Cordoba

A beautiful capital of the Muslim kingdom in Spain and one of the most important cultural centres of medieval Europe, Cordoba did not experience such glory in the Early Modern age. The fact that it did not adhere to the revolt of the comuneros displayed its loyalty to the young monarch Charles V. During the reign of Philip II, the city served as a base of operations to quell the second revolt of the Alpujarras, and simultaneously saw the arrival of some of the Moriscos which had been expelled from the ancient kingdom of Granada. Philip II himself visited the city in 1570. During the reign of his successor, starting in February 1610, more than 4,000 Moriscos were expelled from Cordoba. With the accession to the throne of Philip IV (1621) a long period of crisis began, the result of massive military campaigns undertaken by the Spanish Monarchy and lavishly financed by the city, with troops and money, until after the death of Charles II (1700). Wars, epidemics and famines also caused a drastic reduction in the number of inhabitants.