gentle, that two men on horseback could very well ride up to the
summit, whence you enjoy an admirable view. At your feet lies Seville,
brilliantly white, with its spires and towers, endeavouring, but in
vain, to reach the rose-coloured brick girdle of the Giralda. Beyond
these stretches the plain, through which the Guadalquiver flows, like
a piece of watered silk, and scattered around are Santiponce, Algaba,
and other villages. Quite in the background is the Sierra Morena, with
its outlines sharply marked, in spite of the distance, so great is the
transparency of the air in this admirable country. On the opposite
side, the Sierras de Gibram, Zaara and Moron, raise their bristling
forms, tinged with the richest hues of lapis lazuli and amethyst, and
completing this magnificent panorama, which is inundated with light,
sunshine and dazzling splendour.
A great number of fragments of columns, shaped into posts and connected
with each other by chains, except where spaces are left for persons
to pass, surround the cathedral. Some of these columns are antique,
and come either from the ruins of Italica, or from the remains of the
ancient mosque, whose former site is now occupied by the cathedral,
and of which the only remaining vestiges are the Giralda, a few old
walls, and one or two arches, one of which serves as the entrance to
the courtyard _de los Nanjeros_. The _Longa_ (Exchange)
is a large and perfectly regular edifice, built by the heavy and
wearisome Herrera, that architect of _ennui_, to whom we owe
the Escurial, which is decidedly the most melancholy building in the
world; the Longa, also, like the cathedral, is surrounded by the same
description of posts. It is completely isolated and presents four
similar façades; it stands between the cathedral and the Alcazar.
In it are preserved the archives of America, and the correspondence
of Christopher Columbus, Pizarro and Fernando Cortez; but all these
treasures are guarded by such savage dragons, that we were obliged to
content ourselves with looking at the outside of the pasteboard boxes
and portfolios, which are stowed away in mahogany compartments, like
the goods in a drapers’ shop. It would be a most easy thing to place
five or six of the most precious autographs in glass cases, and thus
satisfy the very legitimate curiosity of travellers.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF MONREALE, ITALY.]
THE CATHEDRAL OF MONREALE
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
Sicily under the Normans offered the spectacle of a singularly hybrid
civilization. Christians and Northmen, adopting the habits and imbibing
the culture of their Musulman subjects, ruled a mixed population of
Greeks, Arabs, Berbers, and Italians. The language of the princes was
French; that of the Christians in their territory, Greek and Latin;
that of their Mahommedan subjects, Arabic. At the same time the
Scandinavian Sultans of Palermo did not cease to play an active part
in the affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, of Europe. The children
of the Vikings, though they spent their leisure in harems, exercised,
as hereditary Legates of the Holy See, a peculiar jurisdiction in the
Church of Sicily. They dispensed benefices to the clergy, and assumed
the mitre and dalmatic, together with the sceptre and the crown, as
symbols of their authority in Church as well as State. As a consequence
of this confusion of nationalities in Sicily, we find French and
English ecclesiastics mingling at court with Moorish freedmen and
Oriental odalisques, Apulian captains fraternizing with Greek corsairs,
Jewish physicians in attendance on the person of the prince, and
Arabian poets eloquent in his praises. The very money with which Roger
subsidized his Italian allies, was stamped with Cuphic letters, and
there is reason to believe that the reproach against Frederick of being
a false coiner arose from his adopting the Eastern device of plating
copper pieces to pass for silver. The commander of Roger’s navies and
his chief minister of state was styled, according to Oriental usage,
Emir or Ammiraglio. George of Antioch, who swept the shores of Africa,
the Morea, and the Black Sea, in his service, was a Christian of the
Greek Church, who had previously held an office of finance under Temim
Prince of Mehdia. The workers in his silk factories were slaves, from
Thebes and Corinth. The pages of his palace were Sicilian or African
eunuchs. His charters ran in Arabic as well as Greek and Latin. His
jewellers engraved the rough gems of the Orient with Christian mottoes
in Semitic characters.[5] His architects were Musulmans who adapted
their native style to the requirements of Christian ritual, and
inscribed the walls of cathedrals with Catholic legends in the Cuphic
language. The predominant characteristic of Palermo was Orientalism.
Religious toleration was extended to the Musulmans, so that the two
creeds, Christian and Mahommedan, flourished side by side.
