THE PEARL OF ANDALUSIA
[Illustration: SEVILLE--A STREET]
Seville, in the glory of the Andalusian summer, is a city of white and
gold. Her brilliancy dazzles you, as it dazzled those who wrote of her,
a little wildly, as the eighth wonder of the world. Luis Guevara, a poet
born within her walls, declared that she was not the eighth but the
first of those wonders. In our own day, men of genius have felt her
spell. "Seville," says Valdés, "has ever been for me the symbol of
light, the city of love and joy." So much few northerners would feel
justified in saying. To them this must be the city that most closely
corresponds to their preconceived ideas of the sunny and romantic South.
To Seville belong the sweep of lute-strings, the click of the castanets,
the serenade, and above all, the bull-fight. There is something feminine
about the radiant city, compared with the masculine strength of Toledo
and Avila, and the harsh decadence of Granada. You will agree that no
town is prettier, except perhaps Cadiz. So Byron said, and by him and
all the poets of his school--Alfred de Musset for one--the city by the
Guadalquivir was ardently loved. Yet though so conventionally
romantic of aspect, Seville is busy, prosperous, and well peopled,
before all other Andalusian towns. The blood still courses hotly through
her veins--her vitality intoxicates. If you come from Cordova or
Granada, you feel as though you were returning to the world. Here is
life, here is gaiety; yet your driver the next instant takes you into a
narrow, winding street, no broader than an alley, where absolute silence
reigns. The windows are shuttered, no one seems to stir in the patios.
There reigns a Sabbath-like calm. A minute later you are in a broad
plaza, where electric cars boom and whirr, where all is animation and
bustle. Such contrasts are very sharp in this city, where the streets
exist simply for folk to dwell in, the squares and paseos for them to
gather in and do their business. There are notable exceptions, it is
true. There is no want of life in the Sierpes, the narrow street which
is the Strand and Charing Cross of Seville. Here you return again and
again, feeling it is the focus of the city's life. Little better than a
lane is the Sierpes, where no wheeled traffic can pass. It is amazingly
dark in the summer, when awnings are drawn right across it from roof to
roof, and penetrating into it from the sunny plaza, it is a little time
before you can accustom your eyes to the shadow. Here are the best
shops, the banks, and those elegant and ostentatious casinos, where the
aristocracy and leisured class lounge and smoke, and survey at their
ease the unceasing procession of passers by. There are cafés here of a
different sort, some of which are frequented by the bull-fighters and
their admirers. Here too may be seen in all his glory that peculiar type
of Andalusian, the "Majo," a curious blend of the English "masher" the
"sporting man" and the "troubadour"! The people sit in the cafés to see
the others pass, and the others walk down the street to see the people
in the cafés. This is a form of amusement and exercise common on the
Continent, and acclimatized already at our English seaside towns.
Selling lottery tickets is a great industry in the Sierpes, the sale of
tickets for the next _Corrida de toros_ even more so. The boot-blacking
saloons remind the American visitor of his native land. For his
delectation the _New York Herald_ is displayed in the windows of the few
booksellers. There is nothing about this gay little thoroughfare to
remind us of the past. The history of Seville is more easily recoverable
by the fancy, when you are seated by the Guadalquivir, in sight of the
Torre del Oro, on the spot perhaps where George Borrow, in an unwonted
fit of hysteria, wept over the beauty of the scene before him.
Phœnician, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Goth, and Moor--the city has
known them all and outlived them all. There seems to have been a
settlement of the Turdetani here, before the first Phœnicians came.
The name at all events was bestowed by the Tyrian traders, if it is
really derived from "sephela," a plain. Then came the Carthaginians,
whom the Spaniards accuse of having corrupted the pure and
simple-minded natives. The city became known to the little world of
civilization, and was spoken of by Grecian geographers as "Ispola" and
"Hispalis." The terrible Hamilcar reduced the greater part of Spain to
the Punic yoke. He and his successor Hasdrubal filled Andalusia with
their massive ungainly fortresses. Salambo, the Semitic Venus, was
worshipped on the banks of the Guadalquivir. From time to time, we doubt
not, human sacrifices stained the altars of Baal. One wonders if the
descendants of the Carthaginians became identified with the other great
Semitic people, and passed as Jews. Certainly it is otherwise a little
difficult to account for the presence in Spain of the Israelites in such
numbers at a very early period.
The Carthaginians fought hard for the province of Bætica, but Punic
force and fraud were alike powerless before the sword of Scipio. The
dominion of the province of Iberia passed to Rome. When the conquering
hero turned his face homewards to claim his triumph, he was mindful of
his warworn veterans. For them the journey back to Italy was too long
and wearisome; they were content to die in the land they had conquered.
Outside Hispalis a place of rest and refreshment was found for them in
the village of Sancios. Scipio laid there the foundation of a colony,
bestowed it on his veterans, and named it Italica, in memory of their
fatherland. And thus was founded the first Latin-speaking settlement
outside Italy. It lies--all that remains of it--on the slopes of the
hills that bound the prospect westwards.
Hispalis, not overshadowed by its new neighbour, flourished under the
Roman sway. Julius Cæsar besieged the city, which was garrisoned by
Pompey's partisans, and inscribed the date of its capture in the
calendar of the Republic (August 9, B.C. 45). His fleet, they say, lay
in the river between the Torre del Oro and the Palace of San Telmo. The
townsfolk were devoted to him, and he renamed the place Julia Romula. As
a Roman colony the town had a senate and consuls, ediles and censors.
The wall Cæsar built endured intact until the time of Juan II., so that
monarch wrote in his Chronicle.
While its Punic physiognomy was hard to efface, Seville soon became in
spirit a Latin town. All Andalusia was in course of time thoroughly
Romanized. Seneca, Lucan, the Ælii, as most of us remember, were
Spaniards--if Spaniards could be said, as yet, to have existed.
Then came the era of persecutions, the establishment of Christianity and
the disappearance of Astarte and Baal from the forum and the temple--to
be worshipped, perhaps, for a little while longer in the recesses of the
mountains, where Islam lingered in after times. Presently came the
Vandals, and their fury having spent itself, they made Seville their
capital, though they did _not_ give their name, as some have thought, to
Andalusia. When they passed over--a whole nation--to Africa, the
barbarous Suevi took possession of their old camping-ground. The Suevian
king, Recchiarus, became a Catholic, at the persuasion of Sabinus,
Bishop of Seville, in the year 448. We next hear of him murdering the
Byzantine ambassador Censorius, in this city, and of being defeated and
slain by the Visigoths in 456. Now comes an interregnum of seventy-five
years. The Suevi were expelled from Seville, but their conquerors did
not occupy the town. It must have been governed by its Catholic bishops,
who are spoken of as miracles of wisdom and sanctity. Under Theudis the
Gothic king, Seville again rose to the rank of a capital--or at any rate
shared the dignity with Toledo. Here Theudis was assassinated, and his
son and successor Theudisel also, a few months later. The latter
sovereign is described as a detestably wicked person. He was of course
an Aryan, and gave a shocking example of his hard-hearted incredulity.
Among the hills where lies Italica is a village called San Juan de
Aznalfarache. Near this in the sixth century was a tank which was
miraculously filled once a year, when the Catholics resorted to it to
baptize their catechumens. Theudisel had the tank, when it was dry,
thoroughly investigated, and, satisfied that it was fed by no spring,
had a lid fastened over it and sealed with his own seal. But next Easter
it was full of water! Not to be baffled, the king dug a ditch to the
depth of twenty-five feet all round the tank, but found no trace of a
spring. He would perhaps have gone on digging for years had not his
nobles rid the world of so sceptical a monarch.
We come now to the days of good King Leovgild, who consolidated the
Visigothic monarchy and warred successfully against the Greeks and
barbarous Suevi. His son, Ermengild, being sent to govern Seville, was
converted by Leander, the bishop of the city, to the Catholic faith. The
prince thought he could give no better proof of his zeal for his new
creed than by revolting against his father. A bloody war resulted.
Ermengild was worsted and was shut up in Seville, while his father
occupied Italica and pressed him closely. The rebels capitulated and
were treated leniently. The prince afterwards headed a second revolt
against his father, was captured and executed. He has been enrolled
among the saints of the Catholic Church.
It is quite conceivable that a man of fanatical temperament should feel
himself called upon to effect the conversion of his fellows to what he
believes to be the true faith, even at the cost of his kinsfolk's blood;
but unfortunately for the Visigothic prince, his interests so coincided
with his principles that worldly people not unnaturally suggest that the
desire to wear his father's crown had as much to do with his action as
the desire to convert his father's subjects.
When Spain from Aryan became Catholic, Seville became the Metropolitan
See, and Leander its Archbishop. He was succeeded in that office by his
brother Isidore, a much better man than he, and renowned as a doctor of
the Church and writer on things generally. But by the end of the seventh
century the primacy had passed to Toledo, and before the next century
was fourteen years old the last of the Visigoths had reigned over Spain.
After the victory over Roderic near Jerez, Tarik, the Moorish commander,
marched straight upon Toledo. The reduction of Seville he left to his
superior officer, Musa. The citizens offered, it is said, a stout
resistance, and then retired to Beja, on the other side of the Guadiana.
During the absence of the Moorish commander they recovered the city,
only to be dispossessed and finally subjugated by his son, the famous
Abd-el-Aziz, the Abdalasis of Spanish story. Thenceforward for 536 years
Seville was known as Ishbiliyah, one of the fairest cities of Islam.
When Musa was recalled to Damascus his son remained beside the
Guadalquivir (as the river Bætis had now come to be called). He
espoused, according to tradition, Roderic's widow, Exilona, who, legend
says, had originally been a Moorish princess. For a brief period he
dwelt in splendour in the old Acropolis, near where the Convent of La
Trinidad now stands. But his enemies had been busy far away at the
khalifa's court. While he was in the act of prayer in the mosque he had
built adjacent to his palace, the messenger of death appeared. Exilona
was left a second time a widow, and to the aged Musa was shown, months
later, the lifeless head of his valiant son. Under Abd-el-Aziz's
immediate successors the seat of government of the latest province of
the Moslem Empire was transferred from Seville to Cordova. From all
parts of the East, but especially from Syria, men came flocking to
Andalusia. Quarrels arose as to the partition of the conquered land
between the Berbers, who had composed the hordes of Tarik and Musa, and
the new Saracen settlers. Finally it was decreed that each tribe or
nationality should be allotted that region which bore the most
resemblance to its original place of abode. Under this arrangement
Ishbiliyah was assigned to the people of Homs, the ancient Emesa, a
Syrian town on the Orontes. (We are reminded of the parallel between
Macedon and Monmouth.) But in the course of time the original derivation
of the Spanish Moslems was half forgotten, and the classification was
rather into pure-blooded Arabs and Muwallads or half-breeds.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--THE ACEITE GATE]
Here at Seville the young Abd-er-Rahman arrived, to restore the empire
of his forefathers, the Umeyyas, and under these walls the horde of the
Abbassides was cut to pieces. Yet despite the prosperity she enjoyed
under the Western Khalifate, the city murmured against Cordova, and more
than once essayed to throw off the yoke. In Abdullah's reign (888-912) a
chief named Ibrahim Ibn Hajjaj assumed semi-regal state at Ishbiliyah.
When he rode forth he was attended by five hundred cavaliers, and he
ventured to wear the tiraz, the official insignia of the amirs. He
was a liberal patron of the arts and letters. "In all the West,"
exclaimed a delighted bard, "I found no noble man but Ibrahim, and he
was nobility itself! When you have once lived within his shadow, to live
elsewhere is misery." Such flattery did not delude Ibrahim into too
great a confidence in his own power. He readily submitted to the great
khalifa, Abd-ur-Rahman III., by whom the city was greatly favoured. The
channel of the Guadalquivir was narrowed and deepened, the palm-tree
introduced from Africa, and the city adorned with gardens and fine
edifices. The splendour of the court of Cordova was reflected on
Seville, which became famous as a seat of learning. In those days
flourished Ahmed Ben Abdallah, surnamed "El Beji," or "The Sage," the
author of an Encyclopædia of Sciences which was long esteemed a piece of
marvellous erudition.
