  THE beginning of the history of Seville is buried, with the date of its foundation, in oblivion. It has its place in mythology as the creation of Hercules; its origin being more reasonably credited to the Phoenicians, who colonised the mineral-yielding region of Andalusia, which is watered by the Guadalquivir, and called it Tartessii. Strabo states that they built the town of Tartessus; and some authorities favour the conclusion that Seville stands on the site of that Phoenician stronghold. In 237 B.C. Hamilcar Barca conquered Andalusia, and his son-in-law founded Carthagena, which was seized by Publius Cornelius Scipio, or Scipio Africanus, during the second Punic War. Scipio founded Italica, which was to serve as a sanatorium for his invalided soldiers, and for awhile its importance eclipsed that of the neighbouring city of Seville. Honoured by the gifts of three Roman emperors born within its walls, and adorned with the splendid edifices raised by Trajan, Adrian, and Theodosius, Italica was advanced to the first rank among the Roman cities of the Peninsula. Julius CÆsar restored the balance of power to Seville in 45 B.C., when he made it his capital, and changed its name to Julia Romula. The city was fortified and protected by walls, which have been variously described as from five to ten miles in length. To-day the remains of the great aqueduct, the two high granite columns in the Alameda de Hercules, and the beautiful fragments of capitals and statues in the Museo ArqÆlogico, are the only existing relics of the Roman sway in Seville, while on the opposite In 711 Tarik captured Cordova, and in the following year Musa, the Governor of Africa, appeared before Seville with an army of 18,000 warriors. In a few weeks the city had fallen, and for 536 years the “Pearl of Andalusia” remained in the possession of the Moors. The conquerors abandoned Italica to its fate, or, rather, they used the remains of the city as a quarry, while some of the sculpture of the deserted capital, which appealed to the Arabs by its surpassing beauty, was removed to Seville. Despite the injunctions contained in the Koran, the sculptures were not destroyed, and a statue of Venus was long preserved in one of the public baths of the city. El-Makkari, writing in the sixteenth century, and quoting from an early Moorish manuscript, records that “there was once found a marble statue of a woman with a boy, so admirably executed that both looked as if they were alive; such perfection human eyes never beheld. Indeed, some Sevillians were so much struck with its beauty as to become deeply enamoured of it.” An anonymous poet, a native of Seville, made a set of verses about it, which have been translated by Don Pascual de Gayangos as follows: “Look at that marble statue, beautiful in its proportions, surpassing everything in transparency and smoothness. “She has with her a son, it is true, but who her husband was I cannot tell, neither was she ever in labour. “Thou knowest her to be but a stone, but yet thou canst not look at her, for there is in her eyes something that fascinates and confounds the beholder.” It has been said that the Sevillians pretend to regard Hercules as the builder of the city, and the Puerta de la Carne is inscribed with the following distich: “Condidit Alcides—renovavit Julius urbem, Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius heros.” This has been paraphrased in an inscription over the Puerta de Xerex: “Hercules me edificÓ Julio Cesar me cercÓ De muros y torres altas; Un Rey godo me perdiÓ, El Rey Santo me ganÓ, Con Garci Perez de Vargas.” Hercules built me; Julius CÆsar encircled me with walls and lofty towers; a Gothic king (Roderick) lost me; a saint-like king (St. Ferdinand), assisted by Garci Perez de Vargas, regained me. The inscription might well have included the name of the brother of Garci Perez, Diego de Vargas, surnamed “El Machuca,” or “the Pounder,” who performed prodigies of valour at the breaking of the Moorish bridge of boats across the Guadalquivir, when the destruction of that gallantly-defended means of access to the city led to the capture of Seville by the Christians in 1248. These two brothers are the heroes of Spanish ballads, and were greatly distinguished by St. Ferdinand; the grateful monarch freely acknowledging their prowess by the bestowal of houses and lands wrested from the Moors. A curious “Repartimiento,” or Domesday Book of Seville, is still extant, and many families can trace their actual possessions back to this original partition. Musa appointed his son, Abdelasis, a brave soldier and a humane ruler, to be governor of Seville. That he was a successful general, that he married Egilona, the widow of PLATE XXV
[Image unavailable.] SEVILLE FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—GATES OF THE PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE. were roused to fury. The assassins produced the letters and commands of the khalif, but to no purpose; the people refused to abide by the sultan’s behests, and chose ’Abdullah to be his successor. ’Abdullah was, however, quickly displaced by Ayub, Suleyman’s nominee, and the conspirators then departed to make their report at Damascus, carrying with them the head of the unfortunate Abdelasis. The author of the tradition, Mohammed Ibn, says that when these emissaries arrived at Damascus and produced the head of Abdelasis before Suleyman, he sent immediately for Musa. Upon his appearance, Suleyman, pointing to the head, said: “Dost thou know whose head that is?” “Yes,” answered Musa, “it is the head of my son Commander of the Faithful, the head of Abdelasis (may Allah show him mercy) is before thee, but by the life of Allah there was never a Moslem who less deserved such unjust treatment; for he passed his days in fasting, and his nights in prayer; no man ever performed greater deeds to serve the cause of the Almighty, or His messenger Mohammed; no man was more firm in his obedience to thee. None of thy predecessors would have served him thus. Thou even wouldest never have done what thou hast to him, had there been justice in thee.” Suleyman retorted, “Thou liest, O Musa, thy son was not as thou hast represented him; he was impious and forgetful of our religion, he was the persecutor of the Moslems, and the sworn enemy of his sovereign, the Commander of the Faithful. Such was thy son, O doting, foolish, fond old man!” Musa replied, “By Allah! I am no dotard, nor would I deviate from truth, wert thou to answer my words with the blows of death. I speak as the honest slave should speak to his master, but I place my confidence in God, whose help I implore. Grant me his Suleyman’s treachery had its first result in the removal of the seat of Moorish rule in Spain to Cordova. Ayub, the successor of Abdelasis, recognising the insecurity of his tenure in Seville, forsook “the Pearl of Andalusia” with all speed, and when in 777, Abd-er-Rahman proclaimed himself sole ruler of Spain, it was from his palace at Cordova that the fiat was sent forth to the world. Seville, the first and the natural capital of the South, dropped into second place among the cities of the Peninsula, and it was not until 1078 that it re-established its claim as the Moorish metropolis. For three hundred and fifty years the Moslems were faithful to the sovereignty of Cordova; and although Seville came, by reason of its beautiful palaces, gardens, and baths, to be regarded as one of the fairest cities of earth; the alcazar and the lordly mosque, which now bear evidence of its former grandeur, are of a later Moorish period. And Seville grew in beauty under, and in spite of, the destructive influence of strife and conflict. While Abd-er-Rahman was cultivating the graces of Cordova, Seville was being desolated by many assaults. Yusuf, and, after his death, his three sons, made attacks upon Seville, and Hixem ben Adri el Fehri, who had stirred the Toledans to insurrection, was [Image unavailable.] PLATE XXVI SEVILLE. ALCAZAR. Hall of Ambassadors. Details. