Plaza Nueva became the setting for great events, such as the transferral of the bones of Isabel and Ferdinand from the Monastery of San Francisco in the Alhambra to the Royal Chapel, with the solemn procession descending the Cuesta de Gomérez to fill the square with pomp and ceremony of kind which has never been seen since. Even the bleaguered moriscos took part, wearing their ceremonial raiments. Just after the conquest, the fearsome Cardinal Cisneros, confessor of the Queen and future General Inquisitor,had the thousands of Arabic-language books he found in the Madraza, or Islamic University - most of which were translations from scholarly works written in Greek and Latin - publicly burned here because he thought, or said he thought, that they were all Korans.

        At the end of the square stands the charming Church of Santa Ana, built, like so many of Granada ’s churches, on the site of a mosque and in the Moorish - or mudéjar - style characteristic of the time. This church,with its highly original brick tower, undoubtedly using the minaret of the mosque as its base, is decorated with horseshoe-arches and brightly coloured tiles, and its cross stands on the spheres of burnished copper, the sacred symbol of the universe which the Muslims call the yamur, which previously graced the roof of the mosque. And as we approach the façade, we see that it too is a vestige of the mosque, from the pattern of the bricks which clearly show the circular arch of the original door.

 

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