Some strange and unexpected figures about this time flit across the
stage of Andalusian history. The Northmen, or "Majus" as they were
called by the Arabs, appeared in the year 844 off Lisbon. After
spreading dismay through Lusitania they sailed their long ships
southwards to Cadiz, and disembarked. They vanquished the khalifa's
troops in three pitched battles, and penetrating into Seville sacked the
rich city from end to end. Luckily they remained but a day and a night,
and after sustaining several desperate attacks from the inhabitants of
the country, with varying results, they retired overland to Lisbon,
where they re-embarked. They came again fifteen years later, and this
time sailed up the Guadalquivir, burnt the principal mosque, and threw
down the Roman walls. Then they made sail for the eastern coasts of
Spain, where they were attacked and routed by the Saracen fleet. An army
of demons must these strange uncouth pirates have seemed to the
Andalusians, who knew not whence they came nor to what race of men they
belonged.
On the break-up of the Western Khalifate in 1009, the shrewd and
powerful kadi, Mohammed Ben Abbad, secured the sovereignty of the city
for himself and his descendants. He contrived to give his usurpation the
appearance of legality. He espoused the cause of an impostor who
personated the deposed khalifa, Hisham, and pretended to govern the city
in his name. His power once firmly established, Ben Abbad disposed of
his puppet, and announced that the khalifa was dead and had designated
him his lawful successor. For the second time Seville rose to the rank
of an independent State.
The dynasty of Abbad, emulous of the glories of Cordova, outshone all
the other rulers of Spain in elegance and culture. The city was adorned
with beautiful gardens and buildings. Learning was held in honour, and
the amir disputed the palm with a swarm of fellow-poets. Walking one day
with his courtiers, on these very banks of the Guadalquivir, the Amir
Mut'adid-billah observed the water lying glassy beneath the waving
light. He improvised a line comparing the surface of the stream to a
cuirass, and called on the poet Aben Amr to complete the verse. This the
laureate found some difficulty in doing, and to his chagrin he was
anticipated by a girl of the people standing by, who contributed these
lines:
"A strong cuirass, magnificent in combat,
Like water frozen over."
The amir, far from resenting this intrusion of a bystander into the
royal circle, bade the girl draw nearer and asked her name. She said
that her name was Romikiwa and that she was the slave of Romiya. The
prince then asked if she were married. The maiden replied that she was
not. "It is well," said Mut'adid-billah, "for I propose to buy you and
to marry you." It is to be presumed that Romiya had no objection to
offer to this plan.
This monarch, the son of the first Abbadite amir, could do other things
than make verses. He was a mighty warrior in Islam, and kept a kind of
garden planted with the skulls of his enemies, in the contemplation of
which he took great delight. With a view to adding to his collection he
made extensive conquests in what are now the provinces of Ciudad Real,
Badajoz, and Alemtejo, and undertook successful expeditions against
Cordova and Ronda. It was the misfortune of his son and successor,
Mote'mid, to be the contemporary of those great and vigorous Castilian
kings, Fernando el Magno and Alfonso VI. Conscious of the weakness of
his little State, the Amir of Ishbiliyah neglected no means of humouring
his powerful neighbour. Fernando sent an armed mission to his court to
demand the body of the holy martyr, Justa. But though Mote'mid eagerly
extended all the assistance in his power, no trace of the relics could
be obtained. The mission would have been obliged to return empty-handed
had not St. Isidore (the brother of St. Leander) appeared in a dream to
one of the Christian envoys and commanded him to convey his remains to
Leon, instead of St. Justa's. The venerable prelate's body was
discovered at Italica and carried off to the north, fragrant with
balsamic odours and wrapped in costly silks. Mote'mid loudly lamented
the loss of the remains. "Oh! venerable brother," he was heard to
exclaim, "dost thou then leave me? Thou knowest what has passed between
me and thee, and the love I bear thee. I pray thee to forget me never."
Very remarkable words indeed, to fall from the lips of a Mohammedan
sovereign in reference to a Catholic saint.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--A COURTYARD]
In truth the Spanish Moslems of that day were sadly wanting in zeal for
their religion. "In those days," writes an Arab chronicler, "men of
virtue and principle were rare among the people of Mohammed. The
majority scrupled not to drink wine and to give themselves up to every
kind of dissipation. The conquerors of Andalusia disputed about their
slaves and singing girls, passing their time in debauchery and
pleasures, wasting the treasure of the State on amusement, and
oppressing the people with exactions and tributes that they might buy
the friendship of the tyrant Alfonso with costly presents. So things
went on among the quarrelsome Mussulman chiefs, until, the conquerors
and the conquered alike prostrated and the kings and captains having
lost their pristine worth, the warriors became cowards, the people
vegetated in misery and dejection, the whole of society became corrupt,
and the lifeless, soulless body of Islam was only a decaying carcase.
The Moslems who did not bow beneath the yoke of Alfonso consented to pay
him annual tributes, constituting themselves in this manner mere tax
collectors for the Christian king on their own territories. Meanwhile
the affairs of Islam were directed by Jews, who obtained the offices of
wizir, hagib, and khatib, reserved in another age to the most
illustrious of the citizens. The Christians devastated the beautiful
land of Andalusia, and carried off captives and booty, burning villages
and threatening the towns."
In pursuance of his policy of conciliation, Mote'mid gave his daughter
Zayda in marriage to Alfonso VI., her dowry being all the towns Mut'adid
had conquered in New Castile. Lucas of Tuy says the damsel was taken
"quasi pro uxore ut præmissam est." But this ambiguous union did not
avert a serious rupture between the sovereigns a year or two later.
When the Castilian king sent two ambassadors to Seville to collect his
tribute, one of them, a Jew, conducted himself so haughtily that the
exasperated Moslems stabbed him to death, letting the Christians escape
without serious injury. This outrage meant war. Mote'mid cast about him
for an ally. No help was to be found in Spain, and with inward
misgivings, no doubt, the Abbadite amir called on the Almoravides of
Africa to uphold the cause of Islam. Warned of the danger of this
course, Mote'mid is said to have replied, "Better be a camel driver in
the African desert than a swineherd in Castile." The Almoravides came
and routed the Christians. They returned to Africa, and then came again,
this time reducing all the petty Mussulman States beneath their sway. In
1091 Ishbiliyah became a mere provincial centre, the seat of a Berber
governor. Mote'mid was sent in chains to Africa, where he died four
years later.
The Almoravide rule was of scant duration. Fifty-five years later all
Andalusia was annexed to the empire of the Almohades. The third
sovereign of the new dynasty dealt what seemed a decisive blow to the
allied Christians at Alarcos in the year 1195. But the conquerors knew
not how to follow up their victory. The Spaniards rallied, and in 1212
was fought the battle of "Las Navas de Tolosa." The Mussulmans were
totally defeated, and left, it is said, six hundred thousand dead upon
the field. Yet the knell of Ishbiliyah had not yet sounded. The
authority of the Almohade khalifas was nominally recognized in the city
sixteen years longer. In 1228 the last of the race of Abd-ul-Mumin to
rule in Spain was expelled by the famous Ben Hud, who was himself slain
by his rival Al Ahmar, the founder of the Nasrite dynasty of Granada,
ten years later. In their despair the people of Seville turned once more
to the African Almohades. But no new army of Ghazis crossed the strait
to do battle with the Unbeliever. The Andalusians were left to fight
their last fight unassisted. Cordova had fallen before St. Ferdinand,
and the Sevillians provoked his anger by the murder of one of their
chiefs who was devoted to his interests. At the eleventh hour the
defence was entrusted--strangely enough for a Mohammedan community--to a
junta composed of six persons. Their names are worth being recorded: Abu
Faris Ben Hafs, Sakkaf, Ben Shoayb, Yahya Ben Khaldun, Ben Khiyar, and
Abu Bekr Ben Sharih.
Thus driven to bay, the Moors offered a determined resistance. They were
attacked not only by the Castilians, but by their own co-religionists;
for Al Ahmar, the new Amir of Granada, was serving with his followers
under the banner of Ferdinand. The siege lasted fifteen months. A fleet
was brought round from the shores of Biscay under the command of Admiral
Ramon Bonifaz. The Moorish ships were dispersed and the chain which the
defenders had stretched across the river broken. The besieged were thus
cut off from their magazines in the suburb of Triana. Meanwhile all the
outlying posts had been taken by the Castilians, and the Moors were
driven to take refuge within the walls. Only when threatened with famine
did the garrison ask for terms. They offered to capitulate if they were
allowed to destroy their principal mosque to save it from profanation.
The Infante Alfonso replied that if a single brick was displaced, the
whole population would be put to the sword. The terms finally accorded
the besieged were, for that age, not ungenerous. A limited number of
families were to be allowed to remain in the city, the lives and
property of these and of the rest were to be respected, and the means of
transport to Africa and other parts of the peninsula were to be provided
for those who were to leave. Probably only a few thousand Moors remained
in Seville. Abu Faris, magnanimously declining an honourable post
offered him by the conqueror, retired to Barbary. Thither he was
followed by thousands of his fellow-townsmen, while others accepted Al
Ahmar's invitation to settle at Granada.
Ferdinand took possession of the city on December 22, 1248. He took up
his residence at the Alcazar, and allotted houses and lands to his
officers, not forgetting even his Moorish auxiliaries. Among his first
cares was the purification of the mosque and its conversion into a
Christian church. It is interesting to note that the first of his
knights to mount the Giralda Tower was a Scotsman named Lawrence Poore.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--THE TORRE DEL ORO AND THE CATHEDRAL]
Seville had remained in the power of the Mussulmans five hundred
and thirty-six years. We, who see all Spain Spanish and remember it was
so at the beginning, are apt to look on the Moorish occupation as a mere
episode or interlude in the history of the country. It is difficult to
realize that the sway of the Crescent lasted in Seville for as long a
period as has passed with us since the death of King Edward III.
Yet there are few monuments remaining to-day to commemorate a
civilization which endured five centuries. The Moors have left their
impress, it is true, in a scarcely definable way on the city, the
physiognomy of which is more Oriental than that of Granada, a later seat
of Mohammedan empire. But this is in great part due to the men who lived
under the Christian kings, who had caught the spirit of the Moors and
perpetuated their traditions of art and culture. Here we have no such
mighty memorials of the vanished race as the Mezquita or the Alhambra.
Still, a few memorials of that far-off age there are; and we will go in
search of them.
Here on the quays of the Guadalquivir rises a polygonal tower of three
storeys, poetically termed the "Torre del Oro." But here we find no
Danaë awaiting a rescuer, but only the harbour master and his
assistants. When the Almohades ruled in Seville a great iron chain was
drawn across the river, and a tower built on either side to support it.
The tower on the Triana side has long since disappeared, but the "Torre
del Oro" remains as it was built in 1220--except, indeed, for the small
turret or superstructure added in the eighteenth century. It is said,
too, that it was once adorned with beautiful glazed tiles, from which
(though this seems unlikely) it derived its name. In the days when it
stood the brunt of the attack from the squadron of Ramon Bonifaz, it was
connected with the Alcazar by a wall, called, in military language, a
curtain. This was not demolished until the year 1821. At the same time
disappeared the main entrance to the Alcazar.
