57 Fun Facts About Alhambra

Which mountain range forms the backdrop to the Alhambra, rising to the south-east of Granada?

The Sierra Nevada. Its highest summit, Mulhacén, is named after one of Granada's last sultans, who legend says was buried up there.

The name Alhambra comes from Arabic al-Hamra, meaning what?

The red one. The name is short for the Arabic for 'the red fortress', most likely after the reddish clay of its outer walls.

Which river carves the ravine on the Alhambra's north side, separating it from the Albaicín?

The Darro. Small as it is, the river waters the whole palace: a canal taps it upstream and carries the flow to every pool and fountain on the hill.

Alhambra, California, named after a book about the Spanish palace, is a suburb of which city?

Los Angeles. The developer's daughter was reading a popular book of tales about the palace, and at her urging the new tract took its name from it.

Which French composer wrote the piano prelude La Puerta del Vino, named after a gate of the Alhambra?

Claude Debussy. He evoked Granada at the piano more than once though he had spent at most a few hours in Spain, and Manuel de Falla admired how Spanish the result sounded.

Who began building the Alhambra in 1238 as founder of the Emirate of Granada?

Ibn al-Ahmar. He first moved into the old Zirid stronghold on the Albaicín hill, then looked across at the ruins on the hill opposite and began a new seat there that same year.

The Alhambra's founder helped which Christian kingdom capture Muslim Seville in 1248?

Castile. Two years earlier he had given up Jaén to Ferdinand III in return for a long truce, the breathing space in which his new emirate of Granada took shape.

What shape are many of the skylights that pierce the vaults of the Alhambra's Comares Baths?

Stars. The openings were once closed with coloured glass that lit the steam rooms from above, and bath attendants are said to have opened and shut them to regulate the heat.

Which sultan's reign (1354-1391) marked the apogee of Nasrid architecture and produced the Palace of the Lions?

Muhammad V. A coup cut his first reign short after five years, but he won the throne back in 1362 and built the Palace of the Lions during the long second reign that followed.

The Alhambra's Tower of the Ladies lost its carved wooden ceiling to a museum in which German city?

Berlin. Arthur von Gwinner, the tower's last private owner, handed the building to Spain in 1891 but had its cupola dismantled, and it ended up in the city's Museum of Islamic Art.

Which is the oldest Nasrid palace still standing in the Alhambra, a pavilion by a reflecting pool?

The Partal. It spent centuries as a private house with its decoration hidden under later walls, and joined the monument only in 1891, when its owner handed it to the Spanish state.

The Alcazaba, the oldest surviving part of the Alhambra, is what kind of structure?

A citadel. The first Nasrid rulers are thought to have lived inside it while their palaces were built; after that it was purely a garrison, housing the sultan's guard and their families.

The Catholic Monarchs' flag was first raised on 2 January 1492 above which Alcazaba tower in Granada?

Torre de la Vela. A bell was hung on it soon afterwards, and for centuries its night-time chimes told farmers on the plain below when it was their turn to water their fields.

Which two symbols are carved over the arches of the Alhambra's Puerta de la Justicia?

A hand and a key. The hand is carved over the outer arch and the key over the inner one, where the Catholic Monarchs later had a Gothic Virgin and Child set just above it.

On the Generalife's most famous staircase, what takes the place of ordinary handrails?

Channels of running water. The water is drawn off the Sultan's Canal and still spills down both parapets of the laurel-shaded climb, which is why it is called the Water Stairway.

The Comares Palace courtyard is named after which plants growing in hedges beside its 34-metre pool?

Myrtles. The still pool between the hedges was designed as a mirror: it doubles the Comares Tower in its surface and breaks up the long horizontal lines of the court.

Which room in the Comares Tower is the Alhambra's largest and was the sultan's throne room?

The Ambassadors. The sultan sat in the central alcove opposite the door, and the symbolic ceiling overhead was designed to legitimise the power of the ruler enthroned beneath it.

The Alhambra throne room's ceiling of thousands of interlinked wooden pieces is read as an abstract picture of what?

The seven heavens. Scholars read the small cube at its summit as God's throne, and the holy texts carved round the hall stress divine power: a cosmic order framing the sultan seated below.

How many marble lions surround the basin of the famous fountain in the Court of the Lions?

Twelve. Each spouts water from its mouth, and a hidden cylinder in the basin lets water in and out at the same rate, so the bowl stays brim-full without ever spilling over.

The Sala de los Abencerrajes is named for a legend that a sultan did what to the clan's chiefs?

Massacred them at a banquet. Guides still point to rust-red stains in the hall's central fountain as the victims' blood, though the tale dates from the 16th century and tellers disagree on which sultan it was.

The Alhambra's Hall of the Two Sisters is named for a matching pair of what, set in its floor?

