"It was built as the minaret for the Great Mosque of Seville in al-Andalus, Moorish Spain, during the reign of the Almohad dynasty, with a Renaissance-style belfry added by the Catholics after the expulsion of the Muslims from the area. The Giralda was registered in 1987 as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, along with the Alcázar and the General Archive of the Indies. The tower is 104.1 m (342 ft) in height and remains one of the most important symbols of the city, as it has been since the Middle Ages.
The main body has a square floor plan, in which the west face faces the Patio de los Naranjos, the east face the Plaza de la Virgen de los Reyes, the north face Placentines Street and the south face the Plaza del Triunfo.
Upper bodies
The upper section of refined Renaissance style was carried out by Hernán Ruiz II, between 1558 and 1568, in which the following parts are distinguished, decorated with reliefs: In the first place is the body of bells with the same square area as the bottom. It was built between 1560 and 1562 and is finished off with the so-called terrace of the lilies, due to the four jars of lilies originally placed in 1751 and redone in bronze by the goldsmith Fernando Marmolejo Camargo during the 1981 restoration. At the base of this body there are 16 lion heads, four for each front. On each of the 16 oculi, four for each front, is the head of a cherub. On each front there is a triple inflected pediment there is a male head that represents each of the four major prophets respectively: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezequiel and Daniel. Above is the body of the clock, whose design was commissioned to Fray José Cordero in 1765. Body of the stars or of the well, finished on all its sides by semicircular arches, in whose frieze there is a biblical inscription that runs through the four faces of the tower and says "TURRIS (E) - FORTISSIMA (S) - NOMEN DNI (O) - PROVERB (N). 18 " (whose translation into Spanish is "La t The strongest tower is the Name of the Lord"), hanging inside the tower's oldest bell, that of San Miguel de las Victorias, which strikes the hours of the clock. On each front there is an arch and on each of the two spandrels of each arch there are male heads that must represent the minor prophets: Zechariah, Malachi, Hosea, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah and Zephaniah.Body of the carambolas or round, the first circular, and named for the spherical stone finials. The plume, which ends in a bronze sphere dome on which the weathervane sculpture sits, is known as the jar, and is 1.45 meters in diameter. The weathervane that represents the victory of the Christian Faith, known as Giraldillo, was made between 1566 and 1568, and was completed on August 13 of this year. The statue was cast in bronze by Bartolomé Morel.
Dimensions
The primitive minaret is 50.85 m high and has a square plan with a side of 13.5 m. The body of bells, on the same floor as the minaret, reaches a height of 60.45 m. Above it is the terrace of the lilies, which reaches 65.30 m, where the body of the clock begins, with a square floor plan and 6.8 m on each side, which rises to 74.40 m. Above, the body of the carambolas, 4.5 m in diameter in plan, reaches up to 81.00 m, and the plume tops the tower, which reaches up to 87.00 m. Including the Giraldillo statue, the total height is 94.69 m above ground level. The Giraldillo figure is 3.5 meters tall, seven and a half meters including the pedestal, and weighs 1,300 kg. The labarum that indicates the direction of the wind weighs 180 kg, and the two-meter palm tree weighs 91 kg. The Giralda tower has 35 ramps2 wide enough to allow the person in charge of summoning the population to prayer to climb them on horseback, although at no time has it been possible to document that it was used for this, and a final section of 17 steps to access the bell level, which is the area that can currently be visited. A copy of the Giraldillo sculpture is preserved at the entrance to the door of San Cristóbal or del Príncipe, in the cathedral.
The Giralda has a total of 24 bells, of which 18 are overturning and 6 are clapper bells. It is, therefore, the cathedral in Spain with the largest number of bells, without taking into account the carillons.45 The bells, which were in a poor state of conservation, were restored in 1998, undertaking various actions: they were melted six new ones, ten were welded and four were refinished, among other improvement actions.45 Below is a list of all the bells found in the Cathedral of Santa María de la Sede in Seville"
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