Tarazona

Near the end of the Rúa, almost at the crossing with Aires street, there was an old building which scholars believe to be connected with the main synagogue, set in a block of the structure which is very different from the current one and perhaps also connected with the current Arcedianos square.

Despite being the most important property in the Jewish quarter, the synagoguedid not visibly stand out from its surroundings as this could have been construed as a challenge to the Christian churches which wished their supremacy to be quite clear at all times. As regards its size, two historic references are conserved about the two most numerous assemblies of which we have documentary evidence: That held on August 17th 1391 attended by forty people and that which took place in September 1491 by sixty seven.

The synagogue consisted of a single nave oriented towards Jerusalem, a sloping wooden roof which was accessed via a courtyard or azara, one of whose arches is still blinded. The loggia of windows is still conserved, now blinded, where light came in. It had a collection plate for the needy as well as the women´s synagogue with its own sisterhood, segregated by way of a gallery on the upper storey. The construction, which bordered the rabbi´s house, was subject to various conditioning works in the 15th century. Nothing is known about the Mikveh.

The first evidence of its existence dates back to 1367 when the material desolation of Tarazona, involved in frontiers clashes with Castile, attained alarming levels. The situation was so bad that Pedro IV consulted the court which met in Saragossa in 1367 about the possibility of its demolition in view of the threat raised by the advance of the Castilian troops. The King changed his mind and on September 20th 1368 the first permission is received to rebuild the main synagogue and five days later the small synagogue.On September 8th 1371 Bayel Constantin, a Jewish doctor, obtained the episcopal blessing to open up an oratory or midrashwhich could be attended by those its owner allowed just like the old synagogues of the city.

A short stretch of Aires street on the right leads to Arcedianos square, a crossroads of profoundly medieval bearing. Arcedianos square was wider than now because of some posteriors backyards. It was that for one week the tents were put up in celebration of the sukkot or Feast of Booths like those which were put up in the desert after their departure from Egypt.

The Cathedral, dedicated to Nuestra Señora de la Huerta, brings together a range of different styles from the early Gothic of the 13th century to its latest manifestations in the 15th century, to connect with the Renaissance of the 16th century, fitting in with the architectonic tradition of the Aragonese Mudejar. It was declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1931.

The oldest part is the head from the second quarter of the 13th century, designed in line with the Gothic models of Northern France.

The vault of the main chapel is decorated with a cycle of grisaille carried out by Alonso González in 1562-1565, following the example of the Sistine chapel. The main retable in Roman style was put up between 1608-1614.

The dome, implemented by the architect Juan Lucas Botero in 1543-1545, has interior decoration comprising plasterwork by Alonso González in 1546-1549.

The main access to the temple is situated at the Northern arm of the transept. It is presided over by a masonry gateway by the sculptor Bernal del Fuego (1578-1585), protected by a vast Baroque portico built between 1733 and 1735 according to a design by the Carmelite architect Friar José Alberto Pina. The cloister is erected on the southern flank of the church. Put up between 1500 and 1529, it is one of the masterpieces of Aragonese Mudejar architecture at its final stage. The most prominent element is the complex system of plasterwork lining the large windows, largely reworked in the past century.

It is worth noting that its archives hold an interesting collection of parchments found in the covers of codices and manuscripts, mainly biblical, without forgetting a miscellaneous section (a page of the Haggadah, verses of the Moed Katan in the Talmud of Babylon, an annotated Midrash Rabbah and a treatise on medicine in Arab with Hebrew characters).

