namely the Angel de la Guarda and the San Antonio of the baptistery; the
third is the Deposition from the Cross, by Pedro de Campana (or more
correctly Kempeneer), hanging in the great sacristy. This is the
painting, Spanish historians will tell you, Murillo loved so well that
whenever he was downhearted he would stand in front of it for hours, and
become lost to all around him, even forgetting his own Madonnas. One day
the sacristan asked him impatiently, why he so often stood there
staring. "I am waiting," Murillo answered, "till those holy men have
taken the Saviour down from the Cross." It hangs well lighted over one
of the altars of the Sacristy. Few faces have ever been painted which
convey depth and intensity of feeling in a more affecting way. The
agonized faces of the women at the foot of the Cross express all an
innocent human heart can feel of compassion, heart-wrung sorrow and
despair. The ecstasy with which Saint Anthony, who is kneeling in
prayer, gazes at the Child Jesus has seldom been surpassed in reality
and power. Entirely lifted beyond the earthly sphere, his features
kindle with ardent piety and divine love. The angels surrounding the
Infant Jesus have a simplicity of expression which never escapes those
who have loved and studied children. The coloring is unique and of a
truly penetrating softness. All the little details of the miserable cell
in which the saint is kneeling are rendered with the vigorous reality
so characteristic of the Spanish school, while in the upper part of the
painting one seems to see even the dust particles floating in the rays
of sunlight. The shadows have a marvelous transparency.
The Angel de la Guarda, or Guardian Angel, is one of the master's very
best works. The purples and yellows of the angel's vesture have kept
their depth and richness through all the centuries in which the colors
have been drying.
There might be a guide-book dealing with the paintings of the Cathedral
alone. How differently it is decorated from the great Gothic cathedrals
of the present Anglican Church! In Seville as in Florence, all the fine
arts seemed to flower and come to perfection during the sixteenth
century. Sculpture and painting were employed to embellish architecture,
as in the ancient days of Greece. The sister arts walked once more hand
in hand. The figures in stone and still more in terra-cotta which adorn
the exterior porches and the more decorative portions of the interior
are unusually fine. Many of the bishops, saints and kings have an
unmistakable Renaissance feeling. Take, for instance, such a statue as
the Virgin del Reposo, so dear to the Sevillians,--you feel in all the
handling the period of transition. Such sculptors as Miguel Florentin,
Juan Marin, and Diego de Pesquera must have been influenced by Italy
when they carved the statues which adorn the Cathedral of Seville.
The contact with Italy and the many Italian workmen gradually induced
faithlessness to the earlier Gothic ideals of the founders and builders
of the church. The great Maestro Mayor of Toledo Cathedral, Henrique de
Egas, was among the first to introduce restraint in Spanish building
after the fanaticism of the later flamboyant. In the time of Ferdinand
and Isabella, a well-known Toledan published a Spanish abridgment of
Vitruvius; this in conjunction with the influence of many foreign
artists led the way to classical building. Granada was soon resurrected
as a Greek-Roman "Centralbau" and even the crossing of Gothic Burgos was
unfortunately restored by Borgoña after classic models.
The new foreign movement found expression in architecture, in sculpture
and in painting, often with the most extraordinary attempts to employ
the new without discarding the old. Grotesque and fantastic ornaments
crown illogical construction.
The royal chapel, the chapter house, the sagrario and the great sacristy
are examples of the new-born style. The first two are magnificent
specimens of Spanish Renaissance. Each of them is a fine church in
itself, and they can only be classed as chapels because they bear that
relation and are proportioned to the immense mother church of Seville.
The walls of the Capilla Real form the eastern termination to the
Cathedral, and the chapel is very properly planned upon the axe of the
church and entered through a splendidly decorated lofty arch. It is
about 81 by 59 feet in plan, and 113 feet high to the lantern crowning
the really fine dome. A round altar at its eastern extremity is closed
off by a typically impressive reja. The architecture is of the
magnificence of Saint Peter's in Rome, and not unlike it in detail.
Eight Corinthian pilasters support the dome, breaking the wall space
into panels and carrying the richest classical cornice surmounted by
fine statues of the Apostles, Evangelists and kings. The chapel takes
its name from being the burial place of the royal house. Along its walls
are the tombs of Saint Ferdinand's consort, of Alfonso the Learned and
his mother, Beatrice of Suabia, and the beautiful Doña Maria de Padilla,
the mistress of Pedro the Cruel. He himself is buried below in the vault
with many other of the royal princes. In the centre of the chapel Saint
Ferdinand lies in full armor with a crown on his head. Three times a
year he is shown to the soldiers of Spain, who march past with sounding
bugles and lowered banners.