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE CHIEF ENTRANCE TO THE ALCAZAR, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER DON PEDRO I. THE CRUEL, 1369-1379. subsequently defeated at the gates of Seville by the Governor, Abdelmelic. At a later date, Cassim, the son of Abdelmelic, fled with his army before the advance of the Wali of Mequinez, and was stabbed to death by his father for cowardice. Abdelmelic, who threw himself upon the invaders, was overcome and wounded in a night battle on the banks of the Guadalquivir; but, despite his hurt and his defeat, he rallied his soldiers, and drove the hitherto victorious Wali through the streets of Seville, and out again into the open country, where he was captured and killed. Under the shifty and opportunist rule of Abdallah, who had caused his brother Mundhir to be murdered to make his way to the throne of Cordova in 888, Andalusia was split up into a number of independent principalities. The turbulent Ibn-Hafsun had made himself virtual King of Granada, the governors of Lorca and Zaragoza rendered but nominal homage to the khalif, the walls of Toledo rattled with the crash of contending revolutionary factions, and in Seville Ibrahim Ibn-Hajjaj treated with the King of Cordova on equal terms. In the time of Ibn-Hajjaj Seville was the most orderly and best-governed city in the Peninsula. The poets of Cordova, the singers of Baghdad, and the lawyers of Medina were attracted to the court of Ibn-Hajjaj, of whom it was sung, “In all the West I find no right noble man save Ibrahim, but he is nobility itself. When one has known the delight of living with him, to dwell in any other land would be a misery.” Yet in 912-13, Ibrahim Ibn-Hajjaj, who kept his state like an Emperor, opened the gates of Seville to the masterful and gallant Abd-er-Rahman III., and the city became once more subject to the self-proclaimed Khalif of Cordova. It was Abd-er-Rahman who planted Seville with palm trees, beautified her gardens, increased the number of her palaces, and made the Guadal But Seville at this period was the rival of Cordova in intellectual eminence, and much of the Moorish thought and research which was destined to influence Spain in future ages was pondered, and practised, and published from the former city. Abu Omar Ahmed Ben Abdallah, called “El Begi,” “the Sage,” and unquestionably one of the most learned men of his time, was a native of Seville, and here he wrote his encyclopÆdia of the sciences. It was said that there was no man who could surpass him in knowledge of arts and sciences, and “even in his earliest youth,” says CondÉ, “the cadi very frequently consulted him in affairs of the highest importance.” Chemists, philosophers, astronomers, and men famous in every branch of science, resorted to “the Pearl of Andalusia;” while art was fostered in silk and leather manufactures, and the joy of life found expression in music, poetry, and the dance. The victorious expeditions of Alfonso VI. found the Moors demoralised from the massacres of Cordova and Ez-Zahra, and the whole of Andalusia in a state of ferment, anarchy, and military unpreparedness. In every town of importance in the South a new independent dynasty sprang into existence, and the Abbadites exercised kingly sway over the so-called republic of Seville. Some of these usurpers and pretenders, as Mr. Lane-Poole has pointed out, were good rulers; most of them were sanguinary tyrants, but (curiously) not the less polished gentlemen, who delighted to do honour to learning and letters, and made their courts the homes of poets and musicians. Mo’temid of Seville, for instance, was a patron of the arts, and a prince of many [Image unavailable.] PLATE XXVII. SEVILLE. Details in Hall of Ambassadors. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—PRINCIPAL FAÇADE. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE INTERIOR COURT OF THE ALCAZAR. attainments, yet he kept a garden of heads cut off his enemies’ shoulders, which he regarded with great pride and delight. Yet Seville was secure and peaceful under these barbarous rulers until the menace of Alfonso’s inroads made Mo’temid silence the fears of his court with the reflection, “Better be a camel-driver in African deserts than a swine-herd in Castile.” So they fled from the danger of the Castilians to the succour that Africa was waiting to send them. A conference of Moorish rulers was held in Seville, and a message imploring assistance was despatched to Yusuf, the Almoravide king. Yusuf defeated the army of Alfonso near Badajoz in 1086. Four years later the King of Seville again besought the help of Yusuf against the Christians of the North. This time he came with a force of twenty thousand men at his back, and before the end of 1091 the leader of the Almoravides had captured Seville and established a dynasty which was to last until its overthrow by the Almohades in 1147. The Almoravide rule, which was distinguished in the beginning by piety and a love of honest warfare, ended in tyranny and corruption, and the Almoravides gave place to a race more pious and fanatical than the demoralised followers of Yusuf had ever been. For a hundred and one years the Almohades remained masters of Seville. The monuments of their devotion and artistic genius are extant in the mosque and the alcazar, and we know that under Abu Yakub Yusuf a new era of commercial prosperity set in for Seville, and a new light arose to illumine the fast deepening shadows which fell over the vanishing glory of Cordova. The thunder of the blows which had reduced “the City of the Fairest” to a heap of ruins still echoed in the air, and mixed with the noise of the builders and artificers who were re-moulding Seville “nearer to the heart’s desire. The remains of Moorish architecture which we find in Cordova, in Seville, and in Granada, enable us to realise that the civilisation and art of the Spanish Moslems were progressive, and that each stage developed its varied and singular characteristics. “The monuments of Seville,” says Contreras in his Monuments Arabes, “produce quite a peculiar effect on the mind, a sublime reminiscence of ancient and profound social transformations, which only the inartistic aspect of bad restorations can dissipate—a vandalism inspired by the desire to see the building shining with colour and gold, and which impelled people to restore it without paying the smallest heed to the most elementary principles of archÆology. The alcazar of Seville is not a classic work; we do not find in it the stamp of originality, and the ineffaceable character that one admires in ancient works like the Parthenon, and in more modern ones like the Escurial; the first on account of their splendid simplicity, and the latter for their great size and taciturn grandeur. In the alcazar of Yakub Yusuf, the prestige of a heroic generation has disappeared, and the existence of Christian kings, who have lived there and enriched it with a thousand pages of our glorious history, is perfectly represented there. The Almohades who left the purest African souvenirs there, and Jalubi who followed Almehdi to the conquest of Africa, left on the walls Roman remains, taken from the vanquished people. St. Ferdinand, who conquered it; Don Pedro I., who re-built it; Don Juan II., who restored the most beautiful halls; the Catholic monarchs, who built chapels and oratories within its precincts; Charles V., who added more than half, with the moderated style of this epoch of sublime renaissance; Philip III., and Philip V., who further increased it by erecting edifices in the surrounding gardens; all these, and many other princes and great lords, who inhabited it [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—ARCADE IN THE PRINCIPAL COURT. