brother Mundhir to be murdered to make his way to the throne of Cordova
in 888, Andalusia was split up into a number of independent
principalities. The turbulent Ibn-Hafsun had made himself virtual King
of Granada, the governors of Lorca and Zaragoza rendered but nominal
homage to the khalif, the walls of Toledo rattled with the crash of
contending revolutionary factions, and in Seville Ibrahim Ibn-Hajjaj
treated with the King of Cordova on equal terms. In the time of
Ibn-Hajjaj Seville was the most orderly and best-governed city in the
Peninsula. The poets of Cordova, the singers of Baghdad, and the lawyers
of Medina were attracted to the court of Ibn-Hajjaj, of whom it was
sung, “In all the West I find no right noble man save Ibrahim, but he is
nobility itself. When one has known the delight of living with him, to
dwell in any other land would be a misery.” Yet in 912-13, Ibrahim
Ibn-Hajjaj, who kept his state like an Emperor, opened the gates of
Seville to the masterful and gallant Abd-er-Rahman III., and the city
became once more subject to the self-proclaimed Khalif of Cordova. It
was Abd-er-Rahman who planted Seville with palm trees, beautified her
gardens, increased the number of her palaces, and made the Guadalquivir
navigable by narrowing the river’s channel. Ibrahim “the Magnificent”
received the Great Khalif with the homage which a feudal lord offers to
his king, and the independence of Seville was at an end.
But Seville at this period was the rival of Cordova in intellectual
eminence, and much of the Moorish thought and research which was
destined to influence Spain in future ages was pondered, and practised,
and published from the former city. Abu Omar Ahmed Ben Abdallah, called
“El Begi,” “the Sage,” and unquestionably one of the most learned men of
his time, was a native of Seville, and here he wrote his encyclopædia of
the sciences. It was said that there was no man who could surpass him in
knowledge of arts and sciences, and “even in his earliest youth,” says
Condé, “the cadi very frequently consulted him in affairs of the highest
importance.” Chemists, philosophers, astronomers, and men famous in
every branch of science, resorted to “the Pearl of Andalusia;” while art
was fostered in silk and leather manufactures, and the joy of life found
expression in music, poetry, and the dance.
The victorious expeditions of Alfonso VI. found the Moors demoralised
from the massacres of Cordova and Ez-Zahra, and the whole of Andalusia
in a state of ferment, anarchy, and military unpreparedness. In every
town of importance in the South a new independent dynasty sprang into
existence, and the Abbadites exercised kingly sway over the so-called
republic of Seville. Some of these usurpers and pretenders, as Mr.
Lane-Poole has pointed out, were good rulers; most of them were
sanguinary tyrants, but (curiously) not the less polished gentlemen, who
delighted to do honour to learning and letters, and made their courts
the homes of poets and musicians. Mo’temid of Seville, for instance, was
a patron of the arts, and a prince of many
[Illustration: SEVILLE.
Details in Hall of Ambassadors.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--PRINCIPAL FAÇADE.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
INTERIOR COURT OF THE ALCAZAR.]
attainments, yet he kept a garden of heads cut off his enemies’
shoulders, which he regarded with great pride and delight. Yet Seville
was secure and peaceful under these barbarous rulers until the menace of
Alfonso’s inroads made Mo’temid silence the fears of his court with the
reflection, “Better be a camel-driver in African deserts than a
swine-herd in Castile.” So they fled from the danger of the Castilians
to the succour that Africa was waiting to send them. A conference of
Moorish rulers was held in Seville, and a message imploring assistance
was despatched to Yusuf, the Almoravide king. Yusuf defeated the army of
Alfonso near Badajoz in 1086. Four years later the King of Seville again
besought the help of Yusuf against the Christians of the North. This
time he came with a force of twenty thousand men at his back, and before
the end of 1091 the leader of the Almoravides had captured Seville and
established a dynasty which was to last until its overthrow by the
Almohades in 1147.