At Palermo, Europe saw the first instance of a court not wholly unlike
that which Versailles afterwards became. The intrigues which endangered
the throne and liberty of William the Bad, and which perplexed the
policy of William the Good, were court-conspiracies of a kind common
enough at Constantinople. In this court life men of letters and
erudition played a part three centuries before Petrarch taught the
princes of Italy to respect the pen of a poet. King Roger, of whom the
court geographer Edrisi writes that “he did more sleeping than any
other man waking,” was surrounded during his leisure moments, beneath
the palm-groves of Favara, with musicians, historians, travellers,
mathematicians, poets, and astrologers of Oriental breeding.
The architectural works of the Normans in Palermo reveal the same
ascendancy of Arab culture. San Giovanni degli Eremiti, with its low
white rounded domes, is nothing more or less than a little mosque
adapted to the rites of Christians. The country palaces of the Zisa
and the Cuba, built by the two Williams, retain their ancient Moorish
character, standing beneath the fretted arches of the hall of the
Zisa, through which a fountain flows within a margin of carved marble,
and looking on the landscape from its open porch, we only need to
reconstruct in fancy the green gardens and orange-groves, where
fair-haired Normans whiled away their hours among black-eyed odalisques
and graceful singing boys from Persia. Amid a wild tangle of olive and
lemon trees overgrown with scarlet passion-flowers the pavilion of the
Cubola, built of hewn stone and open at each of its four sides, still
stands much as it stood when William II paced through flowers from his
palace of the Cuba, to enjoy the freshness of the evening by the side
of its fountain. The views from all these Saracenic villas over the
fruitful valley of the Golden Horn, and the turrets of Palermo, and
the mountains and the distant sea, are ineffably delightful. When the
palaces were new--when the gilding and the frescoes still shone upon
their honeycombed ceilings, when their mosaics glittered in noonday
twilight, and their amber-coloured masonry was set in shade of pines
and palms, and the cool sound of rivulets made music in their courts
and gardens, they must have well deserved their Arab titles of “Sweet
Waters” and “The Glory” and “The Paradise of Earth.”
But the true splendour of Palermo, that which makes this city one of
the most glorious of the South, is to be sought in its churches--in the
mosaics of the Cappella Palatina founded by King Roger, in the vast
aisles and cloisters of Monreale built by King William the Good at the
instance of his Chancellor Matteo,[6] in the Cathedral of Palermo begun
by Offamilio, and in the Martorana dedicated by George the Admiral.
These triumphs of ecclesiastical architecture, none the less splendid
because they cannot be reduced to rule or assigned to any single style,
were the work of Saracen builders assisted by Byzantine, Italian, and
Norman craftsmen. The genius of Latin Christianity determined the
basilica shape of the Cathedral of Monreale. Its bronze doors were
wrought by smiths of Trani and Pisa. Its walls were incrusted with
the mosaics of Constantinople. The woodwork of its roof, and the
emblazoned patterns in porphyry and serpentine and glass and smalto,
which cover its whole surface, were designed by Oriental decorators.
Norman sculptors added their dog-tooth and chevron to the mouldings of
its porches; Greeks, Frenchmen, and Arabs may have tried their skill
in turn upon the multitudinous ornaments of its cloister capitals.
“The like of which church,” says Lucius III in 1182, “hath not been
constructed by any king even from ancient times, and such an one as
must compel all men to admiration.” These words remain literally and
emphatically true. Other cathedrals may surpass that of Monreale in
sublimity, simplicity, bulk, strength, or unity of plan. None can
surpass it in the strange romance with which the memory of its many
artificers invests it. None again can exceed it in richness and glory,
in the gorgeousness of a thousand decorative elements subservient to
one controlling thought. “It is evident,” says Fergusson in his history
of architecture, “that all the architectural features in the building
were subordinate in the eyes of the builders to the mosaic decorations,
which cover every part of the interior, and are in fact the glory and
the pride of the edifice, and alone entitle it to rank among the finest
of mediæval churches.” The whole of the Christian history is depicted
in this series of Mosaics; but on first entering, one form alone
compels attention. The semi-dome of the eastern apse above the high
altar is entirely filled with a gigantic half-length figure of Christ.
He raises His right hand to bless, and with His left holds an open book
on which is written in Greek and Latin, “I am the Light of the World.”