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—VIEW OF THE INTERIOR. for six centuries, changed its original construction in such a degree that it no longer resembles, to-day, the original Oriental monument, although we have covered it with arabesques, and embellished it with mosaics and gilding.” All that succeeding generations have constructed in the alcazar has contributed to deprive it of its Mohammedan character. Transformed into a lordly mansion of more modern epochs, one no longer sees there the voluptuous saloons of the harem, nor the silent spaces reserved for prayer, nor the baths, nor the fountains, nor the strong ramparts, supporting the galleries, which, by circular paths, communicated with the rich sleeping apartments, situated in the square towers. It is not that Arab art is in a different form here to that seen in other parts of Spain; but while the Moors always built palaces in close proximity to fortified places, they here combined the two, and for that reason they sacrificed the exterior decoration to the works of fortification and defence. On approaching the palace, one finds marks of grandeur, but one must not look for them in the structure, but rather in the numerous reparations and additions which have been made there, and also in the solid walls, dominating the ruins of those castles, which seem to protest eternally against the cold indifference with which so many generations have passed over them. And if, on the one hand, there is no doubt that this is the old wall or the ancient tower, on the other hand, the traveller, greedy for impressions left by a past world, finds nothing but square enclosures, gardens and rectangular saloons of the mansions of the 16th century. Here there is nothing so majestic as the Giralda; nothing so essentially Oriental as the mosque of Cordova; nothing so fantastic and so picturesque as the alcazar of Granada. One only sees here the chronicle of an art, carried out by a thousand artists, obeying different Ichabod! The moody potentate, bowed down with the cares of high office, no longer treads the dim corridor, or lingers in the shade of the palm trees. No sound of gaiety reverberates in the deserted courts, no voice of orator is heard in the Hall of Justice. The green lizards bask on the deserted benches of the gardens. Rose petals strew the paved paths. One’s footsteps echo in the gorgeous patios, whose walls have witnessed many a scene of pomp, tragedy, and pathos. The spell of the past holds one; and, before the imagination, troops a long procession of illustrious sovereigns, courtiers, counsellors, and warriors. This wonderful monument, which has moved generations of artists and poets to rhapsody and praise, and inspired [Image unavailable.] PLATE XXVIII SEVILLE. ALCAZAR. Details of Hall of Ambassadors. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COURT OF THE DOLLS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COURT OF THE DOLLS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369-1379. that picturesque Italian author, De Amicis, to people the gardens of the alcazar with Mo’temid and his beautiful favourite, Itamad, who had been dead nearly a century before the alcazar was erected, failed to create any impression in the mind of Mr. John Lomas, whose strictures upon the place in his Sketches of Spain must ever be a standing reproof to those who dare to see Oriental beauty in this Sevillian castle. “Greater far,” says Mr. Lomas, “is the alcazar in reputation than in intrinsic worth. Like the Mother Church, it forms a sort of sightseers’ goal, and it shares equally in the good fortune of so entirely satisfying the requirements of superficial observers, that it is esteemed a kind of heresy to take exception to its noble rank as a typical piece of Moorish work. Yet it is just a great house, of southern and somewhat ancient construction—say the fifteenth century—with a number of square rooms and courts, arranged and decorated after Arab models as far as was possible in the case of a building designed to fulfil the requirements of Western civilisation. Nothing else. Of course, if the courts and towers of the Alhambra have not been seen—or are not to be compassed—there will be found here an infinity of fresh loveliness in design and colouring, together with a vast amount of detail which will repay study. But even then it must all be looked upon as an exceedingly clever reproduction of beautiful and artful forms, not as their best possible setting forth, or type. There are dark winding passages—evidently dictated by the exigencies of the work—but they yield none of the delicate surprises which form so great a charm of the old Moorish monuments. There is any amount of rich decoration and Moresque detail; but never the notion of the luxury and voluptuousness of Eastern life, or a suggestion of its thousand-and-one adjuncts. There are, here and there, indubitable traces of the original Eleventh Mr. Lomas is perfectly correct in suggesting that the alcazar of Seville is, in great measure, a reproduction of the delights of the Alhambra, a reproduction due, without any doubt, to that school of architecture which embellished the sumptuous palace of Granada for the kings of the second Nazarite dynasty. In it we see the record of the ingenious almizates, of its gates and ceilings, of those stalactited domes, which dazzle and confuse, of those wall-facings encrusted with rich ornamentation, of those graceful Byzantine and Moorish geometrical designs, which even to-day are the despair of perspective painters, of those enchanting saloons where the genius of harmony seems to rest, and of those balmy gardens which invite repose, meditation, and melancholy. While it is generally accepted that the city of Seville possessed no alcazar of striking importance until the declining power of the khalifate of Cordova made Seville the capital of an independent kingdom, there is substantial reason for believing that in the foundations of the present superb edifice there are unmistakable relics of an earlier work of truly Arab architecture. The Almohades so thoroughly effaced and distorted the magnificence of their predecessors’ work that it would be impossible to point with certainty to any of the original remains of this many-times-restored palace. The ultra-semi-circular arches which are seen in the Hall of the Ambassadors, those graceful arches which carry the mind from Seville to the graceful arcades of the mosque of Cordova, incline one to regard this apartment as a relic of Abbadite antiquity, while the rich columns with [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—THE COURT OF THE DOLLS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—RIGHT ANGLE OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS. their gilded capitals of the Corinthian style appears to contain authentic proof of their Arabic-Byzantine origin. SeÑor Pedro de Madrazo, whilst admitting the difficulty of determining the period to which the various parts of the alcazar belong, disregards the conclusions of SeÑores JosÉ Amador de los Rios and his son Rodrigo, who resolutely denied the antiquity of these ultra-semi-circular arches, and declares the Hall of Ambassadors to be an example of Abbadite architecture. He further attributes to the same epoch, the showy ascending arcade of the narrow staircase which leads from the entrance court to the upper gallery, and rises near the balcony or choir of the chapel, and the three beautiful arches, sustained by exquisite capitals, which remain as the sole relic of the decoration of the abandoned apartment situated close to the “Princes’ Saloon.” In his work on “Sevilla,” the same authority distinguishes between the art of the Mudejare, or transition artificers, and that of the Almohado Moors. “The latter art,” he observes, “is less simple, less select in its ornamentation, discloses less rational regularity, and is, generally speaking, more affected.” These differences may be seen in a comparison between the Moorish Giralda of Seville and the beautiful creation of artists of the Arab-Andalusian period which are to be studied in the ornamental parts of the Alhambra. The Almohade architecture displays a base taste, which imitates rather than feels, and creates forms by exaggerations which are unsuitable to the design, and thus differs in Æsthetic principles from the Mudejaren-Moorish work of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, which reveals an instinctive feeling for the beautiful in ornamentation, which never loses sight of the elegant, the graceful, and the bold, and consequently never falls into aberration. The Almohade period, in short, discloses at once the force of the barbarous It must always be remembered when approaching the forbidding exterior of the alcazar, that it was erected to serve the purpose of a fortress as well as a palace. Yusuf is supposed to have used a Roman prÆtorium as the foundation of his castle, and there are parts of the wall which date back to Roman times. But the principal gateway which gives entrance to the palace is of Arab origin, and it is evident that all the upper part, from the frieze with the Gothic inscription, is purely Mohammedan, according to the Persic style, very much used in the entrances to mosques of the first period, in Asia. The two pilasters, in their entire height, as well as the sculptured framing of the lower part, are of the Arab style; but the balconies with arches, and