Antequera - Real Colegiata de Santa Maria

Antequera was known during Roman times as "Anticaria" and had existed already centuries, when the Romans took over the area from the Carthaginians after the Punic Wars. During the fall of the Roman Empire, the area fell to the Vandals in the 410s. They were attacked by the Visigoths, who incarporated it into the Visigothic Kingdom.

During the Arab invasion Anticaria was conquered around 716 and, when the Reconquista rolled south, it became one of the northern cities of the remaining Nasrid kingdom of Granada. Fortifications were built and a Moorish castle, named Alcazaba, erected. For about two hundred years the Medina, located inside the Alcazaba, was attacked repeatedly. In 1410, an army led by Prince Ferdinand of Aragon conquered it.

Antequera became part of the Kingdom of Castile, the Muslims were driven out. The city became a Catholic fortress against the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, and a base for continuing conquest. After Granada, the last Moorish city, capitulated in 1492, Antequera began to recover from the centuries of fighting.

In 1503 the existing small Iglesia de Santa María de la Esperanza was converted into a into a collegiate church. This church got demolished and the new church, seen today, was completed in 1550.

Seen on the left is a statue of Pedro Espinosa (1578-1650), a poet and writer born in Antequera. He taught here for several years.