lord Mohammed and his kin; health and peace. (This lamp) was ordered (to
be made) by our Lord the egregious sultan, the favoured, the victorious,
the just, the happy, the conqueror of cities, and the extreme boundary
of just conduct among the servants (of God); the emir of the Mussulmans
Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah,
son of our lord Al-Galib-Billah, the conqueror through God's
protection, the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah; (may) God aid him
(praised be God)." Here is a breakage and a corresponding gap in the
inscription, which continues, "beneath it, lighted by my light for its
magnificence and the care of its _xeque_, with righteous purpose and
unerring certainty. And this was in the month of Rabié the first
blessed, in the year 705.[91] May (God) be praised."
[91] September 20th to October 19th, A.D. 1305.
The history of this lamp has been explored with scholarly care by
Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos, whose monograph will be found in the _Museo
Español de Antigüedades_. He says that the lamp was formerly suspended
from the ceiling of the chapel of San Ildefonso in the university of
Alcalá de Henares. Here, too, he has discovered entries which relate to
it in two separate inventories, dated 1526 and 1531, from which we
gather that the lamp, excepting the lowest part or tier, which probably
proceeded from Oran, was brought to Alcalá by Cardinal Cisneros from the
mosque of the Alhambra of Granada.
[Illustration: XXXIII
MOORISH LAMP AND MORTAR
(_Museum of Granada_)]
All of the lamp (continues Amador) that properly belongs to it, is the
open-work shade, together with the graduated set of spheres which we
now observe on top.[92] The lowest part is clearly an inverted bell,
from which project four decorative pieces. This is believed by Amador to
be a Spanish bell, dating from the fifteenth century, designed for
striking with a hammer, and proceeding from some monastery or convent
plundered by the Moors. Indeed, one of the two inventories discovered at
Alcalá mentions "a bell with a hole in it, _which used to belong to a
Moorish lamp_," thus countenancing the widespread supposition that the
lamps of the mosque of Cordova were made of the Christian bells of
Compostela, which the fierce Almanzor caused to be conveyed upon the
aching backs of Christian captives to the Moorish court and capital of
Andalusia.
[92] These spheres recall the four great gilded globes of bronze,
tapering from the bottom to the top, that crowned in olden days the
Giralda tower of Seville. According to the _Crónica General_ the
glitter of these globes "de tan grande obra, é tan grandes, que no
se podríen hacer otras tales," could be distinguished at a distance
of eight leagues. On August 24th, 1395, when Seville was assailed
by a frightful tempest accompanied by an earthquake, the metal rod
which pierced and held the globes was snapped, and the globes
themselves were dashed into a myriad pieces on the _azotea_, scores
of yards below.
It is probable, therefore, that the lamp of the third Mohammed of
Granada is now composed of two lamps, and that the primitive
arrangement of its parts was altered by the ignorant. Eight chains
would formerly suspend it, in the following order of its tiers or
stages, from the dome of the _mezquita_. First and uppermost would come
the shade; then, next to this, the set of tapering spheres; and, last
and lowest, the saucer or _platillo_, which has disappeared. Further,
and as Koranic law prescribed, the lamp would hold two lights--one to be
kindled on the saucer, and the other underneath the shade.
[Illustration]
Other articles of Spanish-Moorish ornamented bronze are thimbles,
buckets, and the spherical perfume-burners which were used to roll upon
the stone or marble pavement of a dwelling. Moorish thimbles, conical
and uncouthly large, are not uncommonly met with at Granada. I have one,
of which the above is an outline sketched to size.
[Illustration: XXXIV
LAMP OF MOHAMMED THE THIRD
(_Madrid Museum_)]
Sometimes these Moorish thimbles are inscribed in Cufic lettering
with phrases such as--"(May) the blessing of God and every kind of
happiness (be destined for the owner of this thimble)"; or else the
maker's name--"The work of Saif"; or a single word--"Blessing."
The thimbles from which I quote these legends are in the National
Museum. The same collection includes a very finely wrought bronze bucket
or _acetre_ (Latin _situlus_; Arabic _as-setl_, the utensil for drawing
water for a bath). The outside is covered with delicate ornamentation,
varied with inscriptions of no great interest, invoking Allah's blessing
on the owner or employer of the bucket, which is thought by Amador to be
of Granadino workmanship, and to date from about the middle of the
fourteenth century.
