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the heroic feat of Hernán del Pulgar
During the siege of Granada, in the year 1490 - just two years before the final victory - a Christian soldier carried out a daring feat calculated to undermine the enemy’s morale. With a few brave companions, Hernán del Pulgar (literally, Hernando of the Thumb), penetrated the city walls by crawling along the river bed and, under cover of darkness, made his way through the sleeping bazaar.
When he arrived at the door of the Great Mosque, he nailed on it a sign with the words AVE MARIA written in red ink, before beating a hasty retreat. There was great consternation among the Moors when they found that some unearthly hand had scrawled such a fearful omen on their place of worship.
Pulgar was later buried on the site of his supremely Christian gesture, once the mosque had been wrested from the Mohammedans, along with other illustrious figures of the 16th century such as the good archbishop Hernando de Talavera, the two sons of the Sultan Muley Hacen and his wife the Christian captive Isabelde Solís (who converted to their mother's original religion after the conquest) and the architect Ambrosio de Vico, famous for his bird’s eye drawing of the city known as the“Plataforma de Vico”, a precious document which tells us much of what we know of the old Moorish city.