The complexity and variety of the Episcopal Palace, developed in line with different architectonic programmes on each of its sides, also complies with the sum of the constructions sharing space after the Christian conquest at the site of the old Moslem fortress. On the defences of the Zuda, at the highest point of the city, the residence of the monarchs of Aragón was erected which gradually added different medieval constructions and rebirths with an important enlargement in the 18th century. Alongside the solid façade, a façade arising from the confluence of Juderia street with Alta street, one of the palace gates opens, the one giving access to the Tarazona Study Centre, the Fernando the Catholic Institution, dependent on Saragossa County Council, up the street, the steps cross, via a passageway, as far as the vantage point of the Palacio square where the Zuda gate established another of the limits of the Jewish quarter, at its connection with the upper district. Rom the square where the Episcopal Palace, the church of Magdalena and the Arch of Cadena have their confluence, there are some wonderful views over the Plaza de Toros Vieja (Old Bull Ring square) and the cathedral of Tarazona.

At the access to España suare via the narrow Pasaje del Comercio which opens out as from Bonifacio Doz street at the site of Merced street, the monument to Cipotegato stands out against the spectacular façade of the town hall. The square, also known as Mercado (market) square, established the limit of the Jewish quarter and represents an age-old commercial and meeting place between the three cultures that lived side by side in Tarazona for centuries. The «El Cipotegato» festival, declared as being in the National Tourist Interest, is held on August 27th as the start of the patron saint feast in honour of San Atilano in which this odd-looking character, dressed as a jester, is taken through the city under a shower of tomatoes thrown by the crowd. At the Town hall building, erected on the old wall in the 16th century to be used as a fish market and public granary, worthy of mention are the gallery of arches, a replica of the high cloister of the monastery of Veruela, the coats-of-arms and characters adorning the façade (including Hercules, Kakos and Pierres) and, in particular, the striking frieze portraying Charles V in Bologna, a real history lesson sculpted in plaster. The cavalcade of the emperor, based on the engravings by Robert Péril and Nikolas Hogenberg from the Netherlands, not only affords the testimony of a complete programme of de imperial exaltation with examples in various countries in Europe, but which also attests to the importance and power of Tarazona in the Renaissance.

The northern limit of the Old Jewish quarter is marked out by the barbacan which rises in Conde street and at whose rear there are a series of overhanging constructions called the Hanging Houses and occupied by the lower nobility and lineages like the los López de Gurrea, Señores de Torrellas, los Fayos and Santa Cruz.

According to a document from July 1492, the Jewish butcher´s was situated opposite the brotherhood of the aljama whose cameras adjoin Nueva Juderia square (the current Nuestra Señora square). It location was also near some houses and an orchard belonging to the chaplaincy of García Ruiz, situated on the Selcos irrigation ditch. In this way, the water course crossed the premises of the butcher´s which, along with the slaughterhouses, included a yard to keep the animals.

In 1503 a dispute arose about the ownership of some houses attributed at the time of the expulsion to the chaplaincy of Canon García Ruiz and which the bailiff Pedro de Talavera improperly sold at a later date.

If we assume that this property, bordering the entrance to the synagogue, is the same as that mentioned in the text from 1492, the Jewish butcher´s would be where today Rua Baja street is located, on the stretch on Selcos near Arcedianos square.

The Jewish cemetery was situated at the current site of the Carmen Convent and the old Spanish Match Factory along with some plots and small gardens behind Hoyas street. In other words, it was situated between Caldenoguea street and Mataperros way, on a gentle promontory bordering Almehora square whose fountain is recorded since at least the 1380´s, near the Carrera de Cervera gate and the Era Gate in the parish of Losilla. Owned by the aljama and limited by a fence, it was located on virgin earth, on a slope, with the tombs facing Jerusalem.

The burial was carried out in trapezoidal coffins such as those found in Calatayud and Teruel with an approximate length of 2.3 metres in which squared-section iron nails were used to assemble the framework. Sometimes there was only a prism-shaped, carved stone was sufficient without any inscription, with a view to indicating its location.

At the time of the expulsion the cemetery was attributed along with the orchard and nearby plots – properties valued at 1,025 sueldos jaqueses (currency)– to the bailiff Pedro Talavera. It would appear that the latter decided to divide the space into parcels as in 1494 a purchase agreement pertaining to a courtyard to be used as a plot states its location in Montiver, in that part of the city in the graveyard where Jews are usually buried.