The Almohades did much to embellish and to improve the city during their
century of sovereignty. The only important Mohammedan work remaining to
us in Seville belongs to that period, and illustrates the victory of the
African or Berber over the Byzantine influences traceable in earlier
Moorish architecture. The new conquerors of Andalusia were a virile,
hardy race, and there is something vigorous and coarse in their
handiwork. They developed an excessive fondness for ornamentation which
mars much of their work, and were too much addicted to the use of
painted stucco and gilding. To them we owe the stalactite roofing,
afterwards developed with such success at the Alhambra. "It is certain,"
says Don Pedro de Madrazo, "that the innovations characteristic of
Mussulman architecture in Spain during the eleventh and twelfth
centuries cannot be explained as a natural modification of the Arabic
art of the Khalifate, or as a prelude to the art of Granada, for
there is very little similarity between the style called Secondary or
Mauritanian, and the Arab-Byzantine and Andalusian; while on the other
hand it is evident that the Saracenic monuments of Fez and Morocco, of
the reigns of Yusuf Ben Tashfin, Abdul Ben Ali, Al Mansûr, and Nasr,
partake of the character of the ornamentation introduced by the
Almohades into Spain."
[Illustration: SEVILLE--THE GIRALDA]
The most important example of this style is the far-famed Giralda Tower,
at the north-eastern corner of the Cathedral, the most renowned of
minarets and one of the strongest buildings in the world. It was built
in the reign of Yakûb al Mansûr by an architect whose name is variously
written Gabir, Hever, and Yever. Quantities of Roman remains and
statuary were used in making the foundations. The wall at the base is
nine feet in thickness, which increases with the height. The lower part
is of stone, the upper part of brick. For the first fifteen metres the
four faces of the tower are plain; at that height begins a series of
vertical windows, mostly of two lights, some with the horseshoe, others
with the pointed arch; while on either side the masonry is carved into
what seem panels of trellis work. There is much in the details of this
decoration to interest the student of Moorish art, who will recognize in
them the inception of many forms developed (and not always to advantage)
at Granada.
But the Giralda as we now see it is a third as high again as it was
left by the Almohades. In their time it was crowned by a pinnacle to
which were attached four balls of gilded copper--one of which was so
large, we are told, that the city gate had to be widened that it might
be brought hither. The iron bar supporting the balls weighed about ten
hundredweights, and the whole was cast by a Sicilian Arab named Abu
Leyth at a cost of about fifty thousand pounds of our money. The balls
were thrown down by an earthquake in 1395, when their proportions were
carefully ascertained.
It was not till 1568 that the upper stage of the fabric, a graceful
Renaissance superstructure, was added by Fernando Ruiz. In the same year
Morel's great statue of Faith, cast in bronze, was placed on the apex to
symbolize the triumph of Christianity over the creed of Islam. It is a
clever piece of workmanship, for though it weighs twenty-five
hundredweights and measures fourteen feet in height, it sways and turns
with every wind. Hence the name applied to the Tower--Giralda, from _que
gira_, "which turns."
The first thing you will be asked to do by the guides at Seville is to
mount the Giralda, which you do by means of thirty-five inclined planes,
up which a horse might be ridden with ease to the very top. Each stage
of the ascent is named: "El Cuerpo de Campañas," after its fine peal of
bells, one of which weighs eighteen tons; "El Cuerpo del Reloj," after
the clock first set up in 1400--the earliest tower-clock in Spain. Then
there are the prettily-named floors of the Lilies and the Stars. Some of
the rooms are inhabited by the bell-ringers, who may at times be heard
practising not only the chimes but the peculiar guitar-playing of
Andalusia.
The view from the summit of the tower I think, on the whole,
disappointing. The principal buildings of the city are too closely
grouped below the spectator to give a very fine effect to the panorama,
and the country round is not beautiful. Looking across the arid region
beyond the river, it is hard to believe that in Moorish times it was
renowned for its beauty and fertility and compared by Arabic writers to
the Garden of Eden. Looking down we scan the white city, a labyrinth of
lanes and alleys, only here and there a plaza opening like a lake among
the closely-set roofs. Far away to the north the Sierra Morena limits
the prospect. How often, when from this tower the muezzin proclaimed the
Islamic profession of faith, his eyes must have lingered apprehensively
on those mountains from whose crests the Christian seemed to hurl back
defiance and repudiation.
For the Giralda was the minaret of the great mosque begun by Yusuf, the
son of Abd-ur-Rahman, in 1171, and completed by his son and successor,
Yakub al Mansûr. The earlier mosque on the same site had been destroyed
by the Normans, but some portions of it seem to appear in the horseshoe
arches of the Puerta del Lagarto and the northern wall of the Patio de
los Naranjos. This latter court, which shuts in the Cathedral on the
north side, contains the fountain at which the devout Moslems performed
their ablutions. The picturesque Puerta del Perdon, through which you
pass on your way into the town, is a Mudejar, not a Moorish, horseshoe
arch, erected by Alfonso XI. to commemorate the victory at the Salado in
the year 1340. The doors with bronze plates, despite their Arabic
inscriptions, also date from that time. The gate was restored in the
sixteenth century and adorned with sculptures. The terra-cotta statues
of St. Peter and St Paul on the outer side are the work of Miguel
Florentin, one of the earliest of the apostles of Renaissance sculpture
to settle in Spain. The relief over the arch, representing the expulsion
of the money-changers from the Temple, is also by him, and commemorates
the substitution of the Lonja or Bourse for this gate as a rendezvous
for merchants. The belfry storey is modern. At the little shrine just
inside, to the left on entering, may be seen a "Christ bearing the
Cross," by Luis de Vargas. The money-changers and brokers have gone, but
this gate remains a favourite haunt of the gossips and loungers of
Seville, and in the cool of the evening is occupied by some pleasant
little family groups from the adjoining houses. The southern side of the
patio is occupied by the Cathedral, the western by the church or chapel
of the Sagrario. The house on the north side inside the old Moorish
wall, to the right of the Giralda gate (on entering), is occupied
by the Biblioteca Colombina, bequeathed by the son of Columbus. The
pulpit from which St. Vincent Ferrer, the "Angel of the Judgment,"
thundered forth his terrific fulminations against sinners, Jews, and
heretics, I omitted to notice.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR]
Everyone who reaches the Patio de los Naranjos for the first time is
sure to enter the Cathedral, which he should not do until the Alcazar at
least has been visited. Not that the two great buildings of Seville
exhibit any transition of style from the one to the other, but because,
having begun the consideration of Moorish architectural work, we ought
naturally to pass on immediately to the Mauresque work of the first
century of Castilian rule.
The group of buildings which for greater clearness we will call, with
the Spaniards themselves, the Alcazares lie to the south of the
Cathedral, and are surrounded by an embattled wall built by the Arabs.
This enclosure, it should be understood, includes a great many private
houses and open spaces besides the Alcazar proper. Immediately inside
the wall are two squares called the Patio de las Banderas and Patio de
la Monteria. At the far end of the former is the office of the governor
of the palace, and to the right of this is an entrance whence a
colonnaded passage called the Apeadero leads straight through to the
gardens, or, by turning to the right, to the Patio del Leon. On one side
this latter square communicates with the Patio de la Monteria; on the
other side is the Palace of the Alcazar itself. I hope this will make
the rather puzzling topography of the place a little more intelligible.
Whether or not the Roman "Arx" stood on this spot, as tradition avers, I
cannot pretend to say. But there is no room for doubt that a palace
stood here in the days of the Abbadite amirs, and that this building was
restored and remodelled by the Almohades. To outward seeming the Alcazar
is as Moorish a monument as the Alhambra. In reality, few traces remain
of the palace raised by the Moslem rulers of either dynasty, and the
present building was mainly the work of the Castilian kings--especially
of Pedro the Cruel. But though built under and for a Christian monarch,
it is practically certain that the architects were Moors and good
Moslems, and that their instructions and intentions were to build a
Moorish palace. Historically, you may say, the Alcazar is a Christian
work; artistically, Mohammedan.
The actual palace occupies only a small part of the site of the older
structures, and incorporates but a few fragments of their fabrics. Since
Pedro the Cruel's day, so many sovereigns have restored, remodelled, and
added to the building, that it is far from being homogeneous, though we
can hardly agree with Contreras that it is "far from being a monument of
Oriental art."
Pedro built more than one palace, or, more correctly, two or three wings
of the same palace, in this enclosure. Traces of his Stucco Palace
(Palacio del Yeso) remain. Pedro looms very large in the history of
Seville. He plays as prominent a part here as Harûn-al-Rashid in the
story of Bagdad. He was fond of the Moors, and affected their costumes
and customs. He also favoured the Jews, and was alleged by his enemies
to be the changeling child of a Jewess. His treasurer and trusted
adviser was an Israelite named Simuel Ben Levi. He served the king long
and faithfully, till one day it was whispered that half the wealth that
should fill the royal coffers had been diverted into his own. Ben Levi
was seized without warning and placed on the rack, whereupon he expired,
not of pain, but of sheer indignation. Under his house--so the story
goes--was found a cavern in which were three piles of gold and silver,
twice as high as a man. Pedro on beholding these was much affected. "Had
Simuel surrendered a third of the least of these piles," he exclaimed,
"he should have gone free. Why would he rather die than speak?"
Stories innumerable are told of this king, a good many, no doubt, being
pure inventions. There is no reason to question the account of his
treatment of Abu Saïd, the Moorish Sultan of Granada. This prince had
usurped the throne, and being solicitous of Pedro's alliance, came to
visit him at the Alcazar with a magnificent retinue. The costliest
presents were offered to the Castilian king, whose heart, however, was
bent on possessing the superb ruby in the regalia of his guest. Before
many hours had passed, the Moors were seized in their apartments and
stripped of their raiment and valuables. Abu Saïd, ridiculously tricked
out, was mounted on a donkey, and with thirty-six of his courtiers,
hurried to a field outside the town, where they were bound to posts. A
train of horsemen appeared, Don Pedro at their head, and transfixed the
helpless men with darts, the king shouting, as he hurled his missiles at
his luckless guest: "This for the treaty you made me conclude with
Aragon! This for the castle you took from me!" The ruby which had been
the cause of the Moor's death was presented by his murderer to the Black
Prince, and now adorns the crown of England.
Nor did Pedro confine his fury to the sterner sex. Doña Urraca Osorio,
because her son was concerned in Don Enrique's uprising, was burned at
the stake on the Alameda. Her faithful servant, Leonor Dávalos, seeing
that the flames had consumed her mistress's clothing, threw herself into
the pyre to cover her nakedness, and was likewise burnt to ashes. Having
conceived a passion for Doña Maria Coronel, the king caused her husband
to be executed in the Torre del Oro. The widow, far from yielding to his
entreaties and threats, took the veil and destroyed her beauty by means
of vitriol. Pedro at once transferred his attentions to her sister, Doña
Aldonza, and met with more success. If a chronicler is to be believed,
he threw his brother Enrique's young daughter naked to the lions, like
some Christian virgin martyr. The generous (or possibly overfed) brutes
refused the proffered prey, and the whimsical tyrant ever afterwards
treated the maiden kindly. In memory of her experience, she was known as
"Leonor de los Leones."
The misdeeds and eccentricities of this extraordinary monarch have been
chronicled by Ayala (who was a partisan of Don Enrique), and given a
wider circulation by the pen of Prosper Mérimée. I cannot very well omit
the oft-told tale that gives its name to the curious little street, near
the Casa de los Abades, called Calle Cabeza de Don Pedro. There the
king's head may be seen in effigy high up on the wall at the corner of
the street. Pedro, prowling about the town after dark, had a quarrel
with a passer-by to whom, of course, he was unknown, and whom he
incontinently ran through the body. Thinking there had been no witness
to his crime, he stalked back to his palace. Next day he summoned the
Alcalde of Seville to his presence and asked for news of the town. The
magistrate told him that the body of a man had been found, murdered by
whom no one knew. The king would suffer no laxity on the part of his
officers. If the assassin were not discovered the alcalde must pay the
penalty of the crime with his own life. Luckily for the magistrate, an
old dame had beheld the encounter of the previous night, and now
hastened to him with the surprising news that the man he sought after
was no other than his majesty. She had recognized him beyond all
possibility of doubt, not only by his features, but by the peculiar
clicking of the royal knees. The alcalde hanged the king in effigy and
invited him to the spectacle. "It is well," said the prince, after an
ominous pause, "I am satisfied. Justice has been done."
