Cordoba, a city with genius

Córdoba has been shaped by geniuses since the dawn of time. One of them still resides in the city and continues to add to its magnificence. We are talking about the writer, poet, playwright and screenwriter Antonio Gala, whose extraordinary work can be observed through his Foundation.

The saga of the most distinguished characters begins with by the stoic Cordovan Seneca, whose spirit observes how life passes by from his statue in La Puerta de Almodóvar. He left such an imprint that the personality of the city would not be understood without understanding the stoic traits of his thought and character. The treatise ''Sobre la tranquilidad del alma" (On the tranquillity of the soul) is an extremely personal guide, but it also serves to peer into this ancient city.

Averroes, doctor, mathematician, Aristotelian philosopher and creator of a school of thought, suffered the wrath of power, like Seneca, but his work has also lasted into the present. Just like Maimónides, he was a philosopher, a doctor and an astronomer, and his legacy greatly influenced all subsequent Hebrew culture. The Córdoba synagogue (14th century), is an extraordinary building in the renowned Jewish quarter, and here you should stop to learn about the time and thought of the author. Both geniuses have their own monuments, but Ibn Firnás, from Córdoba and who was the first to fly with a parachute, even has his own bridge.

In the Plaza Maimónides, the Calle Averroes ends and street where Luis de Góngora starts, the Calle de Las Pavas, now called Tomás Conde. A giant of literature and imitated for centuries, he was defended by the Generation of '27 and was actually born and died in Córdoba. He composed a poem dedicated to the city, which reads: ¡Oh siempre gloriosa patria mía / tanto por plumas cuanto por espadas! (Oh always glorious homeland of mine / as much by feathers as by swords!), as well as a literary deposit to which Gala is also indebted.

This long line of geniuses, including the bullfighter Manolete, is not complete with the master painter, the extraordinary Julio Romero de Torres. The museum opened in his honour, in the renowned Plaza del Potro, exhibits the masterpieces of this symbolist, modernist artist who was capable of expressing the culture of his country without resorting to filters.