Marble slabs. The two great white flagstones flank a small fountain whose water runs out along a channel to the Court of the Lions; no legend about sisters lies behind the name.

The mountain pass where the sultan who surrendered Granada is said to have looked back at the Alhambra is called what?

The Moor's Last Sigh. In the legend his mother was unmoved, telling him he did well to weep like a woman for what he had failed to defend like a man.

The Hall of Kings' rare Nasrid-era ceiling paintings are executed on what surface?

Leather. The best known shows ten richly dressed men seated in discussion, long taken for Nasrid sultans, which gave the Hall of Kings its name; who they really are is still debated.

What is the 'stalactite'-like three-dimensional stucco used for the Alhambra's vaulted ceilings called?

Muqarnas. Thousands of small plaster cells, some 5,000 in the Hall of the Two Sisters alone, are stacked so that light from the little windows just beneath a dome plays across them.

The Nasrid motto repeated across the Alhambra's walls translates as what?

There is no victor but God. Tradition credits the phrase to the dynasty's founder, whose own title was al-Ghalib, 'the victor': hailed as a conqueror on his return from a campaign, he is said to have answered with it.

Which vizier-poet composed the verses on the Fountain of the Lions and other palace walls?

Ibn Zamrak. His poem round the fountain's rim praises the sultan and the lions and even describes how the water moves, and more of his verses line the Comares courtyard and the Hall of the Two Sisters.

In several poems carved on the Alhambra's walls, who is the 'I' that speaks?

The building itself. A gateway declares 'I am a crown on the front of my door' and a fountain 'I am a water orb', so each door, niche or basin introduces itself to whoever stands reading it.

The Alhambra's white marble columns and fountains were quarried at Macael, in which south-eastern Spanish province?

Almería. Macael's quarries are still worked: they supplied the white flagstones laid across the Court of the Lions when its ten-year restoration ended in 2012.

What was originally the most prominent colour scheme of the Alhambra's now-monochrome stucco and ceilings?

Red, blue and gold. Gold stood in for yellow to complete the three primaries; after 1492 much of the paint and gilding was whitewashed over or wore away, leaving the pale plaster seen today.

Which last sultan of Granada surrendered the Alhambra in January 1492 without it being attacked?

Boabdil. He had seized the throne from his own father, been captured and released by the Christians, and finally signed his kingdom away; histories number him Muhammad XI or XII.

The Alhambra Decree, signed at the palace on 31 March 1492, ordered the expulsion from Spain of whom?

Jews who refused to convert. They had until the end of July to leave; in 2015 Spain offered citizenship to their descendants, and King Felipe VI told a gathering of Sephardic Jews, 'How we have missed you.'

Whose ship's log opens by recalling the royal banners he saw raised over the towers of the Alhambra?

Christopher Columbus. He was in the crowd on 2 January 1492 and watched the Moorish king come out to kiss the monarchs' hands; within months the same court agreed to back his voyage west.

Which London square was home to the Alhambra, a Moorish-style music hall named after the palace?

Leicester Square. The domed building opened in 1854 as the Royal Panopticon, a hall of popular science that failed within two years; reborn as the Alhambra, it stood until 1936, when an Odeon cinema replaced it.

Which Italian-trained painter-architect designed the Renaissance palace Charles V commissioned in the Alhambra in 1526?

Pedro Machuca. He had come home from Italy as a painter; the palace became his life's work, and when he died in 1550 with it unfinished his son Luis took over.

What is the distinctive shape of the courtyard inside the square Palace of Charles V?

A circle. The ring of columns was finished, but work stalled for 15 years after the Morisco revolt of 1568 and was abandoned in 1637, leaving the emperor's palace without a roof until the 20th century.

Which queen was buried in 1504 in the Alhambra's Convent of San Francisco, later a Parador?

Isabella I. She died far to the north but had ordered that her body be taken to Granada, the prize of her reign; it lay in the convent until her grandson had her and Ferdinand moved to the Royal Chapel by the cathedral.

Whose retreating troops blew up several of the Alhambra's towers in 1812?

Napoleon's. The French had mined far more of the complex as they pulled out, and a Spanish soldier, named in some accounts as José García, is credited with cutting the fuses that saved the rest.

Which American writer lived in the Alhambra in 1829 and published Tales of the Alhambra in 1832?

Washington Irving. He talked his way into lodging in the half-ruined palace itself and gathered its legends from the families living there; a statue in the woods below now calls him 'Son of the Alhambra'.

What un-Nasrid feature did the Contreras architects add to the Court of the Lions in 1858–59?

Persian-style domes. Rafael Contreras gave a pavilion a tiled dome because that was how Europeans then thought an 'Arab' building should look; it was taken down in 1934 and a pyramid roof put back.

