04/06/99-The Sign of Seville

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040699-father and boy on balcony with NODO ensign.JPG (18903 bytes)
Sevillanos hang skirts of fabric over their balconies during Semana Santa bearing the sign of Seville 040699-Sevilles City Hall.JPG (23225 bytes)The Seville  Ayuntamiento (city hall) facade is the best example of Plateresque architecture   (silversmith) in Andalusia.040699-close up of the Seville Ayuntamiento (City Hall) facade.JPG (42966 bytes)
The ornate, baroque designs were  termed  Plateresque because they resemble the detailed work of silversmiths. 040699-detail of the NODO symbol on the Seville Ayuntamiento (City Hall).JPG (27312 bytes)
The NODO symbol over and old entrance to the City Hall.040699-a water main shut-off valve street cover bears the NODO symbol.JPG (26623 bytes)
The NODO symbol is even included on every water main cover.040699-sewer covers are claimed by the NODO symbol.JPG (49534 bytes)
Utility covers bear the symbol.

EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNAL

April 6, 1999

Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville

The Sign of Seville

Sevillanos hang skirts of fabric over their balconies during Semana Santa. On the blood-red fabric there is an ensign. It looks like a figure eight, with letters on either side. In fact, this curious emblem is emblazoned everywhere in Seville, from the walls of the Ayuntamiento (City Hall), to the sewer covers, to the sides of the municipal buses.

It is a play on words. It is Seville’s sign. The figure eight represents a skein of wool, the Spanish word for which is madeja. On either side of the madeja are the letters NO and DO. Together they are read, NO (madeja) DO, or "No me ha dejado", meaning "she has not deserted me".

"She has not deserted me" were the words reputedly uttered by Alfonso X (the Wise), after Seville remained loyal to him in the course of a dispute with his son Sancho during the 13th century Reconquest of Spain. The war between the Moors and the Christians, which started in the north, arrived in Andalusia with a decided Christian victory at Las Nevas de Tolosa in 1212. Seville and Cordoba were the last to fall under Christian rule. By the late 13th century only the Nasrid kingdom of Granada remained under Moorish control. This was when the Nasrid princes constructed the Alhambra, their "Paradise on Earth"—and their ultimate expression of aesthetic refinement and imperial power, belying an image of imminent decline. Meanwhile, Christian monarchs like Alfonso X and Pedro I enlisted Moorish craftsmen to build churches and palaces in the reconquered territories, renaming the people Mudejar, literally meaning "those permitted to stay". In 1492 Granada finally fell to Fernando and Isabel of Aragon and Castilla, commonly known as the Catholic Monarchs.

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