The effacement of the Moorish character of Granada, as compared with its survival in Seville, serves to show how much more intense the religious and racial bias became in Spain during the two hundred and odd years that elapsed between the conquests of the two cities. The spirit in which St. Ferdinand, Alfonso el Sabio, and Pedro I. approached the works of their Mohammedan foes and subjects presented a very favourable contrast to that manifested by the Catholic sovereigns, Charles V. and Philip II. CATHOLIC GRANADA Almost the first act performed by a Spanish king on his entry into a conquered Mohammedan city was to convert the chief mosque (aljama) into a Christian church. This was also done at Granada, but the chapel of the Alhambra remained for some time the cathedral of the new See. The mosque in the city, afterwards elevated to that rank, is described by the Abbé Bertaut of Rouen (quoted by Valladar), writing in 1669, as “square, or rather longer than wide, without vaults, and the roof covered with tiles, which for the most part were not even joined. The whole was supported by a number of small stone columns, harmoniously arranged.” Jorquera says the mosque was composed of five low naves. Whether or not it was originally a Visigothic church, as some writers pretend, the temple probably dated from the earliest centuries of the Muslim occupation, and the tower which contained the mihrab was long famous as the Torre Turpiana. The building, after serving the purposes of the Catholic rite for two centuries, disappeared between 1705 and 1759 to make room for the present sacristia (sacristy). As a cathedral, it had been superseded by the adjoining and existing edifice, dedicated on August 17, 1561.