Alcazaba of Málaga

Phoenicians occupied the hill from around 600 BC, and a stretch of their fortification wall has been uncovered there; after the Roman takeover of 205 BC the slope carried a villa and industrial works, and in the 1st century AD a theatre was cut into its western face. Following the Muslim conquest of the peninsula in the early 8th century, sources record a fortress on the hill built by Abd ar-Rahman I (r. 756-788), with a mosque inside it. The theatre below served as a quarry: two of its columns and their capitals stand in the façade of the gate that still carries their name, the Puerta de las Columnas.

The Hammudids, the last caliphs of Córdoba, moved the caliphal court to Málaga during the fitna that broke al-Andalus apart, and used the Alcazaba's chambers as a palace. The complex as it now stands was begun by them in the early 11th century, probably under Yahya I (r. 1021-1036), and some of the surviving palace architecture may date from his reign. Málaga fell to the Zirids of Granada in 1056, and further work followed under Badis (d. 1073) - possibly the double line of walls, possibly a wider rebuilding. Some Muslim historians credit Badis ben Habús with raising the Alcazaba outright and dressing it with marble, columns and statues taken from the Roman theatre; other studies doubt it, reading the work instead as the restoration of an older walled circuit of Phoenician origin.

Leopoldo Torres Balbás judged the result the prototype of Taifa-period military architecture, a double walled enclosure with massive entry fortifications. The approach to the palaces climbs through gate after gate and doubles back on itself twice, a bent entrance meant to make progress difficult for an attacking force.

The Almoravids forced their way in in 1092 and the Almohads in 1146; the outer tower later known as the Torre de Maldonado was remodelled under Almohad rule in the 12th or 13th century. In 1279 the city surrendered to Muhammad II and passed to the Nasrid emirate of Granada, and the Alcazaba was largely rebuilt under that emir, fortifications and palace residences together, in work dated to the early 14th century. The nummulitic limestone quarried near the sea broke down quickly in damp air, so around the turn of the 14th century the walls and towers were reinforced with masonry added against their outer faces. Yusuf I (r. 1333-1354) raised the Castle of Gibralfaro on the higher hill to the east and ran a walled corridor, La Coracha, down to the citadel, binding the two into a nearly impregnable complex.

Ferdinand and Isabella came against Málaga in May 1487, near the end of the Reconquista, Ferdinand having first beaten El Zagal at Vélez. The citadel was held by Hamet el Zegrí and his gomeres, a garrison reckoned at 3,000 gomeres and 8,000 armed men, and it was not broken by force. On 18 August Alí Dordux, having negotiated mudéjar status for himself, surrendered the Alcazaba; Gibralfaro, under El Zegrí and Alí Derbal, held two days longer before thirst and hunger told. The monarchs raised their standard at the Torre del Homenaje in the inner citadel.

A parish church went up over a former mosque in the outer enclosure, probably in the years just after the capture, and in 1497 Ferdinand ordered the building of the mosque-chapel of San Gabriel, whose Andalusi arches survived until the bombing of 1937, in the Civil War.

The upper palace was still in good repair in 1675, by the account of Cristóbal Amate de la Borda. The earthquake of 1680 and the bombardment of the city by nine French ships lying in the bay in 1693, during the Nine Years' War, began the ruin, and the Alcazaba's military function ceased in the 18th century. In 1794, in the War of the Roussillon, it held 479 French prisoners, and Manuel Godoy ordered the Royal Hospital of San Luis built inside the walls.

After that it was simply lived in, and became a marginal quarter of the city. Houses spread along the entrance passage until it was roofed over and known in the 19th century as the Alcazaba Tunnel; the fortified gate into the upper enclosure was largely demolished in 1854; the lower southern enclosure, the Haza Baja, which the Castilians called the corral of the captives, went altogether - Rodríguez de Berlanga, who watched it come down, described cyclopean walls and towers that had been the first line facing the sea. Declared a historic-artistic monument in 1931, the citadel was cleared of its residents from 1933 under Torres Balbás, and excavation and restoration began.