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Articles · Castilian conquest & the Moriscos

Granada After 1492: Articles on the Castilian Conquest and the Moriscos

The last Muslim kingdom falls in 1492 and Siloé raises Spain's first Renaissance cathedral.

These articles cover the years after Boabdil's surrender: the Santa Fe camp, the Renaissance cathedral, the Inquisition, and the forced conversions behind the Morisco revolt of 1568 and the expulsion of 1609. For readers asking what Granada became under Castile.

28 articles · 1492–1610

Castilian conquest & the Moriscos in Granada, 1492–1610

Articles on Castilian conquest & the Moriscos

Juan Latino Granada scene: a 16th-century Latin teacher's desk with open manuscripts, quill and candlelight in a stone cathedral schoolroom, warm low light, Renaissance atmosphere, no portrait of a real person

Juan Latino: The Enslaved Man Who Taught Latin in Granada

James Walker

Juan Latino was enslaved in a duke's household, then taught Latin in Granada and printed a Lepanto epic in 1573. What the records settle, and what they don't.

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Francisco Suárez, the Granada philosopher: a sixteenth-century Jesuit scholar in a black cassock at a candlelit writing desk, folios of the Disputationes Metaphysicae stacked beside him, warm chiaroscuro light

Francisco Suárez: the Granada Philosopher Europe Studied

James Walker

Francisco Suárez, Jesuit philosopher born in Granada in 1548: his Disputationes Metaphysicae, plus the birthplace plaque, monument and archive Granada keeps.

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White-gloved hands turn a page of an aged Arabic manuscript on a cushioned book support in a wood-shelved archive reading room

Cisneros Book Burning in Granada, 1499: What Was Lost

James Walker

Cisneros burned Arabic books in Granada in 1499, but the numbers, the square and Heine's famous line are shakier. A claim check of what the record supports.

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Hernando de Talavera, first archbishop of Granada, in Hieronymite habit teaching a small group of Morisco boys by candlelight in a Granada study

Hernando de Talavera: The Archbishop Who Learned Arabic

James Walker

Hernando de Talavera, Granada's first archbishop, learned Arabic, ran a school for Morisco boys and kept the 1491 terms. Why his gentle method fell short.

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Eleno de Céspedes as a sixteenth-century surgeon in dark period dress holding a leather instrument case on Toledo's Zocodover square at dusk, arcaded buildings behind, cool light, painterly realism

Eleno de Céspedes: The Alhama Surgeon Tried by the Inquisition

James Walker

Born a slave in Alhama de Granada, Eleno de Céspedes served in the Alpujarras war, qualified as a surgeon and was tried before the Toledo Inquisition in 1587.

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Count of Tendilla Alhambra scene: a Castilian nobleman in dark late-fifteenth-century dress at an arched window of a Nasrid palace, a pomegranate on the sill, warm afternoon light on carved plasterwork

Count of Tendilla Alhambra: First Governor After 1492

James Walker

Íñigo López de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla, ran the Alhambra from 1492 to 1515. See how Granada's first Christian governor lived, ruled and wrote 6,000 letters.

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Granada inquisition auto de fe in a 17th-century Granada square, penitents in sambenitos facing a raised platform, crowd and clergy under a hard afternoon light

Granada Inquisition: The Holy Office Tribunal, 1526 to 1834

James Walker

The Granada Inquisition's permanent tribunal ran from 1526 to 1834. Its jurisdiction, autos de fe in Bibarrambla and San Jerónimo, and who it prosecuted.

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A weathered domed shrine beside an old sandstone gate in Fez's medina wall, warm late-afternoon light, cypress trees, no modern signage, evoking Boabdil's lost tomb

Boabdil's Lost Tomb: Searching for It in Fez, Morocco

James Walker Updated

Where is Boabdil buried? A 17th-century account points to a shrine outside Fez's Bab Mahrouk gate, and a 2013 scan detected bones nobody was allowed to test.

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Facsimile pages of the Capitulations of Santa Fe glowing in candlelight beside Ferdinand and Isabella's wax seal, Santa Fe camp near Granada

Capitulations of Santa Fe: The Deal That Sent Columbus

James Walker

Fifteen weeks after Granada fell, Columbus signed away a tenth of the New World at a Granada siege camp, and the crown's own coffers weren't what paid for it.

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Storm clouds gathering over the Alcazaba's Torre de la Vela in Granada on Día de la Toma, the royal standard raised against a darkening winter sky, evoking the ceremony's controversy and layered history

The Festival of the Toma: Granada's Most Controversial Holiday

James Walker

Granada's Día de la Toma marks 1492's surrender, a promise the Crown broke within a decade. Vox now rallies there each January while activists demand it end.

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Interior of the Basilica de San Juan de Dios in Granada at golden hour, the gilded Baroque retablo mayor glowing amber, ornate gold-leaf columns and painted ceiling frescoes framing the altar, a hushed and empty nave conveying centuries of devotion to the hospital saint

San Juan de Dios: The Saint Who Built Granada's Hospitals

James Walker

Before sainthood, Juan Ciudad was a soldier, a beggar, and an asylum inmate in Granada — until a 1537 breakdown founded a hospital order still running today.

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Aben Humeya morisco rebellion alpujarras 1568 depicted as a Morisco rebel leader in period dress on a mountain ridge above the Alpujarras, dramatic evening light over the Sierra Nevada foothills, historical illustration mood

Aben Humeya: The Morisco King Who Led Andalusia's Last Rebellion

James Walker Updated

Fernando de Válor became Aben Humeya, rebel king of Granada, on Christmas Eve 1568. His guerrilla war lasted less than a year before his own men killed him.

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