The chapel was planned and built by Martin Ganza during the reign of
Charles V. Shortly after the defeat of the Moors, an earlier royal one
was built upon the same site and added to the old mosque. When the great
new Cathedral was planned, the Chapter begged permission to remove
temporarily the bodies of the royal personages interred in the
chapel,--the holy King Ferdinand, his mother and son. This petition was
granted by Queen Joanna on condition that they would rebuild it on a
more fitting scale at as early a date as possible. The Chapter
preferred, however, to expend all its means and energies on the great
vaulting of the Cathedral rather than on the new royal sepulchre, and
this was not rebuilt until Charles V finally lost patience over the
negligent and disrespectful manner in which the remains of his forbears
were treated and wrote to the Chapter, in 1543, commanding them "to
start the work without any delay whatsoever, and to bring it to
completion as rapidly as possible, and to execute the work as
excellently as befitted its royal guests." That the workmen made no
delay in obeying the royal commands is shown by the fact that the walls
were well up as early as 1566 and finished shortly afterwards.
None of the Spanish cathedrals have a better type of Plateresque
architecture and decoration than the sacristy, built during the first
half of the seventeenth century. The plan is that of a Greek cross, 70
by 40 feet, and about 120 feet high. Its dome, spanning the great
central vault, is a distinct feature in any comprehensive exterior view
of the Cathedral. The Sacristy is filled with curious and priceless
relics, treasures, and vestments belonging to the church. As Santa Justa
and Santa Rufina are in a manner the patron saints of Seville, their
picture by Goya hanging here is of interest. Both of them hold vessels
of the character of soup dishes; and their faces, taken from Seville
models, are of decidedly earthly types.
To the west of the façade as you enter, lies the large sagrario, or
parish church. It is a building entirely by itself, 112 feet long, with
a single nave spanned by a dangerously bold barrel vault.
Here and there among the chapels you come suddenly on famous subjects by
great masters, names renowned in Spanish history or striking works of
art. Learning and statesmanship are honored in great Mendoza's monument:
the silent mailed effigies of the Guzmans commemorate the thrilling
exploits of Spanish arms. What sympathies are stirred as you stand
uncovered before the tomb of the great and deeply wronged Discoverer! We
hear again the passionate appeals and the vain pleadings of his
undaunted faith. The living head was left to whiten within prison
walls; its effigy is now proudly carried on the four gorgeous shoulders
of the Spanish states; the poor bones, after their weary travels from
Valladolid to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas, from Hispaniola to
Havana, have finally found a resting-place within the very walls where
they were once treated with such contumely,--for here lies the Great
Admiral, Cristoforo Colon.
You pass paintings by Alfonso Cano, Ribera, Zurbaran, Greco and
Goya,--Murillo's Immaculate Conception, better known than all his other
works; Montañez' exquisite Crucifixion, canvases by Valdes, Herrera,
Boldan and Roelas. There are subjects curious and out of keeping with
our present artistic sentiments, saints walking about with their heads
instead of breviaries under their arms, dresses more fitting for the
ballroom than the wintry scenery amid which they are worn, marriage
ceremonies of the Virgin, Adam and Eve, entirely forgetful of their lost
Eden in the contemplation of the Virgin's halo, keys with quaint old
Arab inscriptions: "May Allah render eternal the dominion of Islam in
this city," saints with removable hair of spun gold and jointed limbs,
others snatched from quiet altar service to plunge into the turmoil of
battle on the saddle bow of reigning kings. Verily a museum of
historical curiosities as well as of the fine arts, satisfying
sensational cravings as well as the finer artistic sense.
The structure is revealed to us through a light of unearthly sweetness.
None of the Spanish cathedrals are more satisfactorily lighted, for
Seville has neither the brilliant clarity of some of the northern
churches, which robs them of a certain mystery and awe, nor has it the
sinister obscurity of some of the southern, where both structure and
detail are half lost in shadows, as in Barcelona.