I have told the tale rather hurriedly, as it is far from being well
authenticated, and because it will doubtless be familiar in some form or
another to most readers. That Pedro had a sense of humour is shown by
yet another incident. A priest for murdering a shoemaker was condemned
by the ecclesiastical tribune to be suspended from his sacerdotal
functions for the space of twelve months. On hearing this Pedro decreed
that any tradesman who murdered a priest should be punished by being
restrained from the exercise of his trade for the like period.
But now let us return to the palace of which the sinister king seems the
presiding genius.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR]
Crossing the Plaza del Triunfo, which lies between the Cathedral and the
old Moorish walls, we enter the Patio de las Banderas, so called either
because a flag was hoisted here when the royal family was in residence,
or on account of the trophy, composed of the arms of Spain with crossed
flags, displayed over one of the arches. Pedro was accustomed to
administer justice, tempered with ferocity, after the Oriental fashion,
seated on a stone bench in a corner of this square. The surrounding
private houses occupy the site of the old Palace of the Almohades,
and one of the halls--the Sala de Justicia--is still visible. It is
entered from the Patio de la Monteria. Contreras assigns a date to this
room even earlier than the advent of the Almohades. It is square, and
measures nine metres across. The stucco ceiling is adorned with stars
and wreaths, and bordered by a painted frieze. The decorations consist
chiefly of inscriptions in Cufic characters. The right-angled apertures
in the walls were closed either by screens of translucent stucco or by
tapestries, "which must," says Gestoso y Perez, "have made the hall
appear a miracle of wealth and splendour." It was in this hall, often
overlooked by visitors, that Don Pedro overheard four judges discussing
the division of a bribe they had received. The question was abruptly
solved by the division of the disputants' heads and bodies. Thanks to
its isolation, the Sala de Justicia escaped the dreadful "restoration"
effected in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Duc de
Montpensier. The house No. 3, Patio de las Banderas, formed part, in the
opinion of Gestoso y Perez, of the Palacio del Yeso, or Stucco Palace,
of Don Pedro.
Passing through the colonnaded Apeadero, built by Philip III. in 1607,
and once used as an armoury, we reach the Patio del Leon, where
tournaments used to be held, and stand in front of the Palace of the
Alcazar. The façade is gorgeous yet elegant, of a gaudiness that in this
brilliant city of golden sunshine and white walls is not obtrusive. Yet,
despite the Moorish character of the decoration, the Arabic capitals
and pilasters, and the square entrance "in the Persian style," the front
is not that of an eastern palace; and it is without surprise that we
read over the portal, in quaint Gothic characters, the legend: "The most
high, the most noble, the most powerful, and the most victorious Don
Pedro, commanded these Palaces, these Alcazares, and these entrances to
be made in the year (of Cæsar) 1402" (1364). Elsewhere on the façade are
the oft-repeated Cufic inscriptions: "There is no conqueror but Allah,"
"Glory to our lord the Sultan" (Don Pedro), "Eternal glory to Allah,"
etc., etc.
This is a very different entrance from that of the Alhambra, the
building on the model of which the Alcazar was undoubtedly planned. From
the entrance a passage leads from your left to one extremity of the
Patio de las Doncellas, the central and principal court of the palace.
How this patio came to be so named I have never been able to ascertain.
There is an absurd story to the effect that here were collected the
girls fabled to have been sent by way of annual tribute by Mauregato to
the khalifa. Had such a transaction taken place, the tribute would have
been payable, of course, at Cordova, not at Seville. Moreover this court
was among the works executed in the fourteenth century.
The Alcazar strikes us (if we have come from Granada) as being on a much
smaller scale than the Alhambra. It is very much better preserved, as
it should be, seeing that it is a century younger; and if it vaguely
strikes one as being fitter for the abode of a court favourite than of a
monarch, it impresses one as being fresher, more elegant--in a word,
more artistic--than the older building.
The Patio de las Doncellas is an oblong, and surrounded by an arcade of
pointed and dentated arches which spring from the capitals of white
marble columns placed in pairs. The middle arch on each side is higher
than the others, and springs from oblong imposts resting on the twin
columns and flanked by the miniature pillars characteristic of the
Granadine architecture. The spandrils are beautifully adorned with
stucco work of the trellis pattern. On the frieze above runs a flowing
scroll with Arabic inscriptions, among them being "Glory to our lord,
the Sultan Don Pedro," and this very remarkable text: "There is but one
God; He is eternal; He was not begotten and has never begotten, and He
has no equal." This inscription, opposed to the tenets of Christianity,
was evidently designed by a Moslem artificer, who relied (and safely
relied) on the ignorance of his employers. The frieze is decorated also,
at intervals, by the escutcheons of Don Pedro and of Ferdinand and
Isabella, and by the well-known devices of Charles V., the Pillars of
Hercules with the motto "Plus Oultre." The inside of the arcade is
ornamented with a high dado of glazed tile mosaic (azulejo),
brilliantly coloured and with the highly-prized metallic glint. The
combinations and variations of the designs are very ingenious and
interesting. This decoration probably dates from Don Pedro's time.
Behind each central arch is a round-arched doorway, flanked by twin
windows. These are framed in rich conventional ornamental work. Through
little oblong windows above the doors light falls and illumines the
ceilings of the apartments opening into the court. The ceiling of the
arcade dates from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, but was restored
in 1856. A deep cornice marks the division of the lower part of the
court from the upper storey, the front of which, with its white marble
arches, columns and balustrades, was the work of Don Luis de Vega, a
sixteenth-century architect.
Three recesses in the wall to the left of the entrance are pointed out
as the audience closets of King Pedro; but they are much more likely to
be walled-up entrances to formerly existing corridors and chambers
behind.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--PATIO DE LAS BANDERAS]
The door facing this wall gives access to the Hall of the Ambassadors
(Salon de los Embajadores), the finest apartment in this fairy palace.
The doors are magnificent examples of inlay work, and were, according to
the inscription on them, made by Moorish carpenters from Toledo in the
year 1364. The hall is about thirty-three feet square, and exhibits a
splendid combination of the various styles with the Gothic and
Renaissance. The ornamentation is rich and elaborate almost beyond
the possibility of description. The magnificent "half-orange" ceiling of
carved wood rests on a frieze decorated with the Tower and Lion. Then
come Cufic inscriptions on a blue ground and ugly female heads of the
sixteenth century. Then, below another band of decoration, is a row of
fifty-six busts of the Kings of Spain, from Receswinto the Goth to
Philip III. These date, at earliest, from the sixteenth century. The
wrought-iron balconies were made by Francisco Lopez in 1592. The
decoration of this splendid chamber is completed by a high dado of blue,
white, and green "azulejos." It was in this hall that Abu Saïd is said
to have been received by his treacherous host.
The Hall of the Ambassadors communicated on each side with the patio and
adjoining halls by entrances composed of three horseshoe arches,
supported by graceful pillars and enclosed in a circular arch.
Through the arch facing the entrance from the patio we pass into a long
narrow apartment, known as the Comedor, where the late Comtesse de Paris
was born in 1848. To the north of the salon is a small square chamber,
called the "Cuarto del Techo de Felipe Segundo," with a coffered ceiling
dating from the time of that king. North of this room is the exquisite
little Patio de las Muñecas (Court of the Dolls), purely Granadine in
treatment. The rounded arches are separated by cylindrical pillars--I
call them so for want of a better word--which rest on slender columns
of different colours, reminding one of the early or Cordovan style. The
capitals are rich, the pillars they uphold decorated with vertical lines
of Cufic inscriptions, many of which, says Contreras, are placed upside
down. The walls and spandrils are tastefully adorned with stucco work of
the trellis pattern, tiling and mosaic. This court, though still
harmonious and beautiful, suffered rather than benefited by its
restoration in 1843; but the architecture has been not unsuccessfully
reproduced in the upper storey.
This charming spot is by no means suggestive of deeds of blood and
violence; yet, just as they point out the Salon de los Embajadores as
the scene of the arrest of the Red Sultan by Don Pedro, so here do the
guides place the scene of the murder of Don Fadrique by the truculent
monarch--a fratricide to be avenged by another fratricide at Montiel.
The Master of Santiago, to give the Don his usual title, after a
successful campaign in Murcia, had been graciously received by his
brother the king, and presently went to pay his respects in another part
of the palace to the royal favourite, Maria de Padilla. It is said that
she warned him of his impending fate; perhaps by her manner, if not by
words, she tried to arouse in him a sense of danger, but the soldier
prince returned to the king's presence. With a shout, Pedro gave the
fatal signal. "Kill the Master of Santiago," he cried. Guards fell upon
the prince. His sword was entangled in his scarf, and he was butchered
without mercy. His retainers fled in all directions, pursued by Pedro's
guards. One took refuge in Maria de Padilla's own apartment, and tried
to screen himself by holding her little daughter, Doña Beatriz, before
him. Pedro tore the child away, and despatched the unfortunate man with
his own hand. The murder took place on May 19, 1358.
To the west of the court is a little room, elegantly decorated, and
named after the Catholic Sovereigns, by whom it was restored. Their
well-known devices appear, together with the Towers and Lions, among the
decorations, which reveal the influence of the plateresque style. The
north side of the patio is occupied by the Cuarto de los Principes, not
to be confounded with a similarly named apartment on the floor above. At
either end of this room is an arch, adorned with stucco work, admitting
to a cabinet or alcove. That to the right has a fine artesonado ceiling,
and that to the left is decorated in a species of Moorish plateresque
style. An inscription states that the frieze was made in the year 1543
by Juan de Simancas, master carpenter.
East of the Patio de las Muñecas, and occupying the north side of the
Patio de las Doncellas, is the long room called the Dormitorio de los
Reyes Moros. All the apartments in the Alcazar are fancifully named, but
the designation of none is quite so stupid and misleading as this. The
columns of the twin windows on either side of the door appear to date
from the time of the Khalifate. The doors themselves are richly inlaid
and painted with geometrical patterns. The three horseshoe arches
leading to the _al hami_, or alcove, also seem to belong to the early
period of Spanish-Arabic art. The room is so richly decorated that
scarce a handbreadth of the surface is free from ornament.
On the opposite side of the central court is the sumptuous Salon de
Carlos V., the ceiling of which was constructed by order of the emperor,
and is adorned with classical heads. The tile and stucco work is the
finest in the palace. There is a legend to the effect that St. Ferdinand
died in this room--on his knees, with a cord round his neck and a taper
in his hand--but it is unlikely that this part of the palace existed in
his time. The guide pointed out the room to the west of this salon as
the chamber of Maria de Padilla, but this again is, to put it mildly,
doubtful.
The upper chambers of the Alcazar, which are not accessible to the
general public, are very handsome. The floor overlooking the Patio del
Leon is occupied by the Sala del Principe, with its beautiful spring
windows, polychrome tiling, and columns brought from the old Moorish
Palace at Valencia. Adjacent is the Oratory, built by order of Ferdinand
and Isabella in 1504. The tile work is of extraordinary beauty, and
shows that the Moors had not a monopoly of talent in this kind of
decoration. The fine Visitation over the altar is signed by Francesco
Nicoloso, the Italian. On the same floor is the reputed bed-chamber of
Don Pedro. Over the door may be seen four death's-heads, and over
another entrance the curious figure of a man who looks back over his
shoulder at a grinning skull. These gruesome designs commemorate the
summary execution by the king of four judges whom he overheard
discussing the division of a bribe. The royal apartments on this floor
contain some precious works of art; but I abstain from mentioning the
most remarkable of these, as pictures are so often transferred in Spain
from one royal residence to another that such indications are often out
of date before they are printed.