Not many specimens remain of early mediæval Spanish bronzes wrought by
Christian hands. Riaño, who admits that "we can hardly trace any bronze
of this period other than cathedral bells," mentions as probably
proceeding from abroad the altar-fronts and statuettes, in gilt
enamelled bronze, of Salamanca and elsewhere,[93] and gives a short
description of the bell, about six inches high (Pl. xxxv.), known as the
Abbot Samson's, now in Cordova Museum. This object bears an early date
(875 A.D.), and is inscribed, "_Offert hoc munus Samson abbatis in domum
Sancti Sebastiani martyris Christi, Era_ D.C.C.C.C.XIII."
[93] See p. 50.
It is curious that Riaño should make no mention of Spanish bronze
processional crosses. In my chapter on gold, silver, and jewel work I
mentioned those belonging to churches in the north of Spain. A bronze
crucifix (Plate xxxvi.), believed to date from the beginning of the
twelfth century, and proceeding from the monastery of Arbós, in the
province of León, is now in the possession of Don Felix Granda Builla.
It is undoubtedly of Spanish make, and probably was carried in
processions. The style is pure Romanic, and the drawing of the ribs,
extremities, and limbs is typically primitive. The _sudarium_ is secured
by the belt or _parazonium_. The feet, unpierced, rest on a
_supedaneum_.
A bronze Renaissance parish cross of the sixteenth century, once hidden
in a village of Asturias, was bought some thirty years ago by the museum
of Madrid. The body of the cross is wood, covered on both sides with
bronze plates wrought with figures of the Saviour as the holy infant and
as full-grown man, and also with a figure of the Virgin. These
figures were formerly painted, and traces of the colour yet remain. The
cross was also silvered. The rest of the ornamentation consists of
vases, flowers, and other subjects proper to Renaissance art.
[Illustration: XXXV
ABBOT SAMSON'S BELL
(_9th Century. Museum of Cordova_)]
A similar cross belongs to the parish church of San Julian de Recaré, in
the province of Lugo, while San Pedro de Donas, near Santiago in
Galicia, possesses a processional cross of bronze, pierced along the
edges in a pattern of trefoils and _fleurs-de-lis_, but otherwise
undecorated.
Sometimes in Spanish bronze we find the handiwork of Moors and
Christians picturesquely intermingled, as in the gates of Toledo
cathedral (1337), and the Puertas del Perdón--forming the principal
entrance to the Court of Orange Trees--of the mosque of Cordova, made of
wood and covered with bronze plating decorated with irregular hexagons
and Gothic and Arabic inscriptions. The knockers contain a scroll and
flowers, and on the scroll the words, _Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel_.
The gate of the same name of Seville cathedral (Pl. xxxvii.) is similar
in workmanship, and is considered by Riaño to be a good example of
Moresque bronze-work.
While speaking of these doors, we should remember that Moorish
craftsmen were employed to decorate or to repair the mosque of Cordova
long after it had been converted to the worship of the Christians. When
he was acting as viceroy in the year 1275, the Infante Don Fernando
confirmed a letter of his father, King Alfonso, remitting tolls and
taxes that would otherwise be leviable upon four Moors who worked in the
cathedral. The Infante's confirmation, after recording that "one (of the
four Moors) is dead and the other blind, in such wise that he can work
no more," consents to the engagement of another two, Famet and Zahec by
name, to fill their places, and who also are hereby exempted from the
payment of all dues. Five years afterwards this privilege was
reconfirmed by King Alfonso, and we are further told on this occasion
that two of the Moorish four were _albañís_, or masons, and the others
_añaiares_, or carpenters. As time progressed, the situation of the
vanquished and humiliated Mussulmans grew more irksome. On October 25th,
1320, the Infante Don Sancho, who had usurped the throne, proclaimed, in
ratification of a letter issued by his father, that all the Moorish
carpenters, masons, sawyers, and other workmen and artificers of Cordova
must work in the cathedral (presumably without a wage) for two days
in every year.[94]
[94] _Libro de las Tablas_, pp. 17, 18. See Madrazo, _Cordova_, pp. 273
_et seq._
[Illustration: XXXVI
BRONZE CRUCIFIX
(_12th Century_)]
In the latter half of the sixteenth century, Bartolomé Morel, a
Sevillano, produced some notable work in bronze.[95] Three objects by
his hand--namely, the choir lectern and the tenebrarium of Seville
cathedral, and the weathercock or _Giraldillo_ which crowns the
celebrated tower of the same enormous temple--are specially
distinguished for their vigour and effectiveness.
