Revealed: the secrets of Seville cathedral’s banquet set in stone

Painstaking research deciphers carvings of religious bounty dating back almost five centuries

For almost 500 years, the arch that connects the largest Gothic cathedral in the world with its Renaissance sacristy has offered visitors a sumptuous, if little glimpsed - and even less studied - vision of religious bounty.

The 68 beautifully carved plates of food that adorn the archway in Seville's cathedral offer rather more than bread and wine.