The light from the cimborio and from the two rows of windows as well as
the doors penetrates every chapel with its rainbow hues; it reveals the
whole majestic structure, the lofty spring of the arches, the glittering
ironwork of the screens, the titanic strength and simple caps of the
columns, and breathes celestial life into the army of saints and
martyrs. It gives a soul to it all. The effect produced by the early
morning and late afternoon light is very different. Santa Maria de la
Sede, like all her earthly sisters, has a variety of expressions. At
times she burns with animation, even a remnant of earthly passion may
glow in her holy countenance, and again she is cold, impassive and
nunlike in her gray garb of renunciation.
According to an Andalusian proverb, the rays of the sun have no evil
power where the voice of prayer is heard. For this reason, only a few of
the highest windows are screened by semi-transparent curtains, and the
light pours in unbroken through most of their brilliant tints--down the
nave in deep blood reds and indigo blues. The greater portion of the
glass is unusually rich in coloring,--perhaps too florid, but typical of
the Flemish School of glass-painting. Ninety-three windows were stained
during the first half of the sixteenth century, for which the church
paid the painters the large sum of 90,000 ducats. The earliest ones are
by Micer and Cristobal Aleman, who in 1538 introduced in Seville real
stained glass. Aleman's, representing the Ascension of Christ, Mary
Magdalen, and the Awakening of Lazarus, the Entry into Jerusalem, the
Descent of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles, all in the transept,
together with those by his brother Arnao de Flanders, are thebest,--better than
most Flemish windows of the time in any European
cathedral. True, they are somewhat heavy in outline and the coloring
lacks softness and restraint in tone, but they have great depth,
excellency of drawing and power of expression in faces and figures.
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE
Illustration: AND THE GIRALDA]
The little chapel, the Capilla de los Doncelles, contains a magnificent
sheet of glass representing the Resurrection of Christ, painted by
Carlos de Bruges, one of the great Flemish artists. A whole school of
foreign painters seem to have gathered round these famous "vidrieros,"
many of them working in their shops. Among the best known are Arnao de
Vergara, Micer Enrique Bernardino de Celandra and Vicente Menardo.
* * * * *
The Giralda is incomparable, a unique expression of feminine strength.
She is as oriental and mysterious as the Sphinx, or might be likened to
a great sultana in enchanted sleep. Though her majestic head has towered
for centuries beside her Christian sister, they still seem as
irreconcilable as their faiths a thousand years ago. It has been a
strange companionship. The oriental loveliness and splendor of the
Giralda, like that of Seville, are best felt at the twilight hour, when
her jewels sparkle in the last rays of the setting sun. With the waning
light the coloring becomes purple, then indigo, while the silhouette
still stands out in startling clearness and strength against the
spotless blue of the evening sky. You feel as if the whole mountain of
masonry were slowly but surely leaning more and more from its base and
about to bury you in its fall. The vermilion and ochre coloring are like
the petals of the rose. Nowhere is the surface uniform, but passes
gradually from light cream and buff through warmer amber to brilliant
orange and carmine and crimson lake, even to the color of the
pomegranate's heart. The exquisite surface of delicate tinting, mellowed
by the storms and suns of centuries, is everywhere relieved by the
brilliant sparkle, the delicate play of light and shade, of the Moorish
designs. When the low rays of the Andalusian sun illumine the Giralda,
just touched here and there with dots of molten gold like the orange
trees from whose green bed it rises, you see the boldest creation of
Moorish imagination in all its splendor. The great Cathedral itself
becomes a modest nun with rich, but sombre, cape over her shoulders,
beside this dazzling creature glowing with Saracenic fire.
The Giralda is the greatest of all the monuments of that enlightened
civilization. She is so different from any other tower that comparison
becomes difficult. There is a robustness, an appearance of adequate
solidity and strength which are lacking in the Italian towers of Saint
Mark's, of Pistoja, or of Florence. This holds true even in relation to
other Moorish towers, or such edifices as the Mosque at Cordova, the
Alcazar at Seville, or the pillared halls of Granada; all other Moorish
work seems to have a certain feminine weakness, a timidity and
insecurity, when compared with the tower which dominates Maria
Santissima. The Giralda is your first and last impression of this
corner of the world, for it embodies all the grace and strength that can
be combined in architecture. Old Spanish authorities assert that it was
in the very year when believers throughout Christendom were anxiously
expecting the end of the world that the Moslem infidels began to build
their huge monument. More probably it was started about the year 1185,
as the prayer tower or minaret of the mosque which was then rapidly
progressing. The Spanish historian Gayangos says that it was completed
by Jabar or Gever in 1196, during the reign of the illustrious Almohad
ruler, Abu Jakub Jusef, the same monarch who erected the Mesquita at
Cordova. Other authorities insist that its original purpose was as an
observatory,--but although it may have been used for astronomical
purposes, it was certainly erected as a tower from which the muezzin
could call the faithful to prayer in the Mosque of Seville. While
building it, Gever claims to have invented algebra.
