Logbook · 9 places

What to see and do in Maqueda

What to see and do in Maqueda (Torrijos, Toledo): 9 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones

When to go to Maqueda: festival calendar

April: Virgen de los Dados and the Moors and Christians (last Sunday of April)

How far each place is from the centre of Maqueda

Church of Santa María de los Alcázares 50 m
Castle of la Vela 200 m

Towns near Maqueda

What to see in Quismondo 6.1 km · 4 places
What to see in Alcabón 7 km · 4 places
What to see in Santo Domingo-Caudilla 7.1 km · 4 places
What to see in Santa Olalla 7.1 km · 9 places
What to see in Hormigos 7.5 km · 3 places
What to see in Novés 8.8 km · 5 places
What to see in Torrijos 12 km · 9 places
What to see in Escalona 12 km · 10 places

Spain › Castilla-La Mancha › Toledo › Torrijos › Maqueda

What to see and do in Maqueda

Maqueda
Village
Municipality of the comarca of Torrijos, in the province of Toledo, head of the duchy that Charles I created in 1530 for Diego de Cárdenas and Teresa Enríquez; it is dominated by the castle of la Vela, a fortress of ancient origins rebuilt in the fifteenth century and today the seat of the Historical Museum of the Civil Guard, and it preserves stretches of wall with a gate of Caliphal date; between 1422 and 1430 the rabbi Moses Arragel translated the Hebrew Bible into Castilian here in the manuscript known as the Alba Bible, and the second tract of Lazarillo de Tormes takes place in the town.
Castle of la Vela
Monument
The Castillo de la Vela, or castle of Maqueda, is owned by the Ministry of the Interior and has held the status of Historic-Artistic Monument since 1931. It stands on a pre-existing fortress that, around the year 981, the architect Fatho ben Ibrahim el Omeya enlarged by order of Almanzor; in 1083 it was conquered by Alfonso VI of León and in 1177 Alfonso VIII granted it, together with Maqueda, to the Order of Calatrava. In 1465 it passed to Cardinal Mendoza and later to the commander Gutierre de Cárdenas, who rebuilt and enlarged it in the 15th century without completing its interior. Isabella the Catholic resided there for a time together with her friend Beatriz de Bobadilla. It today houses the Historical Museum of the Guardia Civil.
Church of Santa María de los Alcázares
Monument
The church of Santa María de los Alcázares, in Maqueda (Toledo), is a 15th-century Gothic-Mudéjar temple with three naves that preserves Renaissance ceramics from Talavera. On 3 June 1931, during the Second Republic, it was declared an architectural and artistic monument belonging to the National Artistic Treasure, by a decree published the following day in the Gaceta de Madrid and signed by the president of the provisional government, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, and the minister of Education, Marcelino Domingo. It is currently listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), with the category of monument.
Tower of la Vela y Puerta Califal
Monument
Remains of the old town wall, among which stands out a gate from the caliphal period, a testament to the Andalusi past of Maqueda. The Torre de la Vela and the arches of the church are also remains of that wall; the Caliphal Gate is attached to the head of the church of Santa María de los Alcázares, built in the 15th century in Gothic-Mudéjar style next to this gate, whose two arches are in fact former gates of the medieval wall.
The Justice Pillar of the Town of Maqueda
Monument
Jurisdictional column or pillory of the town of Maqueda, installed around 1500 as a symbol of the power to administer justice. It bears the carved coat of arms of the Cárdenas family, lords of the town, and originally had four lion sculptures at its base, one of which has disappeared.
Maqueda in the Lazarillo de Tormes
Curiosity
The second treatise of the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes, published in 1554, takes place in Maqueda, where Lázaro serves a stingy cleric who nearly starves him to death. The boy begins pilfering bread from a chest that the cleric jealously guards, until the cleric, hearing at night the whistle of the key hidden in Lázaro's mouth, mistakes it for a snake; on discovering the trick, he gives him a tremendous beating and dismisses him. The episode is one of the most memorable in the work for its rawness and its portrait of the hunger and greed of the clergy of the period.
Virgen de los Dados and the Moors and Christians
Activity
The feast of the Virgen de los Dados is celebrated in Maqueda on the last Sunday of April. That day, a re-enactment of Moors and Christians is performed in front of the town's castle, a tradition that gives its name and fixed date to the town's patronal festivity.
Moisés Arragel and the Alba Bible
Historical milestone
The rabbi Moisés Arragel lived here between 1422 and 1430 and translated the Hebrew Bible into Castilian on the commission of the master of Calatrava, glossing it from the Jewish tradition. The resulting manuscript is known today as the Alba Bible.
The 1530 duchy
Historical milestone
Carlos I created the dukedom in 1530 and granted it to Diego de Cárdenas and to Teresa Enríquez. The family had rebuilt the fortress in the fifteenth century and with the title turned the town into the head of a seigneurial estate on the road to Extremadura.