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It is located on the left bank of the Guadalquivir River, on one of the slopes of the Cordillera de Los Alcores.
Between Mairena del Alcor and Carmona (villages from which it is only 2 and 11 kilometers respectively), the town sits on the Alcor crest and has a very small municipal area, barely 20 square km, for the almost 20,000 inhabitants that it possesses.
Its fertile land, with the abundant waters that flow through this area towards La Vega and the sedimentary terrain, were one of the fundamental causes of the settlement of this territory since the Paleolithic (30,000 – 10,000 BC).
Thus, the Neolithic period will be the period in which the first settlements were established in the area, between 4000 and 2000 BC; proof of this are the sites of La Alunada, the Cortijo del Moscoso, and the Alcaudete.
Already in the first millennium before our era, the Punics left their mark on this town, building defensive towers to protect fields and roads, as well as serving as a refuge for the population in case of danger.
The subsequent Romanization of the Iberian Peninsula (1st century BC onwards) causes the villages loyal to the Punic side to succumb to the Roman Empire, as is the case of El Viso, which becomes the location where the villas of the large Spanish landowners are located. -Romans or rustic villas. Examples of this are the remains found in the sites of the Station, the Alcaudete, the Casita de Mortero, La Alunada, La Santa, and El Moscoso.
El Viso passed, after the fall of the Roman Empire (4th – 5th centuries AD), to
pay homage to the Visigothic Monarchy prevailing in the Peninsula.
The Muslim conquest of the Peninsula (712 of our era) means that the population of the area is mostly of Berber origin (in addition to the Hispanic), merging both cultures and producing the birth of the first Viso, as a consequence of the large population concentration in a high place (hill or alcor) before the Christian outposts of the time.
El Viso passed, after the fall of the Roman Empire (4th – 5th centuries AD), to pay homage to the Visigothic Monarchy prevailing in the Peninsula.
The Muslim conquest of the Peninsula (712 of our era) means that the population of the area is mostly of Berber origin (in addition to the Hispanic), merging both cultures and producing the birth of the first Viso, as a consequence of the great population concentration in a high place (hill or alcor) before the Christian outposts of the time.
The Christians, in their siege of the city of Seville from 1246 to 1248, looted the area of Los Alcores, for which they felled and looted the fields of Carmona and its adjoining areas, with the consequent great deforestation that the region suffers. El Viso was taken on August 12, 1246 (festivity of San Eusebio), its inhabitants surrendering and then enjoying their properties and practicing their religions and customs. However, the mixed repopulation system failed when the Mudejar uprising took place in 1264, passing the area to a generalized depopulation.
However, the Crown strove at the end of the 13th century to repopulate the area, due to the fact that it was on the border line, with important towers and fortresses for its defense, consolidating population centers in Carmona and Mairena (El Viso practically disappeared, leaving reduced to a simple rustic farm). Thus, Carmona decided, in the first half of the 14th century, to repopulate El Viso so that Mairena would not take over more land than it was entitled to.
After the confrontation between Pedro I (legitimate heir of Alfonso XI) and his half-brother Enrique de Trastámara (1369 – 1371), Carmona leans in favor of the former, so after the triumph of Trastámara he is dispossessed (as punishment for this infidelity ), among other places, of El Viso, which is granted after various vicissitudes that occurred between 1382 and 1390 to Doña Elvira de Guzmán, widow of the Master of the Order of Santiago, Don Gonzalo Mexía. Thus, in 1399 it is already her property.
The history of El Viso in the 15th century is bizarre, passing through several hands, since the heirs of Doña Isabel Mexía (daughter of Don Gonzalo and Doña Elvira) sold, before 1415, half of the place to Doña María de Mendoza , who donates his part in 1415 to his son Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, who buys the other half in 1417 from the heirs of Doña Isabel Mexía.
Later, Gómez Suárez and his wife María de Torquemada sold, in 1422, one part to Diego Rivera, and the other to Joaquín Fernández de Mendoza, who sold his part to Pedro Ponce de León, Lord of Mairena, at the end of this same year. The latter sells his share to Diego de Rivera and his wife Beatriz de Portocarrero, who have been the sole lords of El Viso since 1424, until King Juan II changes, in 1430, the towns of Cañete La Real and Torre de Alháquime to change of this town, passing then to Royal jurisdiction, and consequently to Carmona.
Between 1430 and 1440, this king granted the place of El Viso to Juan Arias de Saavedra (his faithful vassal in the War of Granada), at that time Alfaqueque Mayor of Castilla and Mayor and Mayor of Seville and Alcalá de Guadaira, counting the place half a league away. However, this area between the years 1441 and 1444 was not achieved, as the Council of Carmona opposed it, so both parties reached an agreement in 1444, with El Viso having less term than promised, but in exchange enjoying administrative emancipation and community, Commonwealth of pastures with Carmona and freedom of passage and taxes towards Seville, so that the residents of El Viso could move freely with their cattle, cut firewood, gather asparagus and enjoy pastures, water, hunting, firewood, watering holes and other usufructs of the neighboring town.