His face is solemn and severe, rather than mild or piteous; and round
His nimbus runs the legend Ἰησους χριστὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ. Below Him on
a smaller scale are ranged the archangels and the mother of the Lord,
who holds the child upon her knees. Thus Christ appears twice upon this
wall, once as the Omnipotent Wisdom, the Word by whom all things were
made, and once as God deigning to assume a shape of flesh and dwell
with men. The magnificent image of supreme Deity seems to fill with a
single influence and to dominate the whole building. The house with all
its glory is His. He dwells there like Pallas in her Parthenon or Zeus
in his Olympian temple. To left and right over every square inch of the
cathedral blaze mosaics, which portray the story of God’s dealings with
the human race from the Creation downwards, together with those angelic
beings and saints, who symbolize each in his own degree some special
virtue granted to mankind. The walls of the fane are therefore an open
book of history, theology, and ethics for all men to read.
The superiority of mosaics over fresco as an architectural adjunct on
this gigantic scale is apparent at a glance at Monreale. Permanency
of splendour and glowing richness of tone are all on the side of the
mosaics. Their true rival is painted glass. The jewelled churches
of the south are constructed for the display of coloured surfaces
illuminated by sunlight falling on them from narrow windows, just as
those of the north--Rheims, for example, or Le Mans--are built for
the transmission of light through a variegated medium of transparent
hues. The painted windows of a northern cathedral find their proper
counterpart in the mosaics of the south. The Gothic architect strove
to obtain the greatest amount of translucent surface. The Byzantine
builder directed his attention to securing just enough light for the
illumination of his glistening walls. The radiance of the northern
church was similar to that of flowers or sunset clouds or jewels.
The glory of the southern temple was that of dusky gold and gorgeous
needlework. The north needed acute brilliancy as a contrast to external
greyness. The south found rest from the glare and glow of noonday in
these sombre splendours. Thus Christianity, both of the south and of
the north, decked her shrines with colour. Not so the Paganism of
Hellas. With the Greeks, colour, though used in architecture, was
severely subordinated to sculpture; toned and modified to a calculated
harmony with actual nature, it did not, as in a Christian church,
create a world beyond the world, a paradise of supersensual ecstasy,
but remained within the limits of the known. Light falling upon
carved forms of gods and heroes, bathing clear-cut columns and sharp
bas-reliefs in simple lustre, was enough for the Phœbian rights of
Hellas. Though we know that red and blue and green and gilding were
employed to accentuate the mouldings of Greek temples, yet neither the
gloomy glory of mosaics nor the gemmed fretwork of storied windows was
needed to attune the souls of Hellenic worshippers to devotion.
THE LUXEMBOURG PALACE
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
The Rue de la Seine will bring us to the Palace of the Luxembourg,
now the Palace of the Senate (open from nine to four in winter, nine
to five in summer), built by Marie de’ Medici on the site of a hotel
erected by Robert de Harlay de Saucy early in the Sixteenth Century,
which was bought by the Duc de Pincy-Luxembourg. The queen employed
Jacques Debrosses as her architect in 1615, and his work was completed
in 1620. The ground floor, in the Tuscan style, was intended to convey
a reminiscence of the Florentine Palazzo Pitti, in which Marie de’
Medici was born: the upper stories are Grecian.
The queen intended to call the palace Palais Medicis, though the name
has always clung to it which is derived from François de Luxembourg,
Prince de Tingry, who owned the site in 1570. The palace was bequeathed
by Marie de’ Medici to her youngest son Gaston, Duc d’Orléans,
from whom it came to his two daughters, who each held half of the
Luxembourg--“La Grande Mademoiselle,” and the pious Duchesse de Guise
(whose mother, sister of the Duc de Lorraine, had clandestinely become
the second wife of Monsieur), who was terribly tyrannized over by her
rich half sister. It was here that Mademoiselle received the visits
of M. de Lauzun, whilst La Fosse was painting the loves of Flore and
Zephyr, and here that she astonished Europe by the announcement of
her intended marriage, to which--for a few days--Louis XIV. was induced
to give his consent.
[Illustration: THE LUXEMBOURG PALACE, FRANCE.]
