The cathedral of Seville was the first to be larger than Hagia Sophia and is to this day the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. But Seville’s Cathedral was finished a long time before the empire took intercontinental dimensions. The first step before spreading its possessions on 5 continents was for Spain to regain ‘its’ Iberian Peninsula from the Moors that held it for about seven centuries. That long process of reconquering was called Reconquista. Spiritually, this cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady (Santa Maria), but politically, it celebrates the success of regaining Iberia from the Muslim rulership and anounces the great ambitions of the empire that was to come.