Just symbolically slide past the Plaza de España gate and the first on the right is Juderia street. The closed narrowness of the first stretch whose layout is purely medieval, does Little to prepare the traveller for what is to come: the street opens out at the foot of a slope at whose upper end, hanging and overlooked on the houses of the Jews, were the houses of the nobles who settled the high district or Cinto de Tarazona district. What in the plan is barely a discontinuous line separating the Conde street from the Jewish quarter, in the field is a drop on which the barbican was situated and which marked the differences between the inhabitants of one district and the other. The structure of these houses raised on the rock itself with projected façades and walls secured by solid buttresses, constitutes a real architectonic catalogue in which the more modest Jews resided, mainly craftsmen. Juderia street turns at a bend on the left, forming a broad space where it is possible to behold, on the one side, the fortress and the height of the Episcopal Palace, settled on the old Moslem Zuda, and on the other, the imposing presence of the Hanging Houses.

At number 9 a 16th century gateway marks the start of Baja street in an area encompassing the Moses de Portella Interpretation Centre for Jewish culture of Tarazona, a space dedicated to the Sephardis of Tarazona which includes audiovisuals, reconstructions of the Jewish quarter in 3D, a memorial with the main Jewish surnames in the area and panels about the Jews and their customs.

The steps of cuesta de los Arcedianos connect the Old Jewish quarter to the New Jewish quarter, created in the early decades of the 15th century. It is a narrow, steep alley which crosses a considerable height to go down to river level and its route continues to hold a certain air of mystery. Once you have descended, on the left there is the passageway connecting with Marrodán street and on the right the Nuestra Señora or Nueva Juderia square around which a new Jewish district was developed. At the same square a narrow passageway has the rights of way of an old street in the district, passing underneath a contemporary building and slightly further on, between numbers 20 and 22 of Paseo de los Fueros de Aragón, an iron gate cuts off passage to an old medieval alley, now out of use; the remains of what was the last residence of a collective based in Tarazona for centuries.

The first documentary mention of the New Jewish quarter dates back to 1440 and at its origin there are demographic and public hygiene factors, as certain unhygienic activities such as the tanneries, abattoirs etc. could only be carried out at a minimum distance of fifty cubits from the residential district.Whilst the butchers were located in the parish of Santa Cruz, the problem did not exist which was caused in 1417 when the King requires the Jews to have their own macellum. It was located in the outskirts of the channel of Selcos stream and constructed near Nuestra Señora square.

Hence, at a second stage, the urban occupation was extended via Cuesta de los Arcedianos to join around Santa María or Nuestra Señora square, protected in the part nearest the River Queiles by a barbacan. Its effective segregation was achieved by means of a gate situated on the last stretch of Marrodán street by means of a gate and arch dual-locking system known as the Arch of Santa Ana which had previously only been used as a sewer and we would be right in thinking that it coincided with the limestone of the oven. A second gate was opened at the western end of the square in the vicinity of the flour mill of Cubo.

The square became a place for celebrations (coronation, birth, betrothals of the monarchs) and manifestations of pain (the death of Juan II). As the wife of Pedro Lamata declares before the inquisitors against the mother of Ximeno Cabrillas when:

When they removed the Torah she retorted:

The name Old Jewish Quarter was coined in the 15th century in contrast to the New. During the Late Middle Ages, from the end of the wars between Castile and Aragón (1357-1369) until the time of the expulsion, the Jewish community of Tarazona occupied an urban area near the Zuda fortress, the prime symbol of Moslem power and then of Christian power. In the last three decades of the 14th century the district was extended between the exterior of the city barbacan, the Selcos irrigation ditch and the Zuda. This area can be specified more precisely thanks to two documents: the purchase agreement carried out in 1376 by Fernando Pérez Calvillo pertaining to the several properties owned by Jordán Pérez de Urries, including twenty one censos on properties in the Jewish quarter and the donation made by said clergyman and his brother Bishop Pedro, in favour of the city for a slightly greater figure. Both texts record the limits of the Jewish quarter between the city barbacan, the Selcos irrigation ditch, the crag of the Zuda, the market and the gate of the city. This solace corresponds to the streets currently called Juderia, Alta street, Aires street, Baja street and Arcedianos square.