The Alcazar, I think, disappoints most foreigners. The architectural and
decorative work of the Spanish Moors and their descendants pleases
people quite inexperienced in the arts by its mere prettiness, its
brilliance, its originality, and its colour; and it delights still more
those who are able to appreciate its marvellous combinations of
geometrical forms, its exquisite epigraphy, and all its subtle details.
But the average traveller stands between these two classes of observers.
He looks for grandeur where he should expect only beauty, and his eye is
wearied by the wealth of conventional ornamentation. What I think is
conspicuously lacking in the Alcazar, and to almost the same extent in
the Alhambra, is atmosphere. Memories do not haunt you in these gilded
halls. There is nothing about them to suggest that anything ever
happened here. The legends tell us the contrary; but assuredly no one
was ever less successful in impressing his personality on his abode than
were the founders and inhabitants of the Alcazar.
The gardens are really the most pleasing spot within the enclosure. They
form a delicious pleasaunce, where the orange and citron diffuse their
fragrance, and magic fountains spring up suddenly beneath the
passenger's feet, sprinkling him with a cooling dew. I noticed some
flower beds shaped like curiously formed crosses, which the gardener
told me were the crosses of the orders of Calatrava, Santiago,
Alcantara, and Montesa. You are also shown the Baths of Maria de
Padilla, which are approached through a gloomy arched entrance. In the
favourite's time they had no other roof than the sky, and no further
protection from prying eyes than that afforded by a screen of orange and
lemon trees. In Mohammedan times the baths were probably used by the
ladies of the harem.
But if the Alcazar is a disappointment to the majority of visitors, I
cannot conceive the Cathedral being so, despite the unfavourable
criticism to which it has been subjected. The exterior, it is true, is
unimpressive, and the vastness of the pile is largely responsible for
the powerful effect proclaimed by the interior. But when the worst has
been urged, this, the third largest church in Christendom, remains a
grand, a solemn, and a magnificent temple, thoroughly Christian in
atmosphere and details.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--GARDENS OF THE ALCAZAR]
I like the story of its foundation better than the silly tales about Don
Pedro, or about crucifixes helping jilted damsels. It has, moreover, the
very unusual merit of being true. After the conquest by St. Ferdinand
the old mosque of the Almohades was "purified," and served as the
cathedral till, towards the end of the fourteenth century, it became
practically ruined by earthquakes. The dean and chapter took counsel
together, and at a conclave held in the Court of the Elms, on the south
side of the mosque, it was resolved to build a new church forthwith.
Then uprose a zealous prebendary and cried: "Let us build a church so
great that those who come after us will think us mad to have attempted
it!" The proposal was adopted with acclamation; and the great-hearted
priests bound themselves to contribute from their own stipends as much
money as might be necessary, should the revenue of the See prove unequal
to the cost of the undertaking. They could never hope to see the fruit
of their labours. I do not think the name of any one of them has been
preserved. The architect alike has been forgotten. All concerned sought
only the greater glorification of their faith. Such greatness of spirit
deserved a noble monument.[*]
[Note *: Instances of this lofty spirit are frequent in the history
of the Spanish peoples. When, after their first uprising against the
mother country, the people of Honduras (Central America) met in Congress
to frame a Constitution, a priest rose and proposed that before anything
else was done, every slave in the country should be set free. And the
measure was carried unanimously and enthusiastically by the Congress,
which must have included many slaveholders. It took the United States
forty years to follow this example.]
The Cathedral took one hundred and seventeen years to build, the first
stone having been laid in 1402 and the lantern having been finished by
Juan Gil de Hontañon in 1519. Of the mosque certain portions were left:
the Giralda, the Patio de los Naranjos, and the portal called the Puerta
del Lagarto. The latter is named after the wooden model of an alligator
which hangs from the roof. Three or four centuries ago the mummified
form of a real alligator hung there. It was one of the gifts of an
Egyptian khalifa to the daughter of a Castilian king, whom he sought in
marriage. The saurian was accompanied from the banks of the Nile by
various animals peculiar to that fertile region, but these interesting
offerings failed to make any impression on the heart of the Infanta.
Thus the forlorn-looking effigy of the reptile is in reality an
affecting memorial of unrequited love.
Churches, it has been remarked, were considered in the Middle Ages very
proper repositories for curiosities of all sorts. The cloister of the
Lagarto contains also an elephant's tusk, weighing seventy pounds, and a
horse's bit, said to be that of Babieca, the Cid's charger.
Very grateful is the sudden cool of the great church when you enter it
from the sun-scorched plaza. Then there comes over you a feeling of
profound reverence, followed very soon by an infinite restfulness. There
is no place in Seville where you more willingly linger. A holy calm
pervades the whole building, and you wonder that it should have
suggested to Théophile Gautier such fantastic comparisons. If it were
not the temple of Christ, I could believe it to be the temple of
Silence.
The Puerta del Lagarto is the favourite entrance, but when the day comes
for a painstaking examination, you would do well to begin at one of the
entrances in the west front. Of these there are three: the Puerta Mayor,
the Puerta del Bautismo, and the Puerta San Miguel. All are enriched
with good statuary, the graceful and vigorous statues of the side doors
being the work of Pedro Millán, a fifteenth-century sculptor of renown.
Entering, we set foot on the fine marble floor and make out the
stupendous church to be composed of a nave and of two aisles on either
side. The nave, you are told, is one hundred feet high and fifty feet
wide. The noble columns, almost free of adornment, which uphold the
spacious vaults recede in the far distance like trees in an overarching
avenue. The effect, fine as it is, might have been much finer if the
centre of the nave had not been blocked up by the choir. The "Trascoro,"
or screen, facing the west entrance, is richly adorned with red columns.
Over the altar is a fourteenth-century picture of the Madonna, and a
painting by Pacheco, the Inquisitor, representing St. Ferdinand
receiving the keys of Seville. Over one of the beautiful little side
altars of the choir is one of the rare examples of good Spanish
sculpture--a Virgin, by Juan Martinez Montañez. On the altar side the
choir is shut off by a sixteenth-century railing, attributed to Sancho
Muñoz. This protects from intrusion their reverences the canons, who
sit in stalls, exquisitely carved between the years 1475 and 1538. The
patterns and coloured inlaid work of the backs reveal Moorish influence.
The lectern was the work of Bartolomé Morel. When the lantern collapsed
in 1888, the choir was severely damaged. The architect who restored the
fabric proposed to move it considerably nearer the high altar, but the
proposal was stupidly rejected. A good opportunity for improving the
appearance of the Cathedral was thus lost.
The retablo of the high altar is the quintessence of late Gothic
sculpture. It is a marvellous work of extraordinary delicacy and
elaboration. Each of the forty-five compartments into which it is
divided contains a subject from the Bible or from the lives of the
saints, carved, painted, or gilded with the rarest skill. Begun by the
Fleming Dancart, in 1479, this wonderful triumph of the carver's art was
completed by Spanish artists in 1526. The earlier work is in the middle.
Crowning it is a gilt crucifix and the statues of Our Lady and St. John.
There are some very interesting objects in the Sacristy, as it is
called, between the reredos and the hind wall of the chancel. The
sacristan will show you the reliquary, shaped like a triptych, which
came from Constantinople and was presented to the old cathedral by
Alfonso the Learned. The double folding door is also said to have come
from the Moorish temple. With a glance at the fine terra-cotta statues
by Miguel Florentin, Juan Marin, and others, we pass behind the chancel
wall, and see before us the plateresque Royal Chapel, built by Charles
V. over the remains of certain of his ancestors. Beneath the altar lies
the body of St. Ferdinand in crown and royal robes. He lies here in the
heart of his fairest conquest, even as his descendants, Ferdinand and
Isabella, sleep in the heart of Granada. You may see his sword, the
handle of which was denuded of gems by Pedro the Cruel, lest they should
excite the cupidity of others. That royal humorist also lies here, near
his saintly ancestor and the one woman whom he ever loved, the gentle
Maria de Padilla. Then there is to be seen the Vírgen de los Reyes, an
image presented by St. Louis of France to St. Ferdinand of Castile.
(Strange that when saints filled the thrones of Europe, things went on
no better than they do now!) Another relic highly prized is the Vírgen
de las Batallas, an ivory statuette which St. Ferdinand used to carry at
his saddle-bow. These memorials of the heroic past give you little time
or inclination for an examination of the chapel itself, which has a
lofty dome, and is flanked at the entrance by twelve good statues by
Peter Kempener--whom Spaniards call Campaña. At least (so I read) he
drew them on the wall with charcoal for a ducat each, and they were
executed by Lorenzo del Vao and Campos in 1553.
This chapel and the reredos of the chancel must be called, I suppose,
the great sights of the Cathedral, though to some its chief treasures
will be the numerous works of Murillo enshrined in its chapels and
dependencies. For myself, I like the building for its own sake, or, to
use a very hard-worked word, for its atmosphere. As you cross the nave,
looking upwards, where the light streams through the tall clerestory
windows, you will be tempted to neglect the dark chapels in the aisles,
and to revel for a while in these exquisite symphonies in coloured
glass. Few of them are of Spanish workmanship. Master Christopher the
German (Micer Cristobal Aleman) began the first--the first stained-glass
window in Seville--in 1504, the work being afterwards carried on by the
German Heinrich, the Flemings Beernaert of Zeeland and Jan Beernaert,
Carel of Bruges, and Arnulf of Flanders. The best windows are those
adorned with the Ascension, St. Mary Magdalen, Lazarus, and the Entry
into Jerusalem, by Arnulf and his brother, and the Resurrection, by
Carel of Bruges.
In the south transept is a monument, striking in itself and of very
recent erection, which will in the course of time attract more pilgrims
than the soldier saint's shrine. For here are contained the remains of a
man who added not a Moorish city but a continent to the realm of Leon
and Castile. The ashes of Christopher Columbus repose in a coffin which
is borne on the shoulders of four figures of bronze, representing the
kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL]
These figures are not wanting in majesty and expression. All are crowned
and wear semi-sacerdotal garb. Castile holds an oar, Leon a cross.
Behind them come Aragon and Navarre, sombre of countenance, wearing
shirts of mail. On the bosom of each is displayed the national
escutcheon: the Towers of Castile, the Lions of Leon, the Bats of
Aragon, and the Chains of Navarre. The pall bears words traced by
Isabella herself:
"A Castilla y Leon,
Nuevo mundo dió Colon,"
and round the pedestal is an inscription which relates how the body of
the immortal Admiral of the Indies was brought here when the "ungrateful
America" revolted from the Spanish yoke. But however much the Spain of
to-day may honour Columbus dead, it is hardly for her to reproach any
land with ingratitude towards him.
Half-way between the main entrance and the choir, the Great Navigator's
son is buried. An inscription on a slab invites the reader to pray for
the soul of Don Fernando Colon, who, as Ford very truly says, would have
been considered a great man if he had been the son of a less great
father. He rendered important services to literature, and left behind
him a library of 15,000 volumes, including some manuscripts of extreme
rarity. It was ultimately acquired by the Crown, and constitutes the
basis of the Biblioteca Columbina, housed in the Patio de los Naranjos.