Byzantine columns, the Roman capitals, the lintels of the doors and windows with Gothic springs, are indications, which prove the reconstruction of the time of Don Pedro. The later restorations have not completely [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COURT OF THE DOLLS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—UPPER PART OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS. changed the primitive form, but have only modified it. On entering the palace one finds other works less Arab than these, the ornaments do not form an integral part of the decoration, and one can observe that in order to place them it was necessary to remove inscriptions and Mohammedan shields which filled the little spaces. But in passing this square entrance, whose form recalls Egypt, and which began to be used when the horseshoe arch was no longer in vogue, we find ourselves in the chief courtyard of the alcazar, which makes a slight detour in order not to be overlooked from the street, and which offers an extravagant assemblage of lines without departing from exactness. The actual lines of this superb edifice, mentioning principally the two types of architecture which prevail, are the Moorish of the works erected from 1353 to 1364, and the Renaissance, in the works carried out under the monarchs of the house of Austria. It is curious that while the Alhambra was allowed to fall into decay, and suffered periods of neglect that could be reckoned by scores of years at a stretch, the alcazar has seldom been free from the hands of the restorers. The fact accounts, of course, for the splendid state of preservation in which it is to be found to-day, but it also owes to it the weird incongruity of style and decoration which lovers of pure Moorish art deplore. After Pedro had almost entirely reconstructed the palace—and to him the alcazar owes many of its best portions—it came under the restoring influence of Juan II., that weak but artistic monarch, whose handiwork is seen in some of the chief apartments. The arch-vandal, Charles V., whose palace in the Alhambra would be a work of art anywhere save on the spot on which he chose to erect it, could not be expected to spare the alcazar. Under his direction the greater portion of the Renaissance additions After the restorations made by Don Pedro were finished, the alcazar had various entrances, but the principal were the two opened in the old Arab wall, which lead to the courts called the “Banderas y de la Monteria.” The delicate pointed arches which composed them were almost hidden between the massive towers of the neighbouring minaret; nothing externally reveals the dazzling beauty which is to be seen behind these walls. In the courtyard one sees very fine ornaments placed hap-hazard, which had been left over from the last restorations of the palace of Granada, and which were sent here without any consideration for period or style. That this system prevailed can be proved by reference to the archives of the royal patrimony, where there is a document requesting, on the part of the keeper of the alcazar, that some of the “best” arabesques, which were being used for the restorations at Granada, should be sent to Seville. These ornaments, of different epochs and styles, can be seen on the walls of the alcazar, face to face with others corresponding to the [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—UPPER PORTIONS OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COURT OF THE DOLLS. infancy of the art. The Alhambra does not suffer from these incongruities, because it has not suffered a great transformation similar to that which the alcazar underwent at the hands of Don Pedro. It has not been altered to suit the requirements of a Christian court, and it has never been occupied by great personages, with large revenues at their disposal, to reconstruct it according to their caprice. The ornaments of the ceilings of the alcazar are magnificent, because, as Contreras points out, the Moorish workmen were beginning to understand all the majesty and grandeur that Christian art stamped upon the complicated and minute assemblage of Mussulman edifices; they began to make rich coverings, with bolts or stays with apertures, and with hollows in the form of an arch, and keystones imitating rhombus, stars, and bow ornaments. The famous Gothic roofs and ceilings of the Bretonne buildings of the ninth century have never been able to equal this one, because here one finds more beautiful specimens than in the other edifices, when the vaults with little stalactites had not yet acquired their complete development. The perfectly-worked and carved designs of the doors give a great relief to the palace. One remarks here that the ceilings are less magnificent or luxurious, when the ornamentation is less classic, and, as at Fez, the walls were covered with hangings instead of reliefs in plaster; and then they used more gold in the cornices, in the friezes, in the domes, in the lintels, and in the crownings, whilst the walls remained bare, as in the Moz-Arabian constructions. There was here such a mixture of styles, such a confusion of ideas, and such a number of little quadrangular windows, which interrupt the general line of the ornamentation, as one does not see anywhere else. One sees, too, walls covered with arabesques, stretching like pieces of tapestry or coverings of bright In going through this alcazar one sees nothing but square saloons, one following the other, of the same shape and dimensions, occasionally varied by the composition of the arabesques traced there. Symmetry has been sacrificed to convenience, and the central arches to the alignment of the doors. In the time of the Arabs the alcazar constituted a series of constructions, flanked by the walls and the towers, which surrounded the town, which had not the symmetrical form of the rectangular plan of the buildings of the Renaissance. Neither does it resemble the palaces of Egypt or of Syria. These quays, placed side by side, give this edifice the appearance of a Christian house of the fifteenth century; and one can only confidently give the name “Arab” to the Court of the Damsels, the Hall of Ambassadors, and the apartments immediately adjoining it. The Court of the Banners, and of the Hunters, lead to the Court of the Principal FaÇade, where one sees the first specimen of Mussulman decoration! In all these divisions the monument is only revealed by the vestiges of battlements of the towers and of the walls, in which the original doors were opened, and where the sultans had the chambers for judging the quarrels of their subjects,—a custom perpetrated by the Christian monarchs. In the Court of the Hunters one can still see the apartment named the Hall of Justice, where all writers suppose that the audiences were held. Here Don Pedro held his tribunal; and the traveller, Don Antonio Ponz, asserts that he saw one of the columns of the memorable seat occupied by the monarch when he held those famous audiences, which were an imitation of the [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—THE LITTLE COURT. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—VIEW IN THE LITTLE COURT. judgments of the East and of the feudal lords of the West, and which magnified the idea of justice in the eyes of foolish and irreflective people, but which were held by men of good sense to be a mere pretence of equity, with which to mask his tyranny. The place where justice was administered in the time of the Almohadan kings was in the Court of the Monteria—a vast and beautiful apartment, one of the oldest constructions in the alcazar, and of a more purely Moorish style. The Court of the Hunters leads to another larger court, known as the Princes’ Hall. This is more regular in form, and in it rises the chief entrance, dazzling and richly ornamented with painting and gilding, from its twin windows to the topmost moulding of its projecting eaves, of the purest Almohadan style. How can one describe it? Not only the entrance, but the whole faÇade is of precious marbles, the capitals of the columns being in the most exquisite Moorish taste; and the facia of interlaced arches above the doorway display the escutcheons of Castile and Leon; while round another facia, running between the brackets over the twin windows of the principal floor, there is a legend in Gothic characters, which says: “The very high, and very noble, and