The Almoravide rule, which was distinguished in the beginning by piety
and a love of honest warfare, ended in tyranny and corruption, and the
Almoravides gave place to a race more pious and fanatical than the
demoralised followers of Yusuf had ever been. For a hundred and one
years the Almohades remained masters of Seville. The monuments of their
devotion and artistic genius are extant in the mosque and the alcazar,
and we know that under Abu Yakub Yusuf a new era of commercial
prosperity set in for Seville, and a new light arose to illumine the
fast deepening shadows which fell over the vanishing glory of Cordova.
The thunder of the blows which had reduced “the City of the Fairest” to
a heap of ruins still echoed in the air, and mixed with the noise of the
builders and artificers who were re-moulding Seville “nearer to the
heart’s desire.”
The remains of Moorish architecture which we find in Cordova, in
Seville, and in Granada, enable us to realise that the civilisation and
art of the Spanish Moslems were progressive, and that each stage
developed its varied and singular characteristics. “The monuments of
Seville,” says Contreras in his _Monuments Arabes_, “produce quite a
peculiar effect on the mind, a sublime reminiscence of ancient and
profound social transformations, which only the inartistic aspect of bad
restorations can dissipate--a vandalism inspired by the desire to see
the building shining with colour and gold, and which impelled people to
restore it without paying the smallest heed to the most elementary
principles of archæology. The alcazar of Seville is not a classic work;
we do not find in it the stamp of originality, and the ineffaceable
character that one admires in ancient works like the Parthenon, and in
more modern ones like the Escurial; the first on account of their
splendid simplicity, and the latter for their great size and taciturn
grandeur. In the alcazar of Yakub Yusuf, the prestige of a heroic
generation has disappeared, and the existence of Christian kings, who
have lived there and enriched it with a thousand pages of our glorious
history, is perfectly represented there. The Almohades who left the
purest African souvenirs there, and Jalubi who followed Almehdi to the
conquest of Africa, left on the walls Roman remains, taken from the
vanquished people. St. Ferdinand, who conquered it; Don Pedro I., who
re-built it; Don Juan II., who restored the most beautiful halls; the
Catholic monarchs, who built chapels and oratories within its precincts;
Charles V., who added more than half, with the moderated style of this
epoch of sublime renaissance; Philip III., and Philip V., who further
increased it by erecting edifices in the surrounding gardens; all these,
and many other princes and great lords, who inhabited it
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--ARCADE IN THE PRINCIPAL COURT.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE INTERIOR.]
for six centuries, changed its original construction in such a degree
that it no longer resembles, to-day, the original Oriental monument,
although we have covered it with arabesques, and embellished it with
mosaics and gilding.”
All that succeeding generations have constructed in the alcazar has
contributed to deprive it of its Mohammedan character. Transformed into
a lordly mansion of more modern epochs, one no longer sees there the
voluptuous saloons of the harem, nor the silent spaces reserved for
prayer, nor the baths, nor the fountains, nor the strong ramparts,
supporting the galleries, which, by circular paths, communicated with
the rich sleeping apartments, situated in the square towers. It is not
that Arab art is in a different form here to that seen in other parts of
Spain; but while the Moors always built palaces in close proximity to
fortified places, they here combined the two, and for that reason they
sacrificed the exterior decoration to the works of fortification and
defence. On approaching the palace, one finds marks of grandeur, but one
must not look for them in the structure, but rather in the numerous
reparations and additions which have been made there, and also in the
solid walls, dominating the ruins of those castles, which seem to
protest eternally against the cold indifference with which so many
generations have passed over them. And if, on the one hand, there is no
doubt that this is the old wall or the ancient tower, on the other hand,
the traveller, greedy for impressions left by a past world, finds
nothing but square enclosures, gardens and rectangular saloons of the
mansions of the 16th century. Here there is nothing so majestic as the
Giralda; nothing so essentially Oriental as the mosque of Cordova;
nothing so fantastic and so picturesque as the alcazar of Granada. One
only sees here the chronicle of an art, carried out by a thousand
artists, obeying different beliefs, and which presents rather the
appearance of a game played by children who had invaded the spot where
the most valued works of their ancestors were preserved, rather than the
passionate conception of the terrible descendants of Hagar, who in fifty
years invaded half the globe. But one still catches something of the
spirit of an art that was almost a religion, as one lingers in the quiet
gardens of the alcazar; the deep impress of the Moor will never be
entirely obliterated from the courts and saloons of this palace of
dreams. As Mr. W. M. Gallichan writes: “The nightingales still sing
among the odorous orange bloom, and in the tangle of roses, birds build
their nests. Fountains tinkle beneath gently waving palms; the savour of
Orientalism clings to the spot. Here wise men discussed in the cool of
summer nights, when the moon stood high over the Giralda, and white
beams fell through the spreading boughs of lemon trees, and shivered
upon the tiled pavements. In this garden the musicians played, and the
tawny dancers writhed and curved their lissom bodies in dramatic Eastern
dances.”
