Built under the Umayyad dynasty between AD600 and 961 on the site of a Visigothic church, the Mezquita is an extraordinary achievement. Its 856 colourful columns of jasper, granite, marble and onyx also benefitted from masonry left over from a temple on the sight of what had been a thriving Roman city. With 11 aisles and 12 bays it resembles the great mosque of Damascus. Bizarrely, in 1523, into this harmonious space, a Western-style cathedral nave was inserted on the orders of Emperor Charles V, who regretted the decision when he saw it, saying: “You have built here what you or anyone might have built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique in the world.”