very powerful, and very victorious Don Pedro, King of Castile and Leon, commanded these alcazars, and these palaces, and these doorways to be made, which was done in the era of one thousand four hundred and two.” The cupola of the Princes’ Hall rises above this faÇade, its outer walls being adorned with little arches and blue tile work, in imitation of a pyramid, and bearing at its summit, in the Oriental fashion, a weather-cock with gilded spheres. On entering the vestibule, one sees first the result of unfortunate modern reformations, little rooms or recesses to These arches are only seen in the faÇade here, in the House of Pilate, and in the buildings of the eighth century in the East. One could not explain them unless there were hanging decorations, such as tapestries attached to the walls, which were neither seen nor guessed in the intercolumniations. It is a strange shape, which is elegant on account of the lobules, the point, and the horseshoe [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—VIEW OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS FROM THE LITTLE COURT. SEVILLE ALCAZAR—HALL OF AMBASSADORS. span, which at a later period regulated the arches of the palaces of Fez, of Tunis, and of Cairo. The second gallery of the Court of the Damsels, added to the ancient construction, is an addition of little importance; but it is a fine court, if one considers the modifications of its style, its socles showing beautiful panels of decorated porcelain of admirable delicacy. Different doors lead to the saloon of Charles V., to that of the Ambassadors, and to those of the “Caracol,” or of Don Maria de Padilla. They have scarfs cut into polygons, which cover them on both sides, but this fine work has been badly restored with stucco barbarously painted. The Hall of Ambassadors is a square apartment of a solemn aspect, with four frontages composed of high arches, which enclose twin windows, placed on slender columns, whose little arches are more than semi-circular, without having the characteristic form of the horse-shoe,—a curve which marks the decadent transition. The capitals are degenerate Greco-Roman; but the great decorative arch with running knots, although it has an Arab curve, has not the two squares in height from the floor of the hall, and that deprives it of elegance in its ornamentation. The spaces, or triangles, are not original, the work is interrupted, as in the inner side of the wall of the frontage, by shutters which open, as though escaping from the tympan of the twin windows. A wide frieze of windows, or painted transparencies, stretches above, in an admirable manner, and higher still there is a geometrical band of ornaments in the form of knots, and then come architraves and supports on which the roof rests. The sub-basements of porcelain are adorned with arabesques, and the connecting doors are decorated with almost exaggerated profusion. The open balconies, with the eagles on their consols, are an eternal The type of the African inscriptions in the alcazar is not as fine or as pure as are those in the Hall of Comares at Granada; but on the other hand the classic character of the cufic inscriptions here is more uniform and more simple. The ornaments, in the shape of leaves, of pine cones, and of palms interlaced with ribbons, with geometrical outlines, is a style that is no longer seen after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. The little windows, in parallelograms above the doors, the Roman imposts, the Gothic carvings, and the escutcheons with broken chiselings shown in this palace, are the work of several generations who were wanting in the consciousness of art. Yet the Hall of Ambassadors is beyond dispute the most splendid and beautiful apartment of all the palaces of Moorish architecture belonging to the Crown in Spain. The painting and gilding of arabesques, the lovely carved wooden ceilings, now shaped like inverted bowls, now like sections of a sphere, and now like capricious many-sided [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—INTERIOR OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—HALL OF AMBASSADORS. figures, which reflect the light and shade with a marvellous effect; the inscriptions in African characters; the rich doors of marquetry, surrounded by Arabic invocations (a beautiful work done by artificers of Toledo); the columns of various marbles with capitals of exquisite cut, now primitive, now Almohadan, now Moorish; the variegated marble of the pavement, the perforated stucco of the partitions, the ingenious work, with birds introduced in the doorways; and finally this strange combination of five different styles, which in theory is so impossible, and in practice so harmonious—Arabic, Almohadan, Gothic, Granadian, and Renaissance—to be seen in so many apartments of the alcazar, but more especially in this hall, are things which the pen could never describe satisfactorily, and which must be left to the impression produced by a sight of the original, or to a contemplation of its pictured representation. For this reason one may not endeavour to describe, either technically or minutely, this magnificent hall, to the gradual architectural composition of which overseers and workmen of so many different times contributed. The Abbaditas made the bold horse-shoe arches of the lower part; the Almohadans, and afterwards the school of Christians of Granada which arose, carried out the work of ornamenting the walls with the ornamental arches, the perforated windows, the facias of little interlaced arches, and the inscriptions; and they covered the hall with the marvellous dome shaped like an inverted bowl. It is probable that the architects of the Catholic monarchs constructed the third body in the pointed style, forming a series of corrupted trefoils bordered with lilies, in whose centres the portraits of the kings of Spain, from Chindasvinto, are reproduced; and, finally, the kings of the House of Austria added the third body of the decoration, four balconies, of great projection, which doubt It was probably in this saloon that the ceremonious and perfidious reception of Abu Said, King of Granada, by Don Pedro took place. The usurper of the Throne of Granada presented himself to the owner of the alcazar, thinking he had ensured his personal safety by the gifts he had forwarded, and by his complete submission to the wishes of his host. But after being entertained at a splendid supper, he was rewarded with prison, and death, accompanied with the most horrible mockeries. Amongst the jewels, with which the unhappy Abu Said is supposed to have hoped to win the heart of his faithless enemy, was the immense ruby, which to-day shines in the royal crown of Edward VII. It was given by Don Pedro to the Black Prince; it later came into the possession of Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland, and through her son, James I., returned once more to England. If the Hall of Ambassadors is rich, the Court of the Dolls is not less so in its own style. This, with some other saloons, constituted one of the remaining splendours of the alcazar which are associated with Don Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago, the timid son of Alonso XI. We cannot tell from what source this court has received its modern denomination. In the old chronicles there is no trace of such a name; but they, and tradition, have handed us down copious notes, all of which make this part of the alcazar the theatre of that sanguinary drama of the Fourteenth Century. After reading these chronicles and romances, one imagines the ghosts of the actors moving about the apartments; one sees Don Pedro, who has already planned his execrable plot, receiving, with false expressions of interest, his half-brother Don Fadrique; one sees the lovely Padilla, [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—FAÇADE OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS. sad and terrified in her room, in the “caracol” apartments, wishing to reveal the danger which awaits him to the Master, but not daring to do so; and one also seems to feel the impending doom of the eccentric prince, when he is deprived of the help of his servants, whom the porters force to leave the courtyard with their mules, where they were waiting for their lord. And finally we see the return of Don Fadrique to the presence of the irritated monarch, who has called