The Royal Chapel is flanked by two little chapels, one of which,
dedicated to St. Peter, contains some Zurbarans, impossible to
distinguish in the dim light; while in the other (Capilla de la
Concepcion grande) is a fine monument of Cardinal Cienfuegos and a
crucifix attributed to Alonso Cano. Opening on to the north side are the
chapels del Pilar, de las Evangelistas, de las Doncellas, de San
Francisco, de Santiago, de las Escales, and del Bautisterio. In the
latter is one of Murillo's most famous works, "The Vision of St. Anthony
of Padua." Of Cano's works there is a specimen, the "Virgin and Child,"
over the altar of Belen, adjacent to the Puerta de los Naranjos. Valdés
Leal and Juan de las Roelas are represented in the chapel of Santiago,
and Herrera the younger by an ambitious "Apotheosis of St. Francis" in
the chapel of that saint. In the Capilla de las Escalas are two works of
Luca Giordano, strong in drawing, colour, and character. The same chapel
contains the fine tomb of Bishop Baltasar del Rio, dating from about
1500.
In the south aisle are the chapels of the Mariscal, San Andres, las
Dolores, la Antigua, San Hermenegildo, San José, Santa Ana, and Santa
Laureana. These chapels are richer in sculpture than in painting.
Kempener designed the beautiful altar-piece in the Capilla del Mariscal,
and Montañez the grand statue of St. Hermenegildo in his chapel. On the
west side of the Puerta de San Cristobal, over a small altar, is the
"Generacion" of Luis de Vargas--the much praised "leg" picture which
has given its name to the chapel. The fresco of St. Christopher that
faces it is remarkable only for its size. You find such pictures of the
saint at the entrances to many Spanish churches, the old belief having
been that those who gazed upon it would not die unpreparedly that day. A
much more ancient and interesting mural painting in the Byzantine style
is to be seen in the large chapel of the "Antigua," where it was placed
in 1578. The retablo of St. Anne's Chapel is also very old, and comes
from the former cathedral. The next chapel, San José, is adorned by
Valdés Leal's "Espousals of the Virgin." The Cathedral does not contain
any fine ancient tombs. One of the best is that of Archbishop Mendoza,
by Miguel Florentin, in the Antigua Chapel.
As every visitor to Seville professes a special devotion to Murillo, he
will probably overlook the fine "Nativity" by Luis de Vargas to the
right, on entering, of the Puerta del Nacimiento, and hurry at once to
the more famous master's "Guardian Angel," between Puerta Mayor and
Puerta del Bautismo. His "St. Leander" and "St. Isidore" are to be seen
in the great Sacristy, where they are eclipsed by Kempener's beautiful
"Descent from the Cross," before which Murillo himself used to stand for
hours in rapt contemplation. The French cut this priceless work into
five pieces, intending to remove it, and although their design was
frustrated, the subsequent restoration was badly effected. The
Sacristia de los Calices is a storehouse of art treasures. Here you may
see Goya's "Saint Justa and Saint Rufina," a "Trinity" by "El Greco,"
the "Angel de la Guarda" and "St. Dorothy" of Murillo, the "Death of a
Saint" by Zurbaran, and the superb crucifix of Montañez. A "Conception"
by Murillo is in the Chapter House, a splendid hall in the Renaissance
style.
In the great Sacristy is preserved the "treasury" of the Cathedral. It
includes a wonderful monstrance by that prince of goldsmiths, Juan de
Arfe; and something more interesting in the shape of keys presented to
St. Ferdinand on the surrender of the city. The key presented by the
Jews is iron-gilt and bears the inscription in Hebrew: "The King of
Kings will open, the King of all earth will enter." The key offered by
the Moors is silver-gilt, and the Arabic inscription reads: "May Allah
render eternal the dominion of Islam in this city."
Attached to many (if not to all) Spanish cathedrals, one finds large
chapels which are the official parish churches of the cities--the
parochial clergy being distinct from the diocesan chapter. At Seville,
as at Granada, this chapel is called the "Sagrario," and is built at the
west end of the Patio de los Naranjos and entered from a door in the
north aisle of the Cathedral, near the Capilla del Bautisterio. Built
between 1618 and 1662 by Miguel Zumarraga and Fernando de Iglesias,
the church is in the Baroque style, and roofed with a single and very
daring arch. The rich statues that adorn the interior are by Dayne and
Jose de Arce. There is a notable retablo by Pedro Roldán that came from
a Franciscan convent now suppressed. In one of the side chapels is a
fine "Virgin" by Montañez. Beneath this church the Archbishops of
Seville are now buried.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--PATIO DE LOS NARANJOS]
As we emerge from this vast temple, we remain for a few seconds dazzled
by the sunlight. Then as we turn to the left we notice a rectangular,
classic-looking building, standing between the Cathedral and the walls
of the Alcazar. This is one of the numerous deserted Lonjas or Exchanges
of Spain. The Patio de los Naranjos was formerly infested by the
merchants and brokers of the city, to the great scandal of the devout.
Archbishop de Rojas prevailed upon Philip II. to erect an Exchange or
Casa de Contratacion, as Sir Thomas Gresham had just done in London. The
building was begun in 1598, at precisely the moment when the commerce of
Seville began to decline. It reflects the spirit of Philip II. and of
his architect, Herrera--stern, sober, simple. There is a fine inner
court, with Doric and Ionic columns. Here the South American archives
are deposited, a rich mine for some future historian who shall have the
patience to examine them. As an exchange, the Lonja soon proved a
failure. It was early deserted by business men, and is best remembered
as the seat of Murillo's Academy of Painters.
The spacious days of Charles V. and Philip II. were productive of
innumerable public buildings, mostly in a quasi-Roman style and all very
pompous and oppressive. The Town-hall or Ayuntamiento of Seville is an
extremely ornate structure, in what is called the plateresque or Spanish
Renaissance style. It stands in the Plaza de la Constitucion, where the
electric cars perform intricate evolutions. Its effect is lost through
its being placed on the ground level, without terrace, steps, or
approach, or even railings to prevent inquisitive urchins staring in at
the windows. The building is long and remarkably narrow, and of two
storeys. I have seldom seen a public building more elaborately adorned
or more badly placed. The interior is more satisfactory. The lower
council chamber is a magnificent hall, worthy, as a Spanish writer
remarks, of the Senate of a great republic. A noble staircase, with a
fine ceiling, leads to the upper council chamber, which has some
splendid artesonado work. Opposite--that is, on the east side of--this
building is the Audiencia or Court-house, where I whiled away a hot
afternoon by assisting at a Spanish trial. The case was of no particular
interest, but the differences in the procedure and constitution of the
court from our own were worth noting. There were three judges, who wore
black silk gowns, without wigs or bands. Over their heads was the arms
of Spain, and on the desk, facing the president, a large crucifix. The
jury sat on chairs on each side of the judges. A desk was reserved for
the public prosecutor, another for the prisoner's advocate. The judges
took far less part in the proceedings than they do in France. The case
seemed to be left entirely to the public prosecutor, who, it is just to
say, allowed the accused to make long rambling statements, without the
least attempt to interrupt or confuse him. The public at the rear of the
court appeared to take far more interest in the proceedings than any
immediately concerned in them.
The Plaza de la Constitucion, outside the court, is the place of
execution. But the death penalty is very rarely inflicted in Spain. Two
or three years ago the Crown could find no pretext for pardoning two
particularly atrocious murderers, who were accordingly put to death by
the garrote in this square. The people of Seville, not being accustomed
like the more enlightened Britons to some two dozen executions a year,
showed their sense of the awful occurrence and of the disgrace to their
city by donning the deepest mourning.
But the stranger does not come to Seville to visit courts or to hear
about public executions--unless these happened two or three centuries
ago, when as Sir W. S. Gilbert somewhere observes, they are looked at
through the glamour of romance. The searcher for the beautiful is
usually rewarded here by finding it in unexpected corners of the
monotonous labyrinth of lanes and alleys. Plunging into the maze of
white-walled dwellings in the north-eastern quarter of the city, a
minaret only less beautiful than the Giralda seems to beckon us from
afar. It appears and reappears, and we lose our way a dozen times before
we stand at its foot. It is a beautiful tower in the purest Almohade or
Mauritanian style, without any features borrowed from Christian
architecture. The highest edifice, this, in Seville, except the Giralda.
From its summit Cervantes used to scan the streets below, at certain
hours of the day, for the form of a local beauty of whom he was
enamoured. Here, of course, stood a mosque in Mussulman days, on the
site of the adjacent church of San Marcos. The portal is very fine, but
the Moorish features are the work of Mudejar and not Almohade artisans.
We wander on, and are presently surprised by the superb frontal of the
convent church of Santa Paula. It is faced with white and blue azulejos,
the work of Francesco of Pisa and Pedro Millán. Over the arch are
disposed seven medallions illustrating the birth of Christ and the life
of St. Paul, the figures white on a blue ground. On the tympanum of the
arch is displayed the Spanish coat of arms in white marble, flanked by
the escutcheons of the inevitable and ubiquitous Ferdinand and Isabella.
Having seen this, it is hardly worth our while to enter the church,
which contains the tombs of the founders, Dom Joao de Henriquez,
Constable of Portugal, and his wife Donha Isabel. In the same quarter of
the city, though some distance away, is a monument of some
interest--the church of Omnium Sanctorum, built in 1356 on the site of a
Roman temple. Here again there is a tower graceful enough, in its lower
storey recalling the Giralda. The church exhibits a rather happy
combination of the Moorish and Gothic styles. On one of the doors is the
coat of arms of Portugal, commemorating the pious generosity of Diniz,
king of that country. This must have belonged to the earlier structure.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--PLAZA DE SAN FERNANDO]
Finding your way back to the Sierpes, you may inspect the interesting
Church of the University. Here repose the members of the illustrious
Ribera family, which looms very large in the history of Seville. Their
remains were brought hither on the suppression of the Cartuja, outside
the town. The oldest tomb is that of the eldest Ribera, who died in
1423, aged 105. He thus lived through the reigns of Alfonso XI., Pedro
the Cruel, Enrique II., Juan I., Enrique III., and Juan II., yet, as is
usually the case with centenarians, he failed to engrave his name as
deeply on history as did some of his shorter lived descendants.
The famous Duke of Alcalá, the owner of the Casa de Pilatos, is
commemorated by a fine bronze effigy--one of the few sepulchral
monuments of this kind in Spain. At the feet of Don Lorenzo Figueroa a
dog is sculptured, most probably the symbol of fidelity, but some say,
his favourite. Over the altar are three good pictures by Roelas, one of
the ablest interpreters of the Andalusian spirit. Here, too, are a
couple of works by Alonso Cano, "St. John the Baptist" and "St. John the
Divine." The statue of St. Ignatius Loyola by Montañez is said to be a
faithful likeness of the saint. It was coloured by Pacheco the
Inquisitor.
The adjacent University was originally a Jesuit college, and was built
in the middle of the sixteenth century, after designs by Herrera. It is
not very well attended to-day, and from the outside would be taken for
an inconsiderable college. It seems to have been much more flourishing a
hundred years ago, when our countryman Blanco White attended its
courses. The original university was founded by Canon Rodrigo de
Santuella in 1472, in the Colegio Maese Rodrigo, near the Cathedral.
From the last resting-place of the Riberas in the centre of the town it
is not far to their old home, the Casa de Pilatos, though Dædalus
himself might easily get lost in this labyrinth of streets resembling
each other as closely as those of an American city. The names of some of
these thoroughfares--Francos, Gallegos, Genovés--remind us of the days
of St. Ferdinand, when the room of the banished Moors was filled by
settlers, not only from all parts of Spain, but from the rest of Europe.
It was the same with all the towns resumed by the Spaniards. These
foreign colonies had their own laws and customs, and yet they were
entirely absorbed by the natives and left no trace or influence behind
them. The Spaniards possessed, in those days at any rate, the same
wonderful capacity for the absorption of other races displayed by the
Anglo-Saxons in America. There was nothing new in this; for they had
absorbed the Visigoths, just as they had absorbed the Romans before
them. The Castilian tongue is indeed Latin, but I fancy that the people
of Spain are as much the children of the soil--_autochthones_--as the
Athenians themselves.
