The Basilica of Santa Maria is the oldest active church in Alicante, Spain. It was built in Gothic style between the 14th and 16th centuries over the remains of a mosque. Constructed in the thirteenth-century as the congregational synagogue of Toledo, the basilica is composed from a single nave with six side chapels located between the buttresses.
The long, trapezoidal plan is divided into five aisles by octagonal piers, which support an arcade of stuccoed horseshoe arches. The interior ornament consists of relief stucco decoration in the spandrels of the arches and the upper walls of the arcades, and the carved stucco pier capitals.
With its adaptation of an Almohad architectural tradition to a non-Muslim context, the synagogue is representative of Spain’s Mudejar architecture, which developed out of the complex interaction between the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures of the medieval Iberian Peninsula.
Though the history of the Church remains disputed, it is believed that its patron was supposedly Alfonso VIII of Castile’s Minister of Finance, Joseph ben Meir ben Shoshan. In 2007, by request of the city of Alicante to the Holy See, the church was promoted to the rank of basilica.