The original tower has undergone skillful but of course detrimental
changes from the hands of later generations. We have descriptions and
representations of it prior to the changes made in 1500. The main Arab
structure was, like almost all Mohammedan prayer-towers, surmounted by a
smaller tower and capped by a spire. It was about 250 feet high, and on
its summit an iron standard supported, before the earthquake of 1395,
four enormous balls of brass. King Alfonso the Wise, in his "Cronica de
España," describing Seville in the thirteenth century, says that "when
the sun shone upon these balls, they emitted so fierce a light that they
might be seen a day's journey away from the city." When Seville was
taken by Saint Ferdinand in 1248, the tower was standing in the full
glory of its original conception. The thought that it might fall into
the hands of the conquerors so horrified its builders that they were
only prevented from destroying it by Saint Ferdinand's threat that, if a
single brick were removed, not an infidel in Seville should keep his
head.
The Giralda had already lost the Byzantine crown which it had worn
proudly for five hundred years when, in 1595, it came near total
destruction, and was only saved during the terrible earthquake and storm
which almost destroyed the city by the interposition of its special
protectresses, the potter girls of Triana, Santa Justa and Santa Rufina.
There are pictures which show us these blessed Virgins supporting the
tower while the wind devils with distended cheeks are blowing on its
sides with all their might and main. We are not only grateful to them
for this timely intervention, but very glad it cost them so little
exertion, for we find them shortly afterwards holding the tower in their
hands as lightly as a filigree casket. The architects who restored it
about twenty years ago fortunately refrained from all attempts at
improving or renovating its sunburned, wind-swept surface.
The Giralda is as strong as it looks. The huge walls have a thickness of
eight feet below, diminishing to seven feet in the upper stories. The
height to the very top of the crowning figure is 308 feet. In the
foundations are bricks, rubble, and huge blocks of earlier Roman and
Visigothic masonry; even Latin inscriptions are found immured. The
Moors, like all other builders, used the materials readiest at hand;
the rejected building stones of one generation become the corner stones
of the next.
Below the Renaissance addition with which the tower was terminated in
1568, the broad sides of the shaft had been broken by the Arabs in the
simplest and most felicitous manner. The brickwork was treated in three
panels with the corner borders very properly broader and stronger than
the two intermediate ones. The panels, which could not be of a happier
depth, are filled down to eighty feet of the ground with varying Moorish
arabesque patterns; the figured diaper-work on all sides is broken in
the two outer panels by blind cusped arches, and in the central
patterns, by Moorish windows of the "ajuiez" variety. Their double
arches are subdivided by small Byzantine columns; these again are framed
within larger cusped and differently broken horseshoe curves. Small
Renaissance balconies have at a later date been placed below the
windows. The small niches comprising the total Moorish composition
sparkle throughout with life and charm, and, though no two are alike,
they form a harmonious whole. The Arab seemed to have an instinctive
aversion from tedious repetition. He would always vary the design just
enough to satisfy his imagination and creative faculty, but never
sufficiently to disturb the harmony of the general scheme. As with the
windows, so also with the arabesques. They begin at slightly varying
heights on the different sides of the tower, so that the windows may
properly meet the different elevations of the interior stair. Their
patterns are not quite the same, neither on the various sides of the
tower nor at different heights on the same side. The decoration
employed is admirably fitted to a large surface which would have been
weakened by strong cutting or deep relief. Considering what Arab art
achieved within prescribed limits, the student of Christian art may well
deplore that the Koran, in its abhorrence of idol-worship, forbade its
followers in any way to reproduce human or animal forms. Forever
debarred all the wider possibilities of movement and poetry these would
have given them for interior decoration, Moorish art necessarily
stagnated to mere conventionalization of floral and natural subjects.
