The most remarkable church in Cholula is the Capilla Real, built in the 1540s for the far-off Emperor Charles V as his symbolic Chapel Royal, but also as a gift to the defeated nobility of the region. This presents a complicated message about past and present. It is unlike any Christian church building in Europe, for inside and out it is a deliberate replica of the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, without obvious orientation or liturgical focus, and with the same forest of arches inside and vast courtyard outside. Back home, Spanish Catholics had crushed Islam and turned mosques into churches. Now in
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