Reflections like these--which I do not expect will profoundly influence
ethnologists--occupied me as I pursued my tortuous course to the Casa de
Pilatos. When I at last found it, I was struck by the plain and
dignified exterior. To the left of the door I observed a plain cross of
jasper. The story goes that in October, 1521, the Marquis de Tarifa, on
his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, placed this cross against the
wall and counted thence the fourteen stations of the Cross, according to
their order in the Holy City. The last fortuitously coincided with the
Cruz del Campo, raised near the Caños de Carmona in 1482. I doubt if the
marquis had any such thought when he raised this jasper cross, for the
distance from the Prætorium at Jerusalem to the chapel in the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre that marks the site of Calvary is greatly less than
the distance between the two points mentioned here in Seville. But why
the house was called after Pilate is not easy to determine. It was begun
in 1500 and finished thirty-three years after by Don Per Afan de
Ribera, first Duke of Alcalá, and sometime Viceroy of Naples. This great
nobleman was the Mæcenas of his generation. Not only did he enrich his
house with priceless works of art and a fine library--since removed to
Madrid--but he made it the rendezvous of all the art and talent of
Andalusia. Hither came Gongora, the poet, to converse, it is said, with
Cervantes. Here Pacheco, the artist-inquisitor, discussed the mission of
art with Herrera. Here came Rioja, Cespedes, Jauregui, and others of
less note. The example set by the Medici was followed by many of the
great grandees of Spain at this time. The Velascos presided over a
coterie of literati at Burgos; the Duke of Villahermosa, at Zaragoza,
affected to delight in the company of the brilliant and learned. Even so
small a place as Plasencia had its own patron of the arts in Don Luis de
Avila, and in Madrid there was "the feast of reason and the flow of
soul" at the mansion of Don Antonio Perez. But for all its associations,
like the Alcazar, the Casa de Pilatos remains very much like a museum.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--CASA DE PILATOS]
The building illustrates the fashion of the Mudejar and Renaissance
styles, almost to the effacement of the former. In the architecture of
this epoch we usually find an Arabic groundwork nearly concealed by
ornament of the newer style. The geometrical designs remain, but the
flowing inscriptions, so important a feature of Moorish decoration, have
gone. A thousand details would show the veriest tyro that this was
not the work of Moors, yet the central court bears a general
resemblance to the Alcazar. Pedro de Madrazo directs attention to the
harmonious variety of the arches and windows, and compares it to the
admired disorder of the forest and plantation. I imagine the architect
had the Court of the Lions, at Granada, in his mind. Here dolphins
uphold the upper basin of the fountain, and noble statues of the deities
of Greece and Rome--the gift of Pope Pius V.--stand in the angles of the
court. Hence you pass into the so-called Prætorium, with its splendid
coffered ceiling and beautiful tiling, where you may distinguish the
Spanish azulejos of the best moulds by the designs stamped on them of
fanciful monsters, grotesques, and escutcheons. Then there is the superb
staircase with its "half-orange" ceiling, and the chapel with its mixed
Gothic and Mudejar features. What grandee in Europe has a finer home
than this? And yet, I am told the owner, His Grace of Medinaceli, comes
here but seldom.
There are many old mansions in Seville worth a walk on a cool day--and a
glimpse. They are not great sights, such as those we have already seen
in the city, or such as are more numerous in Paris and Rome, Brussels
and Venice. But those visitors who are really interested in Seville, and
are capable of appreciating Moorish and plateresque art in their various
imitations and combinations, will enjoy these little excursions. There
is an interesting old house at No. 6, Abades. It is now a
boarding-house, and you may live there in princely fashion for six
francs a day. No one knows how old it is. It belonged at the beginning
of the fifteenth century to a family of Genoese merchants called Pinelo.
In 1407 the Infante Fadrique, uncle of Juan II., lodged there. What was
the occasion of his visit to Seville I forget. Afterwards it became the
property of the "abbés" or "abades" of the Cathedral. Many of these
reverend gentlemen still patronize the establishment, and may be seen
puffing their "Puros" in the court, which is said to be a fine example
of the Sevillian Renaissance style. That style I conceive to have been
compounded of all pre-existing styles. Digby Wyatt, however, considered
the house to be much more Italian than Spanish. It is a vast place,
where dark corridors seem to lead indefinitely into space.
There is rather less to reward your curiosity at the Palacio de las
Dueñas, a vast mansion belonging to the Duke of Alba. Once it boasted
eleven "patios," with nine fountains and one hundred columns of marble.
A fine court, surrounded by a graceful arcade, remains. The staircase
recalls that of the Casa de Pilatos. Our countryman Lord Holland stayed
here a hundred years ago. He was a great admirer of Spanish literature
at a time when it was hardly as much a matter of interest to foreigners
as it is at present.
Then there is the Casa de Bustos Tavera, where, according to Lope de
Vega, Sancho the Brave used to visit the "Star of Seville"; and the
Casa Olea, in the Calle Guzman el Bueno, with a hall of Mudejar
workmanship dating from the days of Don Pedro.
It is the romantic aspect of Seville that has impressed some visitors
much more than its historical or archæological side. Over the poets and
dramatists of the Romantic school the city exercised a strange
fascination. Byron and Alfred de Musset found the atmosphere of the
place most congenial. Through their rose-coloured spectacles every girl
they met in these narrow white streets seemed "preternaturally pretty."
The principal business of the inhabitants in the 'twenties and 'thirties
of last century, to judge by the French poet's descriptions, was
love-making, strumming the guitar, and duelling. That Spain was ever a
romantic country in the vulgarly accepted sense of the term, I doubt.
Roman Catholic customs and institutions forbid that free intermingling
of the sexes from which result the thousand and one emotions,
complications, situations, and catastrophes that are the ingredients of
romance. In countries like Spain, where the canon law obtained, there
could be, for instance, no runaway matches, no desperate flights in a
post-chaise to a church (say) over the Portuguese border, with an irate
father in pursuit. There could not have been, and cannot be at the
present time, any walks with the beloved down the moonlit grove, any
trysts by the stile or the ruined keep, any rendezvous among the
rose-bushes. If a Spanish girl did any of these things, she would
indeed, in French parlance, have thrown her cap over the mill. The
affair would no longer have the complexion of a romance but of a sordid
intrigue. This being so, I was delighted to hear that occasionally
clandestine marriages are resorted to in Spain, and that fond lovers
find a means of uniting in defiance of stern parents, even in Andalusia.
The couple, accompanied by a few friends, contrive to sit next to each
other in church, as far out of sight of the rest of the worshippers as
possible. Their troths are plighted in an undertone just loud enough for
the witnesses to hear, the ring slipped on under cover of the mantilla,
and the hands joined at the precise moment the all-unconscious celebrant
turns towards the congregation at the end of the mass and pronounces the
benediction. In the eyes of the Church the two are married as
irrevocably as if the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Toledo had performed
the ceremony. The vows have been exchanged before witnesses in a sacred
edifice, and an anointed priest has simultaneously blessed the
contracting parties from the altar. What can parents do? The Don may
rage, the Doña may upbraid, but when the Church makes itself an
accomplice of lovers, even in Spain the law must acquiesce. And there is
no divorce!
That genuine romance tinges the lives of Spanish men and women, few who
know them can doubt. But the Andalusia of musical comedy, the creation
of which is largely due to the poets of the Romantic school, does not
exist. Seville never was a glorified Cremorne; and persons of a
Byronic turn would find adventures suitable to their mood more readily
by the banks of the Thames and the Hudson than by those of the
Guadalquivir.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--CASA DE PILATOS]
For all that, some romantic stories are told about old Seville, and one
of these has some foundation of truth. About the middle of the
seventeenth century, the city re-echoed with reports of the wild and
desperate doings of a certain wealthy gallant, Don Miguel de Marana by
name. By some he is called De Mañara. Marriage with the heiress of the
Mendoza family did not sober him, though an alliance with so solemn a
thing as money generally brings the most hot-headed Latin youth to his
senses. Like many other wicked persons, our gallant had a nice taste in
art, and is said to have encouraged Murillo. Now comes the remarkable
and the improving part of the story. It is not safe to vouch for the
accuracy of the details of any part of it. One morning Seville woke up
to find--no doubt to her unspeakable consolation--the wicked De Marana a
changed man. He became a saint--an ascetic in the seventeenth-century
acceptation of the word. The wine-bibber forswore even chocolate as too
strong a beverage.
What had happened to produce so edifying a change? Accounts vary. The
most picturesque explanation is that the Don, prowling about the streets
one night, perceived a funeral procession approaching. Curiosity
impelled him to look at the face of the corpse, which was uncovered, and
lo! it was his own.
If you doubt the sincerity of Don Miguel's conversion, you have only to
visit the Church of La Caridad, which, together with the adjoining
hospital, he founded and wherein he was buried. I do not think you will
share the opinion of Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell that this is the most
elegant church in Seville, but you will be rewarded for the visit by
seeing some very remarkable works of art. Near the entrance are the two
extraordinary pictures which proclaim the artist, Valdés Leal, to have
been a master of realism. One of these exhibits a corpse at which,
Murillo declared, you must look with your nostrils shut. The church
contains six canvases by Murillo himself--"Moses Striking the Rock,"
"The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," "The Charity of St. Juan de
Dios," "The Annunciation," "The Infant Jesus," and "St. John." The third
is really the finest of these pictures, though the first, commonly
called "La Sed" (Thirst), is the most generally preferred. The figures
are, as usual in this master's compositions, ordinary Seville types.
Over the altar is another great work, "The Descent from the Cross," by
Pedro Roldán.
The "Caridad" has indeed the most important collection of pictures in
southern Spain, next to the Museo, as the old Convent of La Merced is
now called. There, of course, some of the greatest works of art by
Spanish masters are to be seen. There you may see the "St. Thomas of
Villanueva" giving alms, Murillo's favourite picture; his beautiful
"St. Felix of Cantalicio," and "St. Leander and St. Buenaventura," and
his famous "Vírgen de la Servilleta" which was _not_ painted on a
serviette. On the south wall hangs his "Saints Justa and Rufina"
(holding the Giralda), exquisitely coloured, and on the north wall the
admirable "St. Anthony de Padua." But one grows a little weary of
Murillo in Seville. Zurbaran, the great painter of monks, is well
represented by the wonderful "St. Hugh in the Refectory," and
"Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas." This last picture, I am told, was
carried off by Soult, and recovered by Wellington at Waterloo. The older
Herrera's "St. Hermenegild" is good, but by no means Andalusian. The
native temper finds more truthful expression in the works of Roelas,
Valdés Leal, Cespedes and Frutet, which may be studied to the best
advantage here. Curiously enough, the gallery contains not a single work
by Velazquez, who was born in Seville; nor any paintings by Alonso Cano
or Luis de Vargas. Spanish sculpture, of which one sees so little, is
not unworthily represented by a beautiful St. Bruno by Montañez, and by
some busts and crucifixes of less importance. The students of Andalusian
art must also visit the Hospital de la Sangre, near the Macarena Gate,
for some splendid works by Zurbaran and by his less-known forerunner
Roelas. The three pictures ascribed to the last named are, however, very
awkwardly placed and difficult to see.
Murillo's house is still standing in the Plaza de Alfaro in the old
Ghetto. Here he died on April 3, 1682, after his fall from the
scaffolding at Cadiz. His studio is shown filled with several undoubted
works of his brush. The house belongs to the executors of the late Dean
Cepero.
