In the centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ the town known as ‘…the heart of Andalucia…’, because of its central location between the cities of Malaga, Granada, Córdoba and Sevilla, was given the Latin name of Antikaria by its Roman conquerors. The town was a flourishing commercial centre for grain, wool, the wares of local craftsmen, and it also became renowned for the quality of the locally produced olive oil.

The Moors conquered Antikaria in AD711 and changed its name to Medina Antaquira. Almost exactly 500 years later the Christians began the Reconquista of the area in earnest and in AD1410 Fernando of Aragon finally re-took the city from the Moors. After his coronation in 1412 he became Don Fernando de Antequera and gave his name to the main street of Calle Infante Don Fernando. Sadly much of the Moorish architecture has not survived.

Antequera is dominated by la Peña de los Enamorados, an eerily strange three humped hill, named it is said, after the tragic suicide leap of a young Christian man and his Moorish sweetheart to escape pursuing Moorish soldiers. The story of their doomed love is told by the English writer Robert Southey in Laila and Manuel.

The town has excellent museum collections and a wealth of historical remains including numerous examples of the Mannerist and Baroque styles of architecture; several churches; the walls of the Alcazaba (the Moorish castle of which there is little left); a Roman baths complex; and the two largest Bronze Age dolmens in Europe: Dólmen de Menga and Dólmen de Viera. Dólmen de Menga is 25m in diameter, 4m high and constructed from 32 megaliths (huge upright stones). Excavations revealed that it contained several hundred skeletons.

One of the most unusual and evocative aspects of Antequera’s history is that in 1504 a ‘humanist university’, Réal Colegiata de Santa Maria de la Mayor, was founded here and became a magnet for the writers and scholars of the Spanish Renaissance of the 16th century. This is all the more truly amazing because the ‘Catholic Monarchs’ (Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castile), who had completed the Christian Reconquista, expelled the Moorish and Jewish populations in 1492, and initiated the Spanish Inquisition, were still alive and in power. However ‘Renaissance Humanism’, although it encouraged the Protestant cause, also encouraged more detailed study of the Bible, because it was the original source material of the Christian religion, rather than the Humanism of today, which is more akin to being agnostic or an atheist.

Réal Colegiata de Santa Maria de la Mayor stands looking out over the city ‘…above the ruins of St Mary’s Roman Baths against the background of the walls and gardens of the Moslem fortress…’ The original church was said to be a mixture of Italian Gothic and Spanish Renaissance with ‘…Florentine windows…a Mannerist coffered ceiling…Baroque plastering…and a richly decorated Mannerist façade…’. Most unusually, for the time, there were no niches in the walls for iconic statuettes. This was believed to be due to the influence of Erasmus (of Rotterdam and a leading Humanist) on the Antequeran Humanist Juan de Vilches, who was Head of the Church Council at this time.

A professorship or chair of language and grammar was inaugurated at the Réal Colegiata de Santa Maria de la Mayor and as a result a school of Spanish ‘Golden Age’ poets became established there during the 16th century. These included Luis Martin de la Plaza, Cristobalina Fernández de Alarcón, and, one of the best known, Pedro Espinosa.

Espinosa was born in 1578 in Antequera and died on 21st October 1650 at Sanlúcar de Barrameda. He published several works but he is chiefly remembered for his collection Flores de Poetas Ilustres (literally Flowers from Illustrious Poets)published in 1605. A statue of him stands on the Plaza de Escribanos (Writers Square) in front of the Mannerist façade of Réal Colegiata de Santa Maria de la Mayor.

Across the Plaza de Escribanos, facing Espinosa’s statue, is the Giant’s Arch, built in 1585, which incorporates the Antequeran coat of arms plus remains of Roman epigraphs and statues. Down a flight of stone steps and directly facing the statue of Pedro Espinosa is El Escribano – The Writer. There could not be a more fitting commemoration of him.

El Escribano is a dream for both writers and non-writers. Partially shaded by el Reloj de Papabellotas (clock tower), it is intimate, discreet, old fashioned, with a great ambience. The restaurant specialises in traditional but very imaginative Andalucian cuisine using only fresh local produce. The only disappointment is that their ‘fried milk’ dessert is always off the menu!

The Réal Colegiata de Santa Maria de la Mayor flourished for nearly 200 years on the Plaza de Escribanos until 1692 when the Colegiata was moved to San Sebastian Parish Church on 5th June of that year. San Sebastian, which stands on San Sebastian Square, is a 16th/17th century Renaissance-Baroque church bearing the coat of arms of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. It was one of the most creative periods in the city’s history.

After the Colegiata removed, the Church of Santa Maria fell into decay until the 20th century when it was restored to some of its former glory. Today the Church has a spacious and peaceful aspect. Unusually, there is a skull and crossbones, which is a Masonic symbol in the UK and dates back to the Knights Templar, in front of the cross on the altar; and the Church possesses a rare copy of a painting by Reubens showing Santa Ana with the Virgin Mary (St Ann was the mother of Mary), the original of which hangs in the Carmelite Temple at Amberes. Remembrances of past glories.