Ichabod! The moody potentate, bowed down with the cares of high office,
no longer treads the dim corridor, or lingers in the shade of the palm
trees. No sound of gaiety reverberates in the deserted courts, no voice
of orator is heard in the Hall of Justice. The green lizards bask on the
deserted benches of the gardens. Rose petals strew the paved paths.
One’s footsteps echo in the gorgeous patios, whose walls have witnessed
many a scene of pomp, tragedy, and pathos. The spell of the past holds
one; and, before the imagination, troops a long procession of
illustrious sovereigns, courtiers, counsellors, and warriors.
This wonderful monument, which has moved generations of artists and
poets to rhapsody and praise, and inspired
[Illustration: SEVILLE.
ALCAZAR.
Details of Hall of Ambassadors.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369-1379.]
that picturesque Italian author, De Amicis, to people the gardens of the
alcazar with Mo’temid and his beautiful favourite, Itamad, who had been
dead nearly a century before the alcazar was erected, failed to create
any impression in the mind of Mr. John Lomas, whose strictures upon the
place in his _Sketches of Spain_ must ever be a standing reproof to
those who dare to see Oriental beauty in this Sevillian castle. “Greater
far,” says Mr. Lomas, “is the alcazar in reputation than in intrinsic
worth. Like the Mother Church, it forms a sort of sightseers’ goal, and
it shares equally in the good fortune of so entirely satisfying the
requirements of superficial observers, that it is esteemed a kind of
heresy to take exception to its noble rank as a typical piece of Moorish
work. Yet it is just a great house, of southern and somewhat ancient
construction--say the fifteenth century--with a number of square rooms
and courts, arranged and decorated after Arab models as far as was
possible in the case of a building designed to fulfil the requirements
of Western civilisation. Nothing else. Of course, if the courts and
towers of the Alhambra have not been seen--or are not to be
compassed--there will be found here an infinity of fresh loveliness in
design and colouring, together with a vast amount of detail which will
repay study. But even then it must all be looked upon as an exceedingly
clever reproduction of beautiful and artful forms, not as their best
possible setting forth, or type. There are dark winding
passages--evidently dictated by the exigencies of the work--but they
yield none of the delicate surprises which form so great a charm of the
old Moorish monuments. There is any amount of rich decoration and
Moresque detail; but never the notion of the luxury and voluptuousness
of Eastern life, or a suggestion of its thousand-and-one adjuncts. There
are, here and there, indubitable traces of the original Eleventh
Century alcazar of Yakub Yusuf” (it was not built until the latter part
of the twelfth century) “but there is nothing either distinctive or
precious about them, and the rest is a record rather of Christian than
Arab ways.”