These are well adapted to exterior mural surfacing. When we look at the
fancifully handled geometric patterns on the Giralda, we can only
rejoice that the frescoes added by the later Renaissance artists in the
upper arches and along some of the lower surfaces have been washed away
by time. They were ineffective; all that remains of Moorish is
magnificent. A small arcade, running the width of each side in its
single panel, terminates the Moorish work.
It is almost to be regretted that the Renaissance top has been so well
done, for its barbarous exotism is sufficient to condemn it. It has
excellently fulfilled a dastardly purpose.
The original Moorish termination was taken down by the architect,
Francisco Ruiz, who was commissioned by the Cathedral Chapter in 1568 to
give it a more fitting crown. His design consists of three stages
reaching to a height of about a hundred feet. The first, of the same
width as the shaft below, is pierced by openings "to let out the sweet
sounds of the bells inside." The second stage consists of a double tier
of considerably smaller squares pierced by wide arches. Around the four
sides of its upper frieze runs the inscription so legible that all
Sevillians who know how may read, "Nomen Domini Fortissima Turris"
(Proverbs, xviii, 10). The third stage consists of a double lantern
surmounted by a soaring Seraphim, bearing in one hand the banner of
Constantine and in the other the Roman palm of conquest. The
"Girardello" was cast in gilded bronze by Bartolomé Morel in the year
1568. Intended to symbolize Faith, the name, a diminutive of Giralda, or
weathercock, is most inappropriate. Despite her enormous size and
weight, the faintest zephyr blowing down from the Sierra Moreña sets her
turning on the spire she treads so lightly, whereupon the crowds of
hawks resting on Girardello disperse in noisy scolding.
Dumas gazed at her in wonder and admiration. "C'est merveilleux," he
said, "de voir tourner dans un rayon de soleil cette figure d'or aux
ailes deployées, qui semble, comme un oiseau céleste fatigué d'une
longue course, avoir choisi pour se reposer un instant le point le plus
proche du ciel."
The great bells of the tower, all baptized with holy oil, a custom very
frequent in Spain, are dear to the hearts of those whom they daily call
to rest and prayer. As they strike the hours, passers-by look up to see
their great tongues protrude. Their sweet peal is heard in the most
distant quarters of the city, and beyond on the waters of the
Guadalquivir and in the fertile valley through which it flows. The deep
resonant note of Santa Maria is the last sound we hear before falling
asleep.
Inside you may ascend to the very summit by steps so broad and easy
that two horses abreast may go as far as the platform of the bells.
Below you lies the city with its scattered white buildings that once
housed half a million, and beyond, the valley that enfolded twelve
thousand villages. Though dwindled and changed, time has dealt gently
with Seville. There is gay laughter in her sunny streets and the olive
groves echo with rippling song. Just under your feet throbs the heart of
it all. Though repeatedly struck by lightning, the great Cathedral still
stands, an everlasting symbol of the Church, triumphant and eternal.
VIII
GRANADA
[Illustration: Photo by J. Lacoste, Madrid
CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA
West front]
Kennst du das Land we die Citronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Land die Goldorangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?
GOETHE'S _Wilhelm Meister_.
Thus being entred, they behold arownd
A large and spacious plaine, on every side
Strewed with pleasauns, whose fayre grassy grownd
Mantled with greene, and goodly beautifide
With all the ornaments of Floraes pride.
_Faerie Queene_, book 2, c. xii.
I
The first stars shone pale in the fields of upper air over walls and
towers wrapt in the mystery of twilight which softened every outline and
cast a kindly veil over the decay of a thousand years. The air was
oppressively sweet with the fragrance exhaled by southern vegetation on
a summer evening. The roses had climbed to the top of the walls, where
they could cool their flushed cheeks on the marble copings of the
battlements. The myrtle and ivy trembled in the evening breeze, and
through the broken casements the aloes whispered to the sweet-breathing
orange trees in the courtyards. The martlet twittered in the branches.
On all sides was heard in cool silvery continuity the gurgle and plash
of streams which, issuing from mountain snows, had wound their loitering
way through fields of violets and forget-me-nots to the "large and
spacious plaine" of the Vega. The fairy palace of the Alhambra, the
Acropolis that once held forty thousand defenders of the faith, crowns
and encircles the hill. From its watch-tower the nightingales pour forth
lovers' songs, plaintive and passionate, heightening the enchantment of
a scene unsurpassed in natural loveliness and the charm of a romantic
past.