At her death, Mademoiselle bequeathed her right in the Luxembourg
to her Cousin Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIV. During
the Regency, the palace was the residence of the Duchesse de Berry
(daughter of the Regent Philippe d’Orléans), who by her orgies here
rivalled those of her father at the Palais Royal. The Luxembourg was
bought by Louis XV., and given by Louis XVI. to his brother “Monsieur,”
who resided in it till his escape from Paris at the time of the flight
to Varennes.
Treated as national property during the Revolution, the Luxembourg
became one of the prisons of the Reign of Terror. Amongst other
prisoners, comprising the most illustrious names in France, were the
Vicomte de Beauharnais and his wife Josephine, afterwards Empress of
the French: “_De quoi se plaignent donc ces damnés aristocrates?_”
cried Montagnard; “_nons les logeons dans les châteaux royaux._”
David, the painter, designed his picture of the Sabines during his
imprisonment at the Luxembourg, in a little room on the second floor.
Here also in a different category, were imprisoned Hébert, Danton,
Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, Hérault de Séchelles, Payne,
Bazire, Chabot, and Fabre d’Eglantine. In 1793, people used to come and
stand for hours in the garden in the hope of being able to have a last
sight of their friends, from their being allowed to show themselves at
the windows.
It was at the Luxembourg that (December 10, 1797), Bonaparte presented
the treaty of the peace of Campo Formio to the Directory, after
returning from his first campaign in Italy. At the end of 1799, the
palace became for a time _Le Palais du Consulat_: _Le Palais du
Sénat_, then _de la Pairie_. Marshal Ney was condemned to death
here, under the Restoration (November 21, 1815), and was executed in
the Allée de l’Observatoire, at the end of the garden on December 7.
The iron wicket still remains in the door of his prison, opening west
at the end of the great gallery of archives. The ministers of Charles
X. were also judged at the Luxembourg, and Fieschi and the other
conspirators of July, 1835, were condemned here; as was Prince Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte, after the attempt at Bologne in 1840.
The Luxembourg is only shown when the Senate is not sitting. The
apartments best worth seeing are the Chapel of 1844, decorated with
modern paintings; and _the Ancienne Salle du Livre d’or_, where
the titles and arms of peers were preserved under the Restoration and
Louis Philippe, adorned with the decorations of the apartment of Marie
de’ Medici. The ceiling of the gallery, which forms part of the hall,
represents the Apotheosis of Marie. The arabesques in the principal
hall are attributed to Giovanni da Udine: the ceiling represents
Marie de’ Medici reestablishing the peace and unity of France. The
first floor is reached by a great staircase which occupies the place
of a gallery once filled with the twenty-four great pictures of the
life of the Regent Marie by Rubens, now in the Louvre. The oratory of
the queen and another room are now united to form the _Salle des
Gardes_, her bedroom is the _Salle des Messagers d’état_ and
her reception-room is known as the _Salon de Napoléon I_. The
cupola of the _Salle du Trône_ by Alaux represents the Apotheosis
of the first Emperor.
The _Hôtel du Petit Luxembourg_ is a dependency of the greater
palace, and was erected about the same time by Richelieu, who resided
here till the Palais Royal was built. When he moved thither, he gave
this palace to his niece, the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, from whom it
passed to Henri Jules de Bourbon-Condé, after which it received the
name of _Petit Bourbon_. Anne, Palatine of Bavaria, lived here,
and added a hôtel towards the Rue Vaugirard to accommodate her suite.
Under the First Empire the Luxembourg was occupied for some time by
Joseph Bonaparte. It is now the official residence of the President
of the Senate. The cloister of the former convent of the _Filles du
Calvaire_, whom Marie de Medici established near her palace, is now
a winter garden attached to the Petit Luxembourg. The chapel, standing
close to the grill of the Rue de Vaugirard, is an admirable specimen
of the end of the Sixteenth Century; on the summit of its gable is a
symbolical Pelican nourishing its young.
Beyond the Petit Luxembourg is a modern building containing the Musée
du Luxembourg. The collection now in the galleries of the Louvre was
begun at the Luxembourg and only removed in 1779, when Monsieur came to
reside here. In 1802 a new gallery was begun at the Luxembourg, but,
in 1815, its pictures were removed to the Louvre to fill the places of
those restored to their rightful owners by the Allies. It was Louis
XVIII. who ordered that the Luxembourg should receive such works of
living artists as were acquired by the State. The collection, recently
moved from halls in the palace itself, is always interesting, but as
the works of each artist are removed to the Louvre ten years after his
death, the pictures are constantly changing.
