Vetus Urbs, Nova Urbs

Itálica´s amphitheater.

A few days ago we took a trip to Itálica, an ancient Roman city on the outskirts of Seville.  The ruins feature a colossal amphitheater, the stony skeletons of bars and mansions, and fully functional plumbing.  Sounds like the Romans knew how to live.  Our tour guide explained that archaeologists have divided the city´s remains into vetus urbs and nova urbs, “old city” and “new city,” respectively, the former lying principally under the modern day town of Santiponce and the latter comprising the majority of the ruins visible today.  It occurred to me that Seville also encapsulates the idea of vetus urbs/nova urbs rather well, though in a less literal sense.

Seville is certainly known for its “Old World” atmosphere, imposed stoically by the city´s iconic Gothic cathedral, looming Giralda bell tower, and millennium-old ramparts dating back to the Muslim occupation.  The city is lousy with history, and suffice it to say that people let their dogs shit on cobblestones that were laid well before Europeans even set foot on the American continent.  Canine feces notwithstanding, the air in Seville is perfumed with antiquity.  The orange trees, though not even in bloom, impart their subtle fragrance to the city´s narrow passageways, and mixing with the dusty scent of decaying wood and plaster, they evoke the era long ago when these bitter oranges first made their way to Seville from the Orient.  But it´s not just the buildings and streets that tell stories; their inhabitants, though modern, at times seem to channel a way of life from a different time altogether.  In the morning, meticulously preened señoras roll their little canvas carts to la panadería and la carnicería to shop for the day´s meals while old men banter in the cafés.  In the afternoon, small storeowners close up shop for the famous Spanish siesta.  In the evening, young people congregate in plazas where their great-great-great grandparents likely did the same, and walking past a bar last night I heard the faint wail of a flamenco verse sung among friends.  This is Sevilla´s vetus urbs, a city whose sheer age means that daily life is enveloped in, and mandated by, tradition. 

One elaborate mosaic displayed Pigmies fighting off sea
creatures. "Apparently not everything about the Pigmies
was small," said our tour guide.

Seville is, nevertheless, a modern city in every sense.  Though its skyline is thankfully devoid of skyscrapers, one of the city center´s taller buildings (at a whopping seven stories) is El Corte Inglés, Spain´s national chain of department stores.  American megacorporations like McDonald´s and Starbucks of course have a (omni)presence here.  Smartly dressed professionals whisk past the slowly ambling señoras, and students inevitably wind up in a discoteca after they enjoy a drink (or several) in one of the historic plazas.  I don´t intend to portray Seville´s nova urbs negatively, as I include with it the city´s decidedly bohemian neighborhood La Macarena whose hip, decadent bars and prodigiously pierced and tattooed denizens I´ve already come to adore.

Like any large, diverse city, Seville expresses a number of dualities, but instead of opposing one another, these differing qualities are more like two sides of a coin, to use a hackneyed analogy.  Before I left for Spain I promised myself that I wouldn´t try to pull the condescending and naïve stunt of attempting to “define” the people of Seville, but I do hope that during my time here I might begin to see life through their eyes.  I will never be able to escape my American perspective, and I will always have to fight my tendency to generalize (lumping every aspect of the city into vetus urbs and nova urbs, for example…), but I wish to get to know this city in a way that surpasses the mere infatuation I have with it now.  My host señora Pilar, a woman who lives in the same neighborhood where she grew up, explained to me, “Los sevillanos live their whole lives here.  And if they do leave, they always dream of returning.”  I think to truly understand this, I´ll need to do some soul searching; but the soul I´m after is not my own, but the city´s.  Hell, maybe I´ll even find mine along the way.