Which poet helped Manuel de Falla stage a famous flamenco singing contest inside the Alhambra in 1922?

Federico García Lorca. Aged 23, he lectured and wrote to drum up support for the Concurso de Cante Jondo, held over two June nights in the Plaza de los Aljibes with its prize money kept for amateur singers.

Which Andalusian monument joined the Alhambra among Spain's first UNESCO World Heritage Sites?

The Mosque of Córdoba. Both were listed in 1984 with Burgos Cathedral, El Escorial and Gaudí's Barcelona works; ten years later the Alhambra's listing was widened to take in the Albaicín, the old quarter across the valley.

The Generalife's name is usually traced to Arabic Jannat al-'Arif, most commonly rendered as what?

Garden of the Architect. That is the commonest of several readings, others being the Governor's or the Artist's garden, though the name's true origin is uncertain; the sultans used the estate to get away from court business.

Which artist's 1922 visit to the Alhambra inspired his later 'regular divisions of the plane'?

M. C. Escher. He returned in the 1930s to spend days drawing the tile patterns, then did what the palace's tile-makers never had: he filled the interlocking shapes with birds, fish and reptiles.

Which British architect's 1842-45 book on the Alhambra helped spread the 'Alhambresque' fashion?

Owen Jones. He went on to build a replica of the Court of the Lions inside London's Crystal Palace at Sydenham in 1854, so Victorians could stroll through an 'Alhambra Court' without leaving England.

The metre-high winged 'Alhambra vases', such as the Vase of the Gazelles, are masterpieces of which kind of ceramic?

Lustreware. A third firing fixed a film of metal onto the glaze to give a golden sheen, a speciality of Islamic potters partly because tableware of real gold and silver was frowned on.

Recuerdos de la Alhambra, the classical guitar piece inspired by the palace, was composed by whom?

Francisco Tárrega. His patron Concepción Gómez de Jacoby took him to Granada, and in 1899 he dedicated the piece to her; its rapid tremolo makes one guitar sound like two, so listeners often take it for a duet.

The Alhambra Museum shares its building with what?

Granada's fine arts collection. It hangs on the upper floor, above the Alhambra Museum, in a palace no king ever lived in: when Philip IV visited in 1628 it was still unfinished and he could not stay there.

Which country made Memories of the Alhambra, a 2018 TV drama about an augmented-reality game set in Granada?

South Korea. Its title is the English name of the guitar classic Recuerdos de la Alhambra, and a mysterious guitarist haunts the game its hero, played by Hyun Bin, follows to Granada.

An ornate bronze lamp from the Alhambra's demolished main mosque, dated 1305, is now displayed where?

Madrid's National Archaeological Museum. Granada has to make do with a replica in the Alhambra Museum; the inscription round the original's rim is what dates both the lamp and the lost mosque it lit.

Which French painter visited the Alhambra in 1910 to study Moorish art?

Henri Matisse. He spent three December days at the palace and went on to paint in Morocco two years later; a century on, the Alhambra marked the visit with an exhibition tracing his fascination with the East.

What did the Catholic Monarchs name the town they built outside Granada after fire destroyed their siege camp?

Santa Fe. They rebuilt the burnt camp as a permanent walled town, towers and all, and it outlived the siege: it still stands on the plain below Granada.

What was the Rawda, whose foundations lie between the former mosque and the Palace of the Lions?

Boabdil, the last sultan, had his ancestors' remains moved to an unknown site at Mondújar in the Alpujarras before the surrender.

What did Granada's last sultan remove from the Alhambra to Mondújar?

His ancestors' remains. He had the dynasty's dead taken south rather than leave them behind, which is why archaeologists who later dug the burial ground found its graves almost all empty.

The Renaissance gate at the entrance to the Alhambra Woods, built in 1536, is named after which fruit?

Pomegranates. Three stone pomegranates crown the arch above Charles V's imperial coat of arms; granada is the Spanish word for the fruit, so the gate's emblem doubles as the city's name.

Which drink has a Granada company sold under the Alhambra name since 1925?

Beer. Cervezas Alhambra has brewed in the city since 1925, the founding year it still puts on its best-known lager, Reserva 1925; the brewery now belongs to the Mahou San Miguel group.

What wrecked the original ceiling of the hall at the west end of the Alhambra's Court of the Lions in 1590?

A gunpowder explosion. A powder store in the valley below blew up and shattered the hall's fragile plasterwork ceiling, which was pulled down and replaced with a Baroque vault.

What is the Silla del Moro, on the hilltop above the Generalife?

A ruined fort guarding the water supply. For all its name, 'Seat of the Moor', it held no throne: soldiers there kept watch over the canal on which both the Generalife and the Alhambra depended.