him, and who has ordered that his companions shall be detained outside the doors, whilst the stewards of the king kill his unfortunate brother. Fadrique, after a desperate struggle, manages to escape from the murderers and to reach the court, looking for the postern of the corral, which he fancies is open—all the time making unavailing efforts to draw his sword, the handle of which has become entangled in the cords of his sash—and there at last he falls, his head being crushed by a blow of a club. Other accounts declare that when Fadrique returned to Don Pedro’s apartment, after paying a courtesy visit to Maria de Padilla, he was met with the sentence, shouted in the king’s voice, “Kill the Master of Santiago!” Don Fadrique drew his sword and made a valorous defence, but was overpowered and struck down by blows on the head. Seeing that his half-brother was still breathing, the king handed his own drawn dagger to an attendant and commanded him to kill the Master outright. To-day we cannot say positively which was the “Palacio del Yeso,” or “Palace of stucco or lime,” where Don Pedro received his unhappy half-brother, nor yet which were the apartments of the “caracol.” It is thought the court which has the chief faÇade of the alcazar was that which in the chronicle is called the “caracol,” and that the “postern” was that which led from this court to that of the The King Don Pedro fills with his grand sinister figure the apartments which he occupied, and even those added by later monarchs, just as the whole gloomy pile of the Escurial seems to be haunted by the ambiguous personality of Philip II. Sad privilege of despots; the terror which they inspire in life, survives them, freezing the smile of happiness on the lips of generations, who are free from their malevolent actions, even in the very chambers which they dedicate to their pleasures. The architecture of the Court of the Dolls is purely in the style of Granada. The surface of the arches is covered with minute mosaic work, and they rest upon beautiful brick pillars, sustained by marble columns with delicate capitals, while the double partitions, covered with perforated work, are of brick, wood, and stucco. Delicate tints cover the ornamentation with a beautiful veil, which is like a lovely Persian tapestry. This court is a rectangle with unequal sides; there is a great arch in those looking towards the Hall of Ambassadors, somewhat pear-shaped, between two smaller arches of the same form; in the other two sides there is a large arch and a smaller one, all resting upon graceful columns of different colours, in the capitals of which (believed to belong to the primitive epoch, on account of their resemblance with those of the primitive part of the Mosque of Cordova) there is a freshness and delicacy of line which holds the imagination captive. The [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—INTERIOR OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369—1379. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—GENERAL VIEW OF THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS. entablatures, which are borne by the columns, are finely decorated with vertical borders, formed by inscriptions in cufic characters. The upper part of this lovely court has been spoilt by bad restorations. The Hall of Ambassadors, as well as the Court of the Dolls, is surrounded by beautiful saloons, starting from the chief faÇade of the alcazar, running round the north-east angle of the building, and forming a series of mysterious and voluptuous rooms adjoining the galleries of the “Gardens” of the “Princes” of the “Grotto” and of the “Dance,” till they terminate at the other south-west corner of the Court of the Damsels where the chapel used to be, and where it is believed the luxurious apartments of the “caracol” stood. According to tradition they were at the eastern side of the Court of the Damsels where the lower chapel stands to-day; this space adjoins at its north-east corner the baths, which still bear the name of the unhappy favourite, more worthy of pity than of hatred; and they also lead, by a narrow and almost hidden staircase,—the oldest in the alcazar,—to the bedroom of Don Pedro, situated in the story above. Nothing remains of the dwelling which the enamoured king prepared for the woman he loved most in his distracted and changeful life. The entrance to the famous and regal baths of DoÑa Maria de Padilla is in the garden of the “Dance,” below the saloons constructed in the time of Charles V. It is supposed they were used by the sultanas, whilst the Saracen court was at Seville. They are surrounded by orange and lemon trees, and not enclosed by those massive walls which give the appearance of a gloomy dungeon. At the eastern extremity of the garden of the “Dance” there is a tank or fountain. It is said that one day the king, being much preoccupied with the choice of a judge to whom to confide a The strange character of Don Pedro, and his manner of administering justice, take us now to the upper floor of the alcazar, to the south-east corner, where, at the end of a series of saloons of little interest, with rich bowl-shaped ceilings and cornices of mosaic, there is the king’s sleeping chamber, whose walls still preserve the high socle of inlaid tile work, the stucco ornaments with borders of inscriptions in African characters, and the recessed windows with shutters, the frieze with stalactites, the ceiling of good design and beautiful gilding, and an alcove with a mosaic arch. Near one of the corners there is a bas-relief in one of the walls, representing a man seated with his body twisted towards the entrance door, and his head turned upwards, as though contemplating the skull which is to be seen above the facia of African characters. It appears that this horrible emblem was placed there by order of Don Pedro, in order to perpetuate the memory of his summary punishment of some deceitful judges. The Princes’ Hall and the Oratory are the only upper apartments, prior to the Renaissance, which are left for us to examine,—a fire in the year 1762 having destroyed many of the rooms of the upper story. But we must first [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COURT OF THE VIRGINS. take note of the external objects which surround us. Don Pedro’s bedroom looks on the south over the gardens; the Princes’ Hall looks north, and occupies the upper floor of the chief faÇade, whose elegant “ajimeces” illuminate it. The oratory is in the east wall. In the bedroom there is a balcony, which leads to a wide gallery, with other little balconies, with seats running round them, at the end of which there is a sort of turret, with three semi-circular arches, supported by pairs of marble columns, with capitals of the purest Arab style. The spacious gardens stretch at our feet, forming a delightful spectacle. From the Princes’ Hall one can perceive, above the watch-towers of the alcazar, the innumerable perforated weather-cocks of the cathedral; and, towering over all, like a gigantic sentinel, the Giralda, crowned with the sacred sign of the conversion to the faith of Christ. In the Princes’ Hall and in the Oratory the influence of the pointed style of architecture is very noticeable; and yet in studying the arches of the Oratory and the little pillars, which surmount the columns in the centre, the influence of Moorish architecture on the Gothic or pointed architecture of the third period is most striking. The columns of the Princes’ Hall, and of the other adjoining apartments, are of marble, with very rich capitals. According to Jeronimo Zurita, these columns were in the royal palace of Valencia, and were removed after the defeat of Don Pedro, King of Aragon, by the King of Castile. There are luxurious divans all round the hall, and everything is rich except the ceiling, now destroyed, and the floor, which is poor and in very bad repair. The Oratory was built by order of the Catholic monarchs in 1504; its altar screen has a picture in the centre, representing the Visitation, with the signature, “Niculoso Francisco Italiano,” me fecit, which Ford says that the Emperor, Charles V., married DoÑa Isabella of Portugal in this oratory, but the statement is not correct. Sandoval, better informed, describes the happy event in the following words:—“Eight days after the empress entered Seville, the emperor entered, being greeted with the same ceremonies. He