The Alms Chamber was, properly speaking, only intended for the distribution of alms to the poor. Its beautiful door, to-day blocked up, can still be seen, both inside and out, in the wall of the mosque, and, according to El-Makkari, it was the most beautiful of the western side. It is no longer possible to form an exact idea of the aspect of the chamber as it was when Hakam II. completed its decoration. He covered it with gilded and painted stucco work, which turned its walls into beautiful filigree, and to-day this apartment is half forgotten, after having served as a vestibule to the first Christian cathedral of Cordova. No one would think that this place, beyond St. Michael’s postern, and separated from the body of the building by a wretched partition and a door of pine-wood, is the ancient “Dar-as-asdaca.” For many years it was used as a Chapter Hall, and the archives of the extinct music-school, with its choir books, were kept here.
The actual dimensions of the mosque varied at different periods, and are difficult to establish. One authority says, that in length from north to south the mosque measured six hundred and forty-two feet, in width four hundred and sixty-two feet. Mr. Waring, in his Notes of an Architect in Spain, describes the mosque as an oblong of three hundred and ninety-four feet by three hundred and sixty feet. The famous Orange Court is in length two hundred and twenty feet, and, being within the boundary walls of the mosque, it is probably included in the former measurement.
It is also impossible to fix, with any degree of certainty, the number of columns contained in the mosque during the time of Mohammedan supremacy. Ambrosio de Morales, and the Infante Don Juan Manuel, both of whom described the mosque before the columns were reduced in number by the alterations to which the building has been subjected, estimate the figures at one thousand and twelve, but it is only too certain that when the mosque was converted into a Christian church very many were removed to make room for altars and chapels.
No less than one hundred columns were comprised within the “maksurrah,” which was further provided with three doors of exquisite workmanship, one of which was
CORDOVA
ENTRANCE TO THE VESTIBULE OF THE MIHRAB.