The Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville is, after El Escorial, the second largest civil building in Spain in terms of size. Built between 1725 and 1771, it was for nearly two centuries the largest and most productive tobacco factory in the Western world, employing up to 10,000 cigarette makers. This army of independent, hard-working women directly inspired the French writer Prosper Mérimée to create, in his 1845 novella, the character of Carmen, the most famous cigarette girl of Seville in the history of fiction, later immortalised by Bizet's opera. In 1954 the building was handed over to the University of Seville, becoming the home of its faculties of Law and Philology and one of the most beautiful university campuses in the world.
C. San Fernando, 4, Seville