[95] In documents which relate to him (see Gestoso's _Dictionary of
Sevillian Artificers_) Morel is often called an _artillero_. His
father, Juan Morel, was also a founder of cannon, and signed a
contract in 1564 to cast two bronze pieces or _tiros_, with the
royal arms on them.
The least important of these objects is the choir lectern, for which
Morel was paid six hundred ducats. The decoration is of statuettes and
_rilievi_, well designed and better executed. The tenebrarium, aptly
defined by Amador as "an article of church furniture intended to make a
show of light,"[96] is more ambitious and original. "It was designed
and made by Morel in the year 1562. Juan Giralte, a native of Flanders,
and Juan Bautista Vazquez helped him to make the statues at the head of
this candelabrum, and Pedro Delgado, another noted sculptor of Seville,
worked at the foot of it. It is eight and a half yards high, and the
triangular head is three yards across. Upon this upper part are fifteen
statues, representing the Saviour, the apostles, and two other disciples
or evangelists. In the vacant space of the triangle is a circle adorned
with leaves, and in the centre of this circle is a bust of the Virgin in
relief, and, lower down, the figure of a king. All of this part is of
bronzed wood, and rests upon four small bronze columns. The remainder of
the candelabrum is all of this material, and the small columns are
supported by four caryatides, resting upon an order of noble design
decorated with lions' heads, scrolls, pendants, and other ornamentation,
the whole resting upon a graceful border enriched with harpies."
[96] The efficacy of light in illuminating, or may be in dazzling and
confounding, Christian worshippers is too self-evident to call for
illustration. The symbolic meaning of church candles is, however,
neatly indicated by the wise Alfonso in his compilation of the
seven _Partidas_. "Because three virtues dwell in candles, namely,
wick, wax, and flame, so do we understand that persons three dwell
in the Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and we may understand
three other things that dwell in Jesus Christ; to wit, body, soul,
and godhead. Hence the twelve lighted candles manifested to each
quarter of the church exhibit unto us the twelve apostles who
preached the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ through all the earth,
and manifesting truest wisdom illumined all the world."
This description of the Seville tenebrarium is translated from Cean
Bermudez, and is the one most commonly quoted, though Amador complains
that it is not precise, and fails to dwell upon the symbolism of this
mighty mass of bronze.[97] Thus, what Cean affirms to be the bust of a
king is declared by Amador to be the head of a pope, probably Saint
Gregory the Great. Metal, as Cean remarks, is not employed throughout.
In order to preserve its balance, the upper part of the tenebrarium,
containing the triangle which is said by some to symbolize "the divinity
of Jesus as God the triple and the one," is merely wood bronzed over.
Amador adds that the foot and stem are intended to represent "the people
of Israel in their perfidy and ingratitude." He also says that the
statue in the centre of the triangle is that of Faith, and that which
crowns the entire tenebrarium, of the Virgin Mary.
[97] The English rendering of Cean's description inserted by Riaño is
inaccurate throughout.
[Illustration: XXXVII
THE _PUERTA DEL PERDÓN_
(_Seville Cathedral_)]
Morel, like Brunelleschi, was an architect as well as a craftsman in
bronze.[98] He completed this tenebrarium in 1562, and the chapter of
the cathedral were so contented with it that instead of paying him the
stipulated price, namely, eight hundred ducats, they added of their own
accord a further two hundred and fifty. They also commissioned him to
make a handsome case to keep it in; but the case has disappeared, and
the naked tenebrarium now stands in the Sacristy of Chalices of the
cathedral.[99] It is still used at the Matin service during the last
three days of Holy Week, and still, in the _Oficio de Tinieblas_, the
custom is observed of extinguishing the fifteen tapers, one by one, at
the conclusion of each psalm.
[98] As architect, he made a monument (which exists no longer) for the
festivals of Holy Week at Seville.
[99] In 1565 Juan del Pozo, an ironsmith, received one hundred _reales_
"on account of an engine which he made of iron for moving the
tenebrarium of the cathedral, and other heavy things."--Gestoso,
_Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. i. p. 313.
