Overview
- A new show at Sala Borbón Lorenzana presents around 100 loans that place the start of construction of the Catedral Primada in 1226 within the daily life of 13th‑century Toledo.
- Curators Ricardo Izquierdo Benito and Daniel Gómez Aragonés organized documents, plans, images and objects from chapter and municipal archives, the Mezquita de Tornerías and regional museums to tell a city‑centered story.
- The exhibition stresses that the site remained more mosque than church in 1226, that work began at the cabecera while the mosque stayed in use, and that demolition and Gothic building unfolded gradually over many decades.
- Exhibits highlight Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada’s leadership and the cathedral’s financing, noting cathedral revenues and royal cooperation from Fernando III were crucial to laying the first stone.
- Displays also show Toledo’s dependence on nearby comarcas for food and goods and qualify the familiar ‘three cultures’ label by presenting legally separate Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities with extensive social and economic interaction.