The Ronda peridotite is a high-temperature, alpine-type peridotite emplaced in the internal Zone of the Betic Cordilleras, southern Spain. Using the mineral assemblages of the peridotite and mafic layers, the peridotite mass has been subdivided into 4 zones of mineral facies: (1) garnet-lherzolite facies, (2) ariégite subfacies of spinel-lherzolite facies, (3) seiland subfacies of spinel-lherzolite facies, and (4) plagioclase-lherzolite facies. It is proposed that this mineralogical zonation developed through a syntectic recrystallization of a hot (1100 to 1200°C), solid mantle peridotite during its ascent into the Earth's crust. Coexisting minerals from 12 peridotites covering all the mineral facies above were analysed with an electron microprobe. Core compositions of pyroxene porphyroclasts are constant in all mineral facies and indicate that the peridotite was initially equilibrated at temperatures of 1100 to 1200 °C and pressures of 20 to 25 kb. In contrast, the compositions of pyroxene neoblasts and spinel grains (which appear to have grown during later recrystallization) are well correlated with mineral facies. They indicate that the recrystallization temperature throughout the mass is more or less constant, 800 to 900 °C, but that the pressure ranges from 5–7 kb in the plagioclase-lherzolite facies to 12–15 kb in the garnet-lherzolite facies. Therefore, variation in pressure appears to be primarily responsible for the four mineral facies types. A pressure range of at least 5 kb appears to be too large to have been maintained (at the same time) in a mass as small as the Ronda peridotite. Dynamic cooling may explain the observed variation in the recrystallization pressure; i.e. during the intrusion of the peridotite body, different parts of the body have followed different P-T paths in response to different local cooling rates. Comparing the inferred P-T paths for the peridotite with published melting temperature of peridotite and mafic rocks, it is concluded that the peridotite did not go through partial fusion during the ascent. A hypothetical, diapiric uprise that caused partial fusion and igneous differentiation of the mantle peridotite is considered to be a separate event prior to the ascent that started from about 70 km depth in the upper mantle. Estimates of cooling rates and of Al diffusion rates in pyroxenes suggest that the ascent rate of the peridotite body was greater than 1 meter/year.