Toledo

The city of three faiths did not outlast the Middle Ages. In 1449 a revolt against a royal levy turned into fury against the converso families and spread to the villages around; the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and the Muslims of Castile in 1502, leaving a few synagogues and a small mosque among the churches, just as the Gothic cathedral begun in 1226 was finished in 1493. In 1520 Toledo, with Valladolid and Tordesillas, stood at the heart of the Comunero revolt against Charles V.

It remained the imperial city while Charles's court resided there, but when Philip II settled in Madrid in 1561 Toledo lost its political weight, keeping its archbishop as primate of Spain. Silk and steel kept it going for a while, its swordsmiths' blades counted the best in Europe from the 15th to the 17th century, until a true decline set in during the 1630s. By 1761 the sword guilds were failing, and Charles III gathered them into a Royal Arms Factory, for which Sabatini raised a new building outside the walls in 1777.