Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca

The Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca, on Calle Reyes Católicos in Toledo's Jewish Quarter (La Judería) in Castile-La Mancha, Spain, is the oldest surviving synagogue building in Europe still standing in its original form, dating from the late 12th or early 13th century. It was built under Almohad-influenced Mudéjar architecture at a time when Toledo's Jewish community was among the most prosperous in the Iberian Peninsula. The building's interior consists of five aisles separated by 24 octagonal columns, each capital elaborately carved with pine cone and arabesque motifs in white stucco, and the entire upper wall surface covered in delicate plasterwork blind arcading — producing an effect of extraordinary lightness and rhythmic calm despite the building's modest dimensions. The whitewashed plaster walls and columns give the building its popular name (Santa María la Blanca, or Saint Mary the White). After the Jewish pogroms of 1391 and the expulsion of 1492, the building was converted to a church and later used as a military barracks and storage facility before restoration in the 19th century. The five-aisle layout and the column capitals in Mudéjar plasterwork are among the most intact elements of medieval Toledan Jewish architecture. A visit takes 30 to 45 minutes. Combining it with the Sinagoga del Tránsito (five minutes' walk), the Museo del Greco, and a walk along Calle Reyes Católicos makes a logical morning circuit of the Jewish Quarter.