Myth-Making in the Patio

Tucked away off Carrer de Sant Llorenç is a picturesque courtyard adorned with Gothic window tracery, a Romanesque stone column, a well, and an orange tree. In the 1970s, local cultural revivalists popularized this courtyard as the twelfth-century home of aljama rector Lleó Avinay, claiming its floor plan was designed using esoteric Kabbalistic 'Tree of Life' geometry. However, modern architectural and archival surveys by scholars have thoroughly debunked this narrative. The visible structures are actually those of a post-1492 Renaissance mansion built atop medieval foundations, while the decorative antiquarian elements were arranged during twentieth-century restorations. This courtyard offers a fascinating lesson in how late-twentieth-century romantic tourism created popular myths that obscured actual post-expulsion architectural history.