The title of the object which surmounts the famed Giralda tower of
Seville is properly "the Statue of Faith, the triumph of the Church"
(Pl. xxxviii.); but it is known in common language as the Giraldillo
(weathercock), which name has passed into the word Giralda, now applied
to all the tower. The populace of Seville also call it, in the _argot_
of their cheerful town, the _muñeco_ or "doll," the "Victory," and the
"Santa Juana."
[Illustration: XXXVIII
THE WEATHERCOCK OF THE GIRALDA TOWER
(_16th Century. Seville Cathedral_)]
This statue, made of hollow bronze, rotates upon an iron rod piercing
the great bronze globe which lies immediately beneath the figure's feet.
The globe is nearly six feet in diameter. The figure itself represents a
Roman matron wearing a flowing tunic partly covering her legs and arms.
Sandals are secured to her feet by straps. Upon her head she wears a
Roman helmet crested by a triple plume. In her right hand she holds the
semicircular Roman standard of the time of Constantine, which points the
direction of the wind and causes the figure to revolve, excepting when
the air is very faint, in which case it is caught by two diminutive
banners springing from the large one.[100] So huge are the proportions
of this metal lady that the medal on her breast contains a life-size
head which represents an angel.
[100] The statue, which looks so tiny from the street, measures nearly
fourteen feet in height, and weighs more than two thousand two
hundred pounds. The banner alone weighs close upon four hundred
pounds. The figure was raised into its place in 1568, in which
year I find that eighteen Moriscos were paid seventy-eight
_reales_ between them all for doing the work of carriage (Gestoso,
_Diccionario_). Gestoso also mentions a large bronze plate made
by Morel for the pavement of the cathedral, and which has
disappeared. It weighed 2269 pounds, or about the same as the
weathercock of the Giralda, and Morel was paid for it the sum of
289,361 _maravedis_.
The Spanish Moors were also well acquainted with the use of
weathercocks. During the reign, in the eleventh century, of the Zirite
kingling of Granada, Badis ben Habbus, a weathercock of strange design
surmounted his _alcázar_. The historian Marmol wrote in the sixteenth
century that it was still existing on a little tower, and consisted of a
horseman in Moorish dress, with a long lance and his shield upon his
arm, the whole of bronze, with an inscription on the shield which says:
"Badis ben Habbus declares that in this attitude should the Andalusian
be discovered (at his post)."
Not many other objects in this substance can be instanced as the work of
Spanish craftsmen of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries, or of the
later-Gothic age immediately preceding. Among them are the pulpits of
Santiago cathedral, made by Celma, an Aragonese, in 1563; the
choir-screen (1574-1579) in the cathedral of Zaragoza, made by Juan
Tomás Cela, also a native of Aragon; the gilt lecterns of Toledo
cathedral, which are the work of Nicolás Vergara and his son; the Gothic
lectern of the mosque of Cordova; the choir-lectern (1557) of Cuenca,
made by Hernando de Arenas, who will also be remembered as having made
the _reja_ of the same cathedral; and the octagonal gilt-bronze pulpits
of Toledo, wrought by Francisco de Villalpando, as are the bas-reliefs
(1564) upon the door of Lions, executed by the same craftsman from
designs by Berruguete.
These last-named pulpits are associated with a legend. Within this
temple, once upon a time, rested the metal sepulchre of the great Don
Alvaro de Luna, so constructed by his orders that upon the touching of a
secret spring the statue of the Constable himself would rise into a
kneeling posture throughout the celebration of the mass. His lifelong
and relentless foe, the Infante Enrique of Aragon, tore up the tomb in
1449; and from its fragments, superstition says, were made these
pulpits.
Spanish Renaissance door-knockers in bronze are often curious. Fifteen
large bronze rings adorned with garlands, heads of lions and of eagles,
or with the pair of columns and the motto PLUS OULTRE of Charles the
Fifth, were formerly upon the pilasters of the roofless, semi-ruined
palace of that emperor at Granada. Removed elsewhere for greater
safety,[101] they will now be found among the couple of dozen
curiosities preserved in a chamber of the Moorish royal residence of the
Alhambra.
[101] Spaniards have a very scanty confidence in one another's honesty,
as well as in the competence of their police. Often, at Madrid,
and at this day, the porter of a house, as soon as it is dark,
unscrews the knockers from the downstairs door, and guards them
in his _conciergerie_ until the morning.