went direct to the principal church, and from there passed to the alcazar, where the empress awaited him, accompanied by the Duchess of Medina-Sidonia, DoÑa Ana of Aragon, and the Marchioness of Cenete, wife of the Count of Nassau, and by other great ladies; the empress and her ladies being all most richly dressed. Afterwards the emperor arrived; they were married that same night by the Cardinal Legate, in the great room which is called the “half orange” (the Hall of Ambassadors), in the presence of all the prelates and grandees assembled there. The empress appeared to all present one of the most beautiful women in the world, as is testified to by those who saw her, and by her portraits. The hour of supper came, and the emperor and empress retired to their apartments; and after midnight, the emperor wishing it thus for religious reasons, an altar was erected in one of the apartments of the alcazar, and the Archbishop of Toledo, who had remained for the purpose, said mass there.” This marriage, as M. de Latour rightly says, was the last memorable page in the history of the alcazar; and the works completed by the emperor are the last notable improvements made in the monument. The architects, Louis and Gaspar de Vaga, were responsible for important works [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—GALLERY IN THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—THE SULTANA’S APARTMENT AND COURT OF THE VIRGINS. in the alcazar, the high gallery of the Court of the Damsels, and those looking south over the gardens and over the baths of DoÑa Maria de Padilla. New habitations were then erected, which shone with the art of the Renaissance, intertwined with the Arab adornments of the style called “plateresco.” But the emperor did not confine himself to restoring, re-building, and to erecting fresh works in the old alcazar; nor were the above-mentioned architects the only ones who worked, but he also enlarged and embellished the gardens, and in that which is called the “Lion Garden,” he had built by a certain Juan Hernandez, in the year 1540, an elegant dining hall, of singular architecture—half Italian, half Moorish—which, without doubt, is a worthy dwelling place for a fairy princess of the days of chivalry. This supper hall, or pavilion, has a square plan, and measures ten steps in each frontage; a gallery of five arches surrounds it on each side, which rest on graceful pillars of the rarest marbles with capitals in the Moorish style. A frieze is seen, externally made of arabesques, forming ribbons, cutting each other at angles, and making stars; all the lower part is faced with blue tiles of Triana, with the outlines of the designs in bold relief. Inside there is another frieze in the “plateresque” style, cleverly perforated, and a socle of blue tiles with a border, in which shine the arms of Castile and the imperial eagles. In the centre rises a beautiful fountain with a white marble basin. A facia of blue tiles, in imitation of inlaid tile work, runs around, and between the work one can read the date of its construction and the abbreviated name of the artificer. The dome is of a decadent taste. The wall which encloses these gardens to the west is decorated in the style called “vignolesque,” with stout pilasters, and a frontispiece of two bodies above the pond The works carried out under Philip III., and Philip V., and Ferdinand VI. are not worthy of close attention. They constructed the parts which face the gateway of the “banderas,” containing the “apeadero” and the “armeria.” The “apeadero” is a portico thirty-eight yards long and fifteen wide, with two rows of marble columns in pairs. The “armeria,” or armoury, is a spacious apartment above, destined for the object indicated by its name. The epoch of the construction of both is testified to by a stone set in the faÇade, which bears the following inscription: “Reigning in Spain Philip III., he erected this work in the year MDCVII.; Philip V. enlarged and repaired it, and destined it for the royal armoury in the year MDCCXXVIII.” Ferdinand VI. only constructed the offices above the baths of DoÑa Maria de Padilla, repairing the damage caused by the terrible earthquake of 1755. The greater part of the halls on the upper story looking on the gardens perished in the dreadful fire of 1762; and the Government doubtless fearing the expense which would be incurred by a regular restoration in the original style, ordered all the roofs and ceilings destroyed by the fire to be repaired in the “modern manner.” The unhappy result of this order was to make the ceiling of many of the apartments much too low, and to scrape away many of the ancient arabesques from the walls. In the year 1805 the unhappy idea was conceived of changing the principal entrance, and of white-washing with hideous lime the magnificent stucco work in the Princes’ Hall, and of other ancient apartments. The unfortunate reformation even went so far as to substitute a plaster ceiling, which makes one shudder, for the beautiful Arab bowl-shaped one, and [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—ENTRANCE TO THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—DORMITORY OF THE KINGS. to put modern windows in the hall over the principal faÇade, called the Hall of the Princes, near the Court of the Dolls; and also to spoil the ceiling of the Hall of Ambassadors with heavy beams and supports, quite ruining the beauty of this enamelled half-orange. One is curious to know who it was who first tried to repair in a measure the harm done by these so-called “restorations.” In 1833 a rational restoration of the Court of the Dolls, and of the hall near it to the north, was begun with laudible zeal by the Don Joaquin Cortes, professor of painting, and the intelligent overseer, Antonio Raso, and the official, Manuel Cortes. The real work of restoration commenced about the year 1842, thanks to the praiseworthy efforts of Don Domingo de Alcega, administrator of the royal patrimony, and to those who helped him in his difficult task, the distinguished artist, Don Joaquin Dominguez Becquer, and the master artificer, JosÉ Gutierrez y Lopez. SeÑor Becquer designed the Arab cornice which to-day decorates the outer part of the edifice defining the dome of the Hall of Ambassadors, which had been half destroyed in 1805, and he never ceased to devote his genius to the restoration, now in part and again general, of the most precious monument of Moorish art of the fourteenth century. During the years 1852 and 1853 the alcalde of the royal palaces completed the work of replacing some of the stucco ornaments in various apartments. Afterwards the vice-alcalde, Don Alonso NuÑez de Prado, assisted by SeÑor Becquer, brought a complete restoration to a successful end, which, though it may not be faultless in the eyes of a modern critic, is still worthy of praise, considering the period in which it was undertaken. In 1855 the administrator of the alcazar invited the Queen, DoÑa Isabella II., to interest herself in the works, with the result that he was able to There is no inscription in the alcazar which offers a real historical or literary interest to the archÆologist. One does not find here the fragments of poems on the walls which in the Alhambra rest the eye and speak to the intelligence in praising the heroic deeds of warriors and the beauties of the sumptuous habitations. In the alcazar one reads the Koran with its repeated salutations and some praises of Don Pedro, in which the praises of the Mohammedan sultans have been suppressed, also the word, Islamism; but we must draw attention to the fact that the greater number of the inscriptions are the same as those employed in the alcazar of Granada, repeated a thousand times, and it would be tedious and tiresome to accompany the artistic description with the same verse, repeated a hundred times, which is to be found in the different apartments, and interrupted a hundred times also by others put in at the time of the restorations. As the persons who were charged with the work of restoring the inscriptions did not know the ancient language, they very often placed the inscriptions upside down. On the faÇade, and over the principal entrance of the alcazar, around the twin windows, one reads the well-known verses: “Glory to our Lord the Sultan;” “Eternal Glory for Allah, the perpetual empire for Allah;” “Lasting happiness;” “Benediction;” “The kingdom of God, the power of God, glory to God;” “Happiness and peace, and the glory and generosity of perpetual felicity;” “In prosperous fortune this palace is the only one.” The inscription, “There is no conqueror but God,” placed above and below the wide frieze of painted porcelain, in cufic characters, in our opinion, must be the work of an artist from Granada. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—THE DORMITORY. SEVILLE