The Duke de Montpensier has a fine collection of pictures at his ugly
Palace of St. Telmo, near the Torre del Oro. Among them is included a
sketch by our late Queen, when she was still a princess. The palace
looks on a parade which is much resorted to by the Sevillanos in the
summer months. Here you see the boys playing at the inevitable
bull-fight. One who takes the part of toro has a real bull's horns with
which he "gores" his comrades with great ferocity. The insistence on
this brutal "sport" among the Andalusians has taken the form of acute
monomania. Exasperated strangers have been heard to declare that in
southern Spain you hear of but two things--Toros y Moros. In another
corner of the promenade, you will come upon a party of little girls
going through the peculiar and stately dances, or rather measures, of
their country, to the accompaniment of a low chant and a clapping of
hands, in which the boys, looking on from a distance, will join. Boys
and girls, unless they are quite babies, are seldom seen together. You
pass on and find a group of citizens seated at the little tables round a
kiosk, refreshing themselves with lemonade and being entertained by a
conjuror--a fine-looking man--who sends round the hat after every two
or three tricks. In the ordinary way you are asked for alms more often
than in Granada, but not, of course, to anything like the same extent as
in London. English travellers are given to commenting on the mendicity
in foreign cities, but I must confess that nowhere have I met with so
many beggars as in our own capital. In Spain the fraternity chiefly
haunt the steps of churches, the one spot in our happy country that they
seem to avoid.
We reach the beginning of the Delicias Gardens, which extend two or
three miles southward along the river bank. All the rank and fashion of
Seville--and a great deal besides--turns out in summer evenings to drive
in the Delicias. The concourse of vehicles is immense, but reminded me
rather of the return from the Derby than of Rotten Row. The great
ambition of the Spaniard is to possess a conveyance, and he seems to
care little how dilapidated or ancient it may be, so long as it goes on
wheels. Side by side with the handsome equipages of the Sevillian
aristocracy, you will see a wretched Rosinante painfully dragging what I
took to be the original "one-hoss shay," or the carriage in which Lord
Ferrers was driven to the scaffold. It is impossible to restrain a
smile, but after all a conveyance is a real necessity in a climate like
this, and if a man cannot afford a good carriage, he must needs put up
with a bad one. The traffic is well regulated by mounted police. The
foot-paths are also crowded, and when night falls, everyone adjourns to
the numerous open-air cafés and kiosks to drink light beer and lemonade.
Sober, steady Spain! How certain of our reformers at home would love
you, if they but knew you! Where in the world (except in the East) are
men more abstemious or women more staid and demure?
If you wish (as of course, being a modern traveller, you are sure to do)
to study the life of the people, you had better betake yourself to the
other end of the city--to the Alameda de Hercules, so called after two
columns which the natives believe were presented by that muscular
demigod. Here a perpetual fair seems in progress. There are the usual
booths, with fat ladies, boneless wonders, and dwarfs, and more
questionable exhibitions. On a platform sat three depressed and underfed
wretches, who, I thought, were to be immediately garrotted. Suddenly one
sprang up and gave a very clever rendering of the arrival and departure
of a train at a country station. He was vociferously applauded, and,
thus encouraged, danced a sort of "cellar-flap" with great animation to
the indispensable accompaniment of hand-clapping. In a popular assembly
of Andalusian town and country folk, the modern observer ought, I am
well aware, to find many extraordinary and significant phases of
humanity, exhibiting the striking individuality of the people, their
race-consciousness, their psychological import, their evolutional
significance, and so forth. I blush to confess that in the crowds
applauding the ventriloquist or gaping at the fat lady, I saw only a
collection of good-humoured ordinary people, enjoying themselves much
after the fashion of ordinary people in England.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--GARDEN OF THE CASA DE PILATOS]
Perhaps the Sevillano is more his real self on these occasions than when
disporting himself at the world-famous fair, which begins on the Monday
after Easter and attracts strangers from all parts of Europe. Though a
somewhat overrated festival, I think it more distinctive and original in
certain of its aspects than the gorgeous religious ceremonies by which
it is preceded. The wealthier families of Seville rig up for themselves
on the fair-ground "casetas," or temporary residences of wood or canvas,
with two or more apartments. A great deal of expense is lavished on the
upholstering and decoration of these pavilions, and those of the four
principal clubs are fitted up in the most luxurious fashion. In the
evening the _jeunesse dorée_ of the city drive out to the fair in smart
traps drawn by dashing little horses with jangling little bells, and
visits are exchanged at the casetas, where as the evening becomes
cooler, dancing takes place, to the sound of the piano, the guitar, and
the castanet. The pretty señoritas of Seville have no objection to going
through the graceful measures of the South in full view of an uninvited
audience who crowd round the opening of the tent and from time to time
give vent to admiring "Olés!" and bursts of hand-clapping. Dancing will
be interrupted at 8.30, when everyone comes out to look at the firework
display. Then of course there are the usual popular amusements--the
inevitable bioscope, the gramophone, and all sorts of shows. Peasantry
and aristocracy alike dress their very best on this occasion. The
smartest toilettes and the most picturesque of native costumes are seen
side by side, the latest confections of Worth and Paquin and costly
heirlooms handed down from the days of Boabdil and Gonsalvo de Cordova.
Whether such an intermingling of all classes, of the richest and the
poorest, could take place with mutual enjoyment and comfort in any
country but Spain, is a matter open to doubt.
The object of the fair is, I believe, the sale of cattle, and about
eighty thousand beasts are to be seen on the Prado de San Sebastian. To
say that the most sanguinary bull-fights complete the festivities is
perhaps superfluous. The most skilful and renowned toreros are engaged
on this occasion, and the arenas literally smoke with the blood of bulls
and disembowelled horses. Smithfield and Deptford can show nothing in
comparison.
[Illustration: SEVILLE--THE MARKET PLACE]
The religious ceremonies, of which travellers talk so much, are not for
the most part peculiar to Seville, as it ought to be unnecessary to
remind them. The tableaux in the processions struck me as theatrical,
but as being on the whole as well represented as similar show-pieces in
our pageants. The famous Dance of the Seises is reserved for the
octaves of the Immaculate Conception and Corpus Christi. It has been
described over and over again. There is nothing irreverent about the
performance, which is in itself graceful and quaint; only carried out
before the high altar it strikes one as rather meaningless. So, I
suppose, most such functions impress those who are unprepared for them
by temperament and education. There cannot be much doubt that the
ceremony originated in an attempt to attract the ungodly to church--an
early and respectable precedent for the methods of the Salvation Army.
Others have it that the dance is a survival of some pagan
ceremony--which will remind us that we have so far neglected the
monuments of the Romans which were bequeathed to Seville. These are not
very numerous or interesting. Only a fragment remains, at the north-east
angle of the city, of the massive wall which Cæsar built, and which
completely girdled Seville as late as the reign of Juan II. It was
strengthened, tradition tells us, by 166 towers, which were freely used
as prisons by later rulers. The Cordoba Gate marks the site of the
dungeon of the canonized Hermenegild. Close to it is the Capuchin
Convent, built upon the foundations of the palace of the Roman governor,
Diogenianus, and afterwards associated with Murillo. A noble aqueduct
built by the Romans, and known to-day as the Caños de Carmona, still
brings water from Alcala de Guadaira to Seville. Everyone who visits
Seville is expected to make an excursion to the ruins of Italica, a few
miles on the other side of the Guadalquivir. There is remarkably little
to see when you get there, and not much is known about the place. There
were few, if any, private dwellings here, and it existed rather as the
place of meeting and distributing centre for the colonists scattered
over the district. It was indeed raised to the dignity of a municipality
by Augustus, but petitioned to be restored to its old rank of a Roman
colony. It did not prove unworthy of its connection with the great
capital. Hence sprang the illustrious line of the Ælii, and many of the
eminent Roman Spaniards who conferred such lustre on the early empire
are believed to have been natives. The town was embellished in those
palmy days with temples, palaces, amphitheatres, and baths, quite out of
proportion to its population.
Its downfall, like its earlier history, is mysterious. Here Leovigild
placed his headquarters when besieging Seville. Then came the Arabs, who
dismantled it and carried off columns and blocks of masonry on which are
founded the Giralda and other important buildings in the neighbouring
city. Italica disappeared from history; and all you can see of it to-day
is a few remains of walls and earthbanks outlining the amphitheatre.
It might not be worth the journey were it not that it can be included in
an excursion to the villages of Santi Ponce, Castilleja la Cuesta, and
the Cartuja. The parish church of the first named wretched village is
remarkable as the last resting-place of the illustrious Guzman el Bueno,
that Spaniard of the Roman mould who refused to save the life of his son
at the cost of the fortress of Tarifa, which he held for his king. The
hero's kneeling effigy dates, as the inscription beneath informs us,
from the year 1609, the three hundredth anniversary of his death. The
modern traveller, whose sympathies are usually more with the æsthetic
than the heroic, will be more interested in the lifelike St. Jerome, one
of the finest works of Montañez, to be seen over the high altar. The
saint, regarding a crucifix devoutly, beats his breast with a stone. On
either side are beautiful bas-reliefs of the Nativity and the Adoration
of the Magi.
The convent was inhabited first by the Cistercians, next by the Hermits
of St. Jerome. It presents rather the appearance of a fortified abbey of
the middle ages. The church is divided into two naves, each of which was
a distinct church--one, I suspect, belonging to the monastery, the other
to the parish; a not uncommon medieval arrangement. I almost forgot to
add that it contains the ashes (literally) of Doña Urraca Osorio, a lady
burnt to death, as I have said, by Pedro the Cruel.
At Castilleja la Cuesta--a village on the height--is the house where
Hernando Cortes died in 1547. The house has been converted by the Duc de
Montpensier into a sort of museum. The Conquistador's bones repose in
the land which, with so much intrepidity and ruthlessness, he won for
Spain.
The old Charterhouse or Cartuja is now occupied by the porcelain factory
of Pickman & Co. It lies on the west bank of the Guadalquivir, a few
minutes' walk from the railway bridge. It was founded in the first
decade of the fifteenth century by Archbishop de Mena, and was the
burial-place of the Riberas, till their remains were transferred to the
University Church. There is little to see except some stalls carved, if
I remember aright, by Duque Cornejo, in the little chapel.
You may return to the city through the transpontine quarter of Triana, a
collection of whitewashed houses inhabited chiefly by gipsies. To
distinguish these no longer nomadic Bohemians from the lower-class
Andalusians around them is not an easy task. As at Granada, gipsy dances
are got up by the guides and hotel people, and here, I am told, they
possess the merit which a Frenchman denies to those of the other
city--impropriety. The patron saints of Seville, Saints Justa and
Rufina, were potters in this quarter. In their time the Carthaginian
goddess, Astarte or Salambo, was much venerated in the Roman city. The
commemoration of the death of Adonis took place in the month of July,
when the image of the goddess was borne in triumph through the streets,
while the people following with cries and lamentations deplored the
untimely end of her beloved. A strange survival, this, on soil so
far to the west, of the hideous Punic rites! The two maidens, newly
converted to the religion of the Crucified, refused to do reverence to
the image as it was carried past, and were haled before the governor,
Diogenianus, in his palace by the Cordova Gate. They were put to death
in due course, and have received more honour since from architects,
sculptors, and painters, than Venus-Astarte in all her glory received
from her devotees.
[Illustration: CORDOVA--A COURTYARD]
Before leaving Triana, visit the Church of Santa Ana, to see the
exquisite Madonna of Alejo Fernandez, whom Lord Leighton considered the
most conspicuous among the Gothic painters. There is a regard for beauty
in the figures, not by any means obtrusive in most of the paintings of
the period, though the awkward pose of some of the angels shows that the
artist had not quite emancipated himself from Byzantine influence. And
the thought occurred to me as I made my way back to the Delicias
Gardens, where the people were driving out to take the air, and knots
were collecting round musicians and mountebanks--when the whole city was
yielding itself up to the sensuous charm of the summer night--that the
art of Fernandez was expressive of Seville: of a people in whom the
sense of beauty and the joy of living cannot be extinguished, though at
the call of religion they reluctantly keep their faces half turned
towards sad facts and yet more sombre unrealities.