Mr. Lomas is perfectly correct in suggesting that the alcazar of Seville
is, in great measure, a reproduction of the delights of the Alhambra, a
reproduction due, without any doubt, to that school of architecture
which embellished the sumptuous palace of Granada for the kings of the
second Nazarite dynasty. In it we see the record of the ingenious
almizates, of its gates and ceilings, of those stalactited domes, which
dazzle and confuse, of those wall-facings encrusted with rich
ornamentation, of those graceful Byzantine and Moorish geometrical
designs, which even to-day are the despair of perspective painters, of
those enchanting saloons where the genius of harmony seems to rest, and
of those balmy gardens which invite repose, meditation, and melancholy.
While it is generally accepted that the city of Seville possessed no
alcazar of striking importance until the declining power of the
khalifate of Cordova made Seville the capital of an independent kingdom,
there is substantial reason for believing that in the foundations of the
present superb edifice there are unmistakable relics of an earlier work
of truly Arab architecture. The Almohades so thoroughly effaced and
distorted the magnificence of their predecessors’ work that it would be
impossible to point with certainty to any of the original remains of
this many-times-restored palace. The ultra-semi-circular arches which
are seen in the Hall of the Ambassadors, those graceful arches which
carry the mind from Seville to the graceful arcades of the mosque of
Cordova, incline one to regard this apartment as a relic of Abbadite
antiquity, while the rich columns with
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.
Blank Window.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--RIGHT ANGLE OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXX.
Soffit of Arch.]
their gilded capitals of the Corinthian style appears to contain
authentic proof of their Arabic-Byzantine origin. Señor Pedro de
Madrazo, whilst admitting the difficulty of determining the period to
which the various parts of the alcazar belong, disregards the
conclusions of Señores José Amador de los Rios and his son Rodrigo, who
resolutely denied the antiquity of these ultra-semi-circular arches, and
declares the Hall of Ambassadors to be an example of Abbadite
architecture. He further attributes to the same epoch, the showy
ascending arcade of the narrow staircase which leads from the entrance
court to the upper gallery, and rises near the balcony or choir of the
chapel, and the three beautiful arches, sustained by exquisite capitals,
which remain as the sole relic of the decoration of the abandoned
apartment situated close to the “Princes’ Saloon.”
In his work on “Sevilla,” the same authority distinguishes between the
art of the Mudejare, or transition artificers, and that of the Almohado
Moors. “The latter art,” he observes, “is less simple, less select in
its ornamentation, discloses less rational regularity, and is, generally
speaking, more affected.” These differences may be seen in a comparison
between the Moorish Giralda of Seville and the beautiful creation of
artists of the Arab-Andalusian period which are to be studied in the
ornamental parts of the Alhambra. The Almohade architecture displays a
base taste, which imitates rather than feels, and creates forms by
exaggerations which are unsuitable to the design, and thus differs in
æsthetic principles from the Mudejaren-Moorish work of the 13th, 14th,
and 15th centuries, which reveals an instinctive feeling for the
beautiful in ornamentation, which never loses sight of the elegant, the
graceful, and the bold, and consequently never falls into aberration.
The Almohade period, in short, discloses at once the force of the
barbarous spirit civilised by conquest, while the latter offers the
enduring character of cultured taste and wisdom in all the epochs of
prosperous or adverse fortune; both are the faithful expression of
people of different ages, origins, and aptitudes. “It is certain,”
declares Señor de Madrazo, “that the innovations which characterise
Mussulman architecture in Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries, cannot
be explained as a natural mutation from the Arab art of the khalifate,
or as a preparation or transition to the art of Granada, because there
is very little similarity between the style called secondary or Moorish
and the Arab-Byzantine and Andalusian, while on the other hand it is
evident that the Saracen monuments of Fez and Morocco, of the reigns of
Yusuf ben Texpin, Abdel-ben-Ali, Elmansur and Nasser, bear the principal
character of the ornamentation which the Almohades made general in
Spain.”