THE GREAT LAMA TEMPLE
C. F. GORDON-CUMMING
This morning soon after 5 A. M. Dr. Dudgeon took me to see the
Yung-ho-kung, a very fine old Lama temple, just within the wall, at the
north-east corner of the Tartar city. It contains about 1,300 monks of
all ages, down to small boys six years old, under the headship of a
Lama, who assumes the title of “The Living Buddha.”
These monks are Mongol Tartars of a very bad type, dirty and greedy
of gain; and, moreover, are known to be grossly immoral. They are
generally offensively insolent to all foreigners, many of whom have
vainly endeavoured to obtain access to the monastery,--even the silver
key, which is usually so powerful in China, often failing to unlock the
inhospitable gates.
That I had the privilege of entrance was solely due to the personal
influence of Dr. Dudgeon, whose medical skill has happily proved so
beneficial to the “Living Buddha,” and several of the priests, as to
ensure him a welcome from them. It was not, however, an easy task
to get at these men, as a particularly insolent monk was acting as
door-keeper, and attempted forcibly to prevent our entrance. That,
however, was effected by the judicious pressure of a powerful shoulder,
and after a stormy argument, the wretch was at length overawed, and
finally reduced to abject humility by threats to report his rudeness
to the head Lama.
At long last, after wearisome expostulation and altercation, every
door was thrown open to us, but the priest in charge of each carefully
locked it after us, lest we should avoid giving him an individual tip,
or _kum-sha_, as it is here called. Happily I had a large supply
of five and ten cent silver pieces, which the Doctor’s knowledge of
Chinese custom compelled our extortioners to accept. At the same time,
neither of us could avoid a qualm as each successive door was securely
locked, and a vision presented itself of possible traps into which we
might be decoyed.
Every corner of the great building is full of interest, from the
brilliant yellow china tiles of the roof to the yellow carpet in the
temple. The entrance is adorned with stone carvings of animals, and
the interior is covered with a thousand fantastic figures carved
in wood--birds, beasts, and serpents, flowers and monstrous human
heads mingle in grotesque confusion. It is rich in silken hangings,
gold embroidery, huge picturesque paper lanterns of quaint form,
covered with Chinese characters and grotesque idols, canopied by very
ornamental baldachinos.
Conspicuous amongst these idols is Kwang-ti, who was a distinguished
warrior at the beginning of the Christian era, and who about eight
hundred years later was deified as the God of War, and State temples
were erected in his honour in every city of the Empire. So his
shrine is adorned with all manner of armour, especially bows and
arrows--doubtful votive offerings. He is a very fiercelooking god,
and is attended by two colossal companions, robed in the richest gold
embroidered silk. Another gigantic image is that of a fully armed
warrior leading a horse. I believe he is Kwang-ti’s armour bearer.
In various parts of the temple hang trophies of arms and military
standards, which are singular decorations for a temple wherein Buddha
is the object of supreme worship.
But the fact is, that though Kwang-ti is the God of War, he is also
emphatically “Protector of the Peace,” and his aid is invoked in all
manner of difficulties, domestic or national. For instance, when
the great salt wells in the Province of Shansi dried up, the sorely
perplexed Emperor was recommended by the Taouist High Priest to lay
the case before Kwang-ti. The Emperor, therefore, wrote an official
despatch on the subject, which was solemnly burnt, and thus conveyed
to the spirit-world, when, lo! in answer to the Son of Heaven, the
Warrior-god straightway appeared in the clouds, mounted on his red
war-horse, and directed the Emperor to erect a temple in his honour.
This was done, and the salt springs flowed as before.
Kwang-ti again appeared in 1855, during the Taiping rebellion, to
aid the Imperial troops near Nankin, for which kind interposition,
Hien-feng, the reigning Emperor (whose honour-conferring power extends
to the spirit-world), promoted him to an equal rank with Confucius! So
here we find him reverenced alike by Taouists and Buddhists!
All the altar-vases in this temple are of the finest Pekin
enamel--vases, candlesticks, and incense-burners, from which filmy
clouds of fragrant incense float upward to a ceiling panelled with
green and gold. Fine large scroll paintings tempted me to linger
at every turn, and the walls are encrusted with thousands of small
porcelain images of Buddha.