The enclosure of this Old Jewish quarter, closed off at the Selcos irrigation ditch, can be accessed by several gates. There is documentary evidence for those located at Nueva Square (the current España square) at the intersection of the Juderia and Aires streets with España square and the so-called Porticiella on the road between the Zuda and the Selcos irrigation ditch known as Baja street, on the lower stretch occupied until recently by a tower of the wall which enclosed the so-called Cubo mill. Under the Zuda, on Alta street, opposite the Tarazona Study Centre, there was a third gate.

The northern limit is marked out by the barbacan which is situated on Conde street at the rear of which there are a series of overhanging constructions called (Hanging Houses) and occupied by the lower nobility and lineages like the los López de Gurrea, Señores de Torrellas, los Fayos and Santa Cruz.

The southern boundary follows the course of the Selcos irrigation ditch on whose left bank was a brick wall or adobe wall coinciding with the rear of the alignment of houses on Baja street. It was accessed from here thanks to a ponticiello or bridge of boards as the irrigation ditch was not covered. The blinded arches of the building which has a façade both on Baja street as well as on Arcedianos square demonstrates that the street level was considerably lower than the current one.

Down the road lies the Alta street, formerly known as Sinagoga street, which forms the main thoroughfare of the Jewish quarter. Between its old houses it is still possible to find some closed up alleys revealing a more complex, maze-like medieval structure. Near the end of the street, almost at the crossing with Aires street, there stands an old building which scholars relate with the main synagogue, located in a block whose structure is very different from the current one and perhaps also connecting the current Arcedianos square. According to the documents, the Jewish quarter of Tarazona had a main synagogue and a minor synagogue, the former having been set on fire during the War of the Two Pedros and rebuilt afterwards as from 1371. It was in this area, near Mercado square, where the houses of the most prosperous Jews in the aljama were located.

Back in the direction of the old Zuda, Bajastreet completes the route via the Old Jewish quarter. On its course, stop at the Mata or Corderos square on which the rear of the Episcopal Palace is located to continue in the direction of Recodos street at whose intersection the third of the district´s gates must have been located, the one known as Porticella.

San Francisco square – where the Oficina Municipal de Turismo and the church of San Francisco are located – allows you to behold Tarazona as a whole from the other side of the River Queiles and locate the space occupied by the Jewish quarter on the right of the Mudejar tower of the church of Magdalena which breaks up the profile of the city in the heights. The church, endowed with a beautiful cloister and a 15th century convent, is currently occupied by the Official Language School. The ascent to the Jewish quarter starts at Visconti street which emerges on the other side of the river where there are some houses of great nobility such as the building of the hotel Condes de Visconti, carefully recovered as accommodation with charm. Visconti street connects to Bonifacio Doz street where the church of Our Lady of Mercy is situated with a beautiful, non-polychromed wood Baroque retable; the outbuildings of the old convent of the same name currently house the Professional Music Conservatory. Just off the route, particularly indicated for literature lovers, just a few metres from the church of Our Lady of Mercy, on Baltasar Gracián street, there stands the church of Hogar Doz were the Aragonese author of El Criticón (The Critic) isprobably buried.

In Barrio Verde street in the New Jewish quarter there stands the large house remodelled upon the order of Moser Santafe by the MudejarMohamed Darocano in 1502. The Santafé were the first convert family of great merchants to achieve noble status. Currently called the Santafé palace, it still conserves part of the heraldic coat-of-arms on its façade.

This is a building put up only two years after almost all the Santafé of Tarazona were convicted by the Inquisition (with the exception of those nearest the canon of the cathedral who was the grandchild of Moser Esperandeu, called Ezequiel Azaimel before 1414). As recently as fifty years people were living there who still bore this surname.