It must always be remembered when approaching the forbidding exterior of
the alcazar, that it was erected to serve the purpose of a fortress as
well as a palace. Yusuf is supposed to have used a Roman prætorium as
the foundation of his castle, and there are parts of the wall which date
back to Roman times. But the principal gateway which gives entrance to
the palace is of Arab origin, and it is evident that all the upper part,
from the frieze with the Gothic inscription, is purely Mohammedan,
according to the Persic style, very much used in the entrances to
mosques of the first period, in Asia. The two pilasters, in their entire
height, as well as the sculptured framing of the lower part, are of the
Arab style; but the balconies with arches, and Byzantine columns, the
Roman capitals, the lintels of the doors and windows with Gothic
springs, are indications, which prove the reconstruction of the time of
Don Pedro. The later restorations have not completely
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--UPPER PART OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
changed the primitive form, but have only modified it. On entering the
palace one finds other works less Arab than these, the ornaments do not
form an integral part of the decoration, and one can observe that in
order to place them it was necessary to remove inscriptions and
Mohammedan shields which filled the little spaces.
But in passing this square entrance, whose form recalls Egypt, and which
began to be used when the horseshoe arch was no longer in vogue, we find
ourselves in the chief courtyard of the alcazar, which makes a slight
detour in order not to be overlooked from the street, and which offers
an extravagant assemblage of lines without departing from exactness. The
actual lines of this superb edifice, mentioning principally the two
types of architecture which prevail, are the Moorish of the works
erected from 1353 to 1364, and the Renaissance, in the works carried out
under the monarchs of the house of Austria.
It is curious that while the Alhambra was allowed to fall into decay,
and suffered periods of neglect that could be reckoned by scores of
years at a stretch, the alcazar has seldom been free from the hands of
the restorers. The fact accounts, of course, for the splendid state of
preservation in which it is to be found to-day, but it also owes to it
the weird incongruity of style and decoration which lovers of pure
Moorish art deplore. After Pedro had almost entirely reconstructed the
palace--and to him the alcazar owes many of its best portions--it came
under the restoring influence of Juan II., that weak but artistic
monarch, whose handiwork is seen in some of the chief apartments. The
arch-vandal, Charles V., whose palace in the Alhambra would be a work of
art anywhere save on the spot on which he chose to erect it, could not
be expected to spare the alcazar. Under his direction the greater
portion of the Renaissance additions were made, and the portraits of
Spanish kings hung in the Hall of Ambassadors were introduced by his
successor. In the 17th century this favourite residence of the kings of
Spain attained to the zenith of its magnificence; and then for a whole
century the palace was allowed, for the first and only time, to fall
into a state of disrepair. Spain was passing through troublous times,
and its rulers had weightier matters to absorb their attention. The
alcazar, stricken by neglect, shrank to something like its original
proportions, and its beauties fell into decay. In the middle of the 19th
century Queen Isabella II. rescued the ancient structure from the
ravages of time, and the present order and distinction which it now
enjoys is largely due to her timely efforts.
After the restorations made by Don Pedro were finished, the alcazar had
various entrances, but the principal were the two opened in the old Arab
wall, which lead to the courts called the “Banderas y de la Monteria.”
The delicate pointed arches which composed them were almost hidden
between the massive towers of the neighbouring minaret; nothing
externally reveals the dazzling beauty which is to be seen behind these
walls.
In the courtyard one sees very fine ornaments placed hap-hazard, which
had been left over from the last restorations of the palace of Granada,
and which were sent here without any consideration for period or style.
That this system prevailed can be proved by reference to the archives of
the royal patrimony, where there is a document requesting, on the part
of the keeper of the alcazar, that some of the “best” arabesques, which
were being used for the restorations at Granada, should be sent to
Seville. These ornaments, of different epochs and styles, can be seen on
the walls of the alcazar, face to face with others corresponding to the
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--UPPER PORTIONS OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
[Illustration: SEVILLE
ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
infancy of the art. The Alhambra does not suffer from these
incongruities, because it has not suffered a great transformation
similar to that which the alcazar underwent at the hands of Don Pedro.
It has not been altered to suit the requirements of a Christian court,
and it has never been occupied by great personages, with large revenues
at their disposal, to reconstruct it according to their caprice.