost unimaginable. I also saw in their cemetery a bush with huge leaves, whose width was of two feet, and in length four. They said that it was a banana tree, but it isn't because its leaves do not point upwards, and I don't think it had fruit or seeds. Its leaves, however, are very green and of a type very similar to those of a marsh mallow.
Outside the monastery and its cells there are two gardens that are watered from the Bétis river, transported there by two mules. The most agreeable gardens, I repeat, with cedar, orange trees, pomegranate trees, fig trees, almond trees, vines and pear trees, whose fruits were still hanging on the trees. I have never seen in truth such beautiful gardens! The canals that water them are perfectly placed. The secular or converse brothers also have their own cloister, with marble columns and little gardens dispersed gracefully among them, and their rooms constructed with fine workmanship. When I was there, there were thirty monks and forty secular brothers. The father prior was a venerable man, ancient and of sane learning, who lived in a special apartment with a lovely cloister. We also saw its spacious cellar, in which there are ninety three large vessels brimming with wine. I believe with certainly that three of those vessels were enough to fill two wagons of Nüremberg. They contained a wine as delicious as Malvasía. We also contemplated the tabernacle behind the high altar, so adorned with gold, silver and ivory, that it is impossible to describe. They honored us in admirable fashion. They gave permission for us to enter the garden with them, and assured us that they were very interested in our customs, religious practices, clothing, hairstyles and other things.
I believe in truth, that after the Carthusian monastery of Pavia, there is none better than this one. It is also very rich. They have four thousand ducats in annual revenues. Provisions there are also very cheap because of the fertility of all of Andalusia.
On the outside of the city, on the other side of the bridge of boats over the Betis, there is a very extensive neighborhood called Triana, where they make the great clay vessels for oil, wine, etc. Many of them could contain twelve or thirteen amphorae of wine. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it.”
What Münzer Saw:
A wealthy working Monastery, Münzer was able to see most of this very large complex, which continued to function until the 1835 dissolution of Spain’s convents. The monastery was originally Franciscan, but was taken over by the Cistercians in 1400. The refectory, church cells. cloister and garden spaces are still there, though only a small Mudéjar cloister retains something of its original character. Over the years the refectory was expanded, and other, later decoration and expansion took place in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1835, all of the furnishings (including the marble tables, if they survived) vanished, and earlier, before the Guadalquivir silted up, the watery location of the convent endured several floods.
What Münzer Would Never Have Seen:
After 1835, the monastery complex fell into private hands and became a ceramics factory – a sort of extension on an industrial scale of the pottery makers of nearby Triana. In 1992, the entire area was taken over for the Seville Expo, and now it is a sort of theme park, though the monastery buildings themselves were remodeled into Seville’s Contemporary Art Museum, which it still is today. There are still gardens around it, mainly of cypress and citrus trees, and also an enormous very unusual tree-like plant called an Ombú, with great trunk-like roots, supposedly planted by Hernán Columbus, the explorer’s brother. Whether Münzer saw this plant in its baby form is anyone’s guess.
Many bridges (some liberally adorned with graffiti) connect the Museum to the main part of the city—not just a bridge of boats, including some very contemporary ones, and there are bike paths and roads around its periphery.
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