This Lord of El Viso, Don Juan Arias de Saavedra, is of vital importance, since in addition to giving him his own and independent term, he gave him legal unity, by creating a Mayorazgo in 1456, he and his wife Doña Juana de Avellaneda, which would pass into 1496 to his eldest son Fernán Arias de Saavedra.
It is at this time, the 14th century, when the first Council or Town Hall of El Viso is created, which will be definitively established in the middle of the 15th century. The government of the town was then in charge of two Ordinary Mayors, a Bailiff and two Aldermen, who constituted the Council, Justice and Regiment of the Villa; The Lord, on his part, appointed the Mayor or Governor to watch over his interests and control the Civil Council. This Cabildo, for its part, was dedicated to monitoring the source, the market, the term, the delimitation of the meadow, the properties and their fruits, and morality and religiosity.
Thus, Juan de Saavedra granted some municipal Ordinances that regulated life and social relations in the small community; As for the power of the Church, it is evident, since, in addition to other obligations, all persons over 15 years of age had to go to mass after ringing the bells, with a prison sentence and a real fine for those who did so. breached
Since the end of the 16th century, the population of Visue has had a granary to store grain to deal with shortages in periods of famine, located in Plaza Sacristán Guerrero, which was moved in the 18th century to the City Hall on Calle Real .
In these centuries (XIV to XVIII), the population enjoys a high birth rate, devoting most of it to agriculture (there are olive groves and vineyards in Alcor, and wheat, barley and cereals are planted in La Vega), and A small part performs artisan work, tasks of a liberal nature, muleteers, bakers, shopkeepers, and regatones or recoveros (who went to Seville and Carmona to sell bread and products from the land).
This shows the intense commercial activity that the town experienced at the time, which was favored in the 18th century by the construction of the new road that went from Madrid to Cádiz (from the reef or from the ports).
The religious character of the Visueño population of the time makes that Brotherhoods of different kinds merge in the town, both Sacramental (gives worship to the Blessed Sacrament), Souls (they make suffrages to save souls from purgatory), Glory (as that of the Rosary), and of Penitence (they make Penitence Station at Calvario, like that of Soledad, Santa Vera-Cruz, or Jesús Nazareno).
The City Council continues to collect taxes from residents, both contributions and products and at collection points where it is charged for the entry of goods into the town, which were located on La Muela street, Carmona street, Cruz del Moro and the alley of the Huerta de Don Víctor.
In exchange, it offered a series of services to the visueños, which improved the life of the community, such as: The market, which in 1907 opened a central place for commercial activity, and in the 1970s another new one. The slaughterhouse, created in the last third of the 19th century, eradicating a large part of the poor hygienic-sanitary conditions of the population. Health, passing the City Council from maintaining a doctor and a midwife for the service of the community since the 19th century, to installing a municipal Clinic for charity service.
Throughout the 19th century, an incipient agrarian bourgeoisie was born in El Viso, which will monopolize political and economic power, manifesting its opulence by building magnificent palace-houses in the central streets, where they also have places of recreation, such as taverns, shows. .. against the huge mass of day laborers, dispossessed of all sources of wealth, and a small group of day laborers who own tiny estates (with “sovereigns” in the houses to store the grains of the crops).
Throughout the 20th century, the large number of small landowners and peasants (as opposed to the nobility and bourgeoisie that concentrated ownership of the land) suffered suffering and continuous crises, for which the City Council and the wealthy residents of the town helped them .
The confiscation process carried out against the Church in the 19th century had a negative influence on the Brotherhoods of the town, losing the splendor of yesteryear or even many of them disappearing.
During the second half of the 20th century, it reached previously unimaginable levels, with the construction of neighborhoods on the outskirts of the town, even bordering on Mairena.
Finally, it is worth noting the new development experienced by the town in the 1970s, which led El Viso to become a prosperous town with great economic activity. Thus, when walking through the town you can enjoy the Parque de la Constitución (green and leisure area), the Plaza de la Recovera (erected in honor of the working woman), Calle Real (with its stately homes), the streets from the historic center (with its slopes and curves from the Arab past), the Church and Convent of Corpus Christi (with a late Baroque altarpiece the first and a cloister as the axis of the second, current City Hall), the Parish Church (from the end of the XV, with important additions), the neo-Gothic tower of the old Consistory (from the 19th century), and the Parque de La Muela (a green area with a beautiful viewpoint that overlooks the immensity of La Vega).