Herewith I end my sketch of Spanish bronzes, without delaying to
describe the tasteless _transparente_ behind the altar of Toledo
cathedral, or the neo-classic, Frenchified productions of the reign of
Charles the Third, such as the table-mountings of the Buen Retiro, or
trifles from the silver factory of Antonio Martinez. At the Escorial,
the shrine of the Sagrario de la Santa Forma and the altar-front of the
pantheon of the kings of Spain, wrought by Fray Eugenio de la Cruz, Fray
Juan de la Concepción, and Fray Marcos de Perpignan, are meritorious
objects of their time. But the history of Spanish bronzes properly ends
with the Renaissance. This material, possibly from its cost, has not at
any time been greatly popular in Spain. Wood, plain or painted, was
preferred to bronze in nearly all her statuary. Her mediæval and
Renaissance _reja_ and _custodia_ makers can challenge all the world. So
can her potters, armourers, leather-workers, and wood-carvers. But if
we look for masterpieces in the art of shaping bronze, our eyes must
turn to Italy, where, to astonish modern men, the powers of a Donatello
or Ghiberti vibrate across all ages in the bas-reliefs of Saint Anthony
at Padua, or in the gates of the Baptistery of Florence.
ARMS
Lovers of the old-time crafts approach a fertile field in Spanish arms;
for truly with this warworn land the sword and spear, obstinately
substituted for the plough, seem to have grown well-nigh into her
regular implements of daily bread-winning; and from long before the age
of written chronicle her soil was planted with innumerable weapons of
her wrangling tribesmen.
The history of these ancient Spanish tribes is both obscure and
complicated. If Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy, and other authors may be
credited, the Celtic race invaded the Peninsula some seven centuries
before the Christian era, crossing the river Ebro, founding settlements,
and fusing with the natives into the composite people known henceforward
as the Celtiberians. Thus strengthened, they extended over nearly all
the land, and occupied, by a dominative or assimilative policy, the
regions corresponding to the modern Andalusia, Portugal, Galicia, and
the flat and central elevations of Castile.
These Spanish tribes were ever quarrelling, and knew, in Strabo's words,
"no entertainment save in horsemanship and in the exercise of arms."
Quantities of their weapons have been found all over Spain, such as the
heads of spears and arrows, or the blades of daggers, hatchets, knives,
and swords. With these Iberian tribesmen, as with other peoples of the
ancient world, the truly prehistoric age is that of stone; hence they
advanced to bronze, and finally to iron. Beuter, the historian of
Valencia, wrote in 1534 that near to the town of Cariñena, in Aragon, on
digging out some earthen mounds the excavators came upon enormous bones,
flint lance and arrow heads, and knives the size of half an ordinary
sword; all these in company with "many skulls transfixed by the said
stones." In the collection at Madrid, formed by Don Emilio Rotondo y
Nicolau, these primitive Spanish weapons number several thousands; and
many more are in the National Museum.[102]
[102] According to Tubino, the existence of a prehistoric age of stone
was not suspected in Spain until the year 1755, when Mann y
Mendoza affirmed that a state of society had existed in the
Peninsula before the age of metals. Since then the Celtic remains
of Spain and Portugal have been investigated by many scientists,
including Assas, Mitjana, Murguía, and Casiano de Prado, who
discovered numbers of these weapons. Towards the middle of last
century Casiano de Prado, aided by the Frenchmen Verneuil and
Lartet, explored the neighbourhood of San Isidro on the
Manzanares, and found large quantities of arms and implements of
stone. Valuable service in the cause of prehistoric Spanish
archæology has also been performed by Vilanova, Torrubia, and
Machado.
Discoveries of ancient Spanish arms of bronze occur less often and in
smaller quantities than those of stone or iron. Bronze hatchets,
principally of the straight-edged class (_à bords droites_) have been
found in Galicia and certain other provinces. Villa-amil y Castro
describes a bronze dagger of curious workmanship, which was found in
Galicia in 1869. The point of the blade is missing. If this were
included, the length of the weapon would be about six inches.
Other examples, now in the Madrid Museum, include two swords, two
daggers, and two arrowheads. The swords, sharp-pointed, narrow in the
blade, and used by preference for thrusting, were found not far from
Calatayud--the ancient town renowned, as Roman Bilbilis, for weapons of
incomparable temper. The daggers were probably used for fighting hand to
hand.