The Plaza Nueva might be the largest public square in the Andalusian capital and is the home of the city’s Ayuntamiento (Town Hall). 

You’ll find that it is dominated by a statue of King Ferdinand III on horseback, who liberated Seville from the Moors and was canonised in 1671. Saint Ferdinand is the patron saint of Seville. This monument was erected in 1924, based on a plan by Juan Talavera, the architect who best represents the city’s neo-baroque style. On the statue’s pedestal sit four sculpture: three of which are of people related to the Reconquista (“Reconquest”) of the city, while the fourth is a representation of Alfonso X, the Wise.

It is this king to whom the motto of the city’s coat-of-arms is attributed. If you’ve been paying attention during your trip, all over Seville you’ll have noticed a symbol with the syllable “NO”, a depiction of a wool skein (“madeja”), followed by the syllable: “DO”; which is to say, “NO-madeja-DO”. And as the story goes, it was Alfonso X who uttered the phrase, “No me ha dejado” (“It hasn’t forsaken me”), when the city of Seville stood by him during a dispute with his son, Sancho, during the Reconquista.  

Getting back to the Plaza Nueva, keep in mind that during the Visigoth era, these same lands were part of the Guadalquivir riverbed, which explains why so many shipwrecks were discovered when construction began in this district. 

Moreover, during recent projects that took place at the beginning of 2006, important archeological findings were also discovered, including a beautiful multi-coloured fountain estimated to date from the end of the 6th or beginning of the 7th century. It is believed that this fountain belonged to the Convent of San Francisco, which used to stand here and at one time was the largest in Spain. These days, the only remains that you will find of the convent are at the Capilla de San Onofre, next to the Telefónica building.