Then comes the vestibule, where one sees almost the same inscriptions. The African characters are changed into cufic, or neskis. These are what are in the frieze: “Happiness and prosperity are the benefits of God;” and after: “Glory to our Lord the Sultan Don Pedro, may his victories be magnificent.” In the Court of the Damsels we find very much the same thing: “Praise to God, on account of His benefits.” It must be remarked that, in all the inscriptions mentioned above, the word “Islamism” has been suppressed, which proves that the artists were the same Arabs who, under the Christian dominion, took advantage of the traditional formulas in effacing the religious part of the verse. On a frieze of the same court: “Glory to our Sultan Don Pedro, may God lend him His aid and make him victorious,” &c., &c. Then follow a number of inscriptions of no importance, where one sees repeated: “Happiness, Praise, Grandeur; God is Unique, the Fulfilment of Hopes;” and this one, more worthy of notice, “God is Unique, He does not Beget, He was not Begotten, He has no Companion.” This inscription is also found at Granada on the Charcoal Gateway, in cufic characters, and it proves that it could not have been constructed under the Christian dominion, because it is completely contrary to the religion of Christ; and, consequently, that Don Pedro profited by the work of Yusuf as much as was possible. Amador do los Rios, the well-known savant, supposes that artists were brought from Toledo to construct this alcazar; but this is not exact, they only did the repairs and restorations. On one of the doors, which like all the rest in this edifice has undergone many restorations, the most interest “Similar to the twilight of the evening, and very similar to the light at dawn of day, this work is dazzling on account of its brilliant colours and the intensity of its splendours, from which abundance of felicity flows for the happy town where the palaces were built, and these habitations, which are for our Lord and Master, the only one who communicates life to his splendour, the pious Sultan, who is also severe, had it built in the town of Seville, with the aid of his intercessor, in honour of God.” One sees the same inscriptions repeated in the Hall of Ambassadors, and in the room to the left one reads: “Oh! entrance to the habitation newly dazzling and noble, Lord of protection, of magnificence, and of virtues.” In the Court of the Dolls, and round the entrance arch, one reads: “There is no protection if it is not Allah, in whom I trust, for I shall return to him.” “All that thou dost possess comes from God,” &c., &c. And in the same court (cufic): “Oh! incomparable Master, issue of a royal race, protect it.” “Praise God for His benefits.” “God, my Master.” In the sleeping apartment, called that of the Moorish kings, amongst other known inscriptions this one is found: “Oh! illustrious new dwelling, thy splendid happiness has progressively increased on account of the lasting brilliancy [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—ROOM OF THE INFANTA. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—COLUMNS WHERE DON FADRIQUE WAS MURDERED. of the greatest beauty. Thou wert chosen for the place where the feasts should be celebrated. He is the support and the rule for all good, source of benefits, and food of courage! For thee....” We left the story of Seville somewhat abruptly to deal in detail with the alcazar. Under Almohade rule, and while the alcazar and the mosque were in course of construction, the city knew peace, and its commerce flourished. But the days of its security were limited; the end of the Moslem domination in Seville was drawing to its close. The revived prosperity of the Mohammedans spurred the Christian Spaniards to renewed efforts to encompass the overthrow of the infidels. Pope Innocent III. declared a crusade, and numbers of adventurous French and English free-lances travelled to Spain in answer to the call. But in 1195 the Christians were defeated at Alarcos, near Badajoz, and again the ambitious projects of San Fernando were temporarily frustrated. In 1212 the Almohade army, it is said to the number of 600,000 men, was almost destroyed on the disastrous field of Las Navas, and the work of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain was begun. City after city was captured by the soldiers of Fernando III., Cordova fell in 1235, and the conqueror, with the help of the King of Granada, who had sworn allegiance to the Christian monarch, marched against Seville. The army brought by the holy king to Seville was the most brilliant and numerous ever seen in Christian or Mohammedan Spain. No smaller force would have been sufficient for the taking of a city which contained 12,000 Mussulman families divided into twenty-four tribes, and which had been in the hands of the followers of Islam for more than five centuries. In the spring of the year 1235 the army was moved from Cordova and divided into two Seville, at this period the court and seat of the Islamite empire, was a city calculated to defy the strategy of the most skilful generals, the valour of the most devoted men at arms. In form it would resemble a shield, stretching from north-east to south-west. Its head and right side were formed by the walls with its towers, defended by a barbican and a moat, with eight gates and a narrow side entrance. These gates were veritable fortresses. They were defended by towers and bastions. Their exits were narrow, and never in front; the exterior passages to the city had angles and turnings, and very often the first turning opened into a square armed place, with narrow doorways at both sides. “The gates of Seville,” says Morgado, “were constructed of planks of iron, fastened on to strong hides with steel bolts. And because it was best defended on its west side by the river Guadalquivir, which protected more than half the city, with the six gates in that side, it was thought well to place the strongest walls and the best fortified towers, with as many barbicans, and the widest and deepest moats on the other side.” The left side of the shield boasted the majestic curve of the river, the arsenal, and another series of walls and gates; but at this part, there were no moats nor false entrances, because it had the strong towers of the Ajarafe opposite to defend it. There were four gates on this side, not counting SEVILLE
SEVILLE ALCAZAR—HALL IN WHICH KING SAN FERNANDO DIED. that of Bib-Ragel, which occupied the north angle of the city; and, in addition to these, it is believed there was a small postern, afterwards called the “atarazanas,” through which it is supposed that Axataf, or “SakkÁf” his Moorish name, went out to receive King Ferdinand, and to deliver up the keys of Seville. The old wharf of Saracen Seville came as far as this; and in all the space, which to-day is called El Barrio de los Humeros, or the Chimney Quarter, the Mohammedans had their arsenal and shipbuilding yard, while the sailors and fishermen of the Guadalquivir were also housed in this district. The Gate of the Triana must have been in the vicinity; and the Gate of Hercules was directly opposite the Ajarafe, which was also called the Garden of Hercules. With the gardens and orchards of the Macarena, which adorned it to the north, the plains and woods of Tablada, which supplied it with corn and wood to the east and south, with an abundant supply of fresh water brought from Carmona by the aqueduct, with the river which was its principal commercial artery to the west, with the castles on the opposite side of the Guadalquivir, protecting the river and its bridge, and occupying all the heights from Azalfarache nearly as far as Italica, Seville was one of the best situated, best supplied, best defended, and most prosperous cities of the Mussulman empire in Andalusia. To attack her she must be cut off from the Ajarafe, and her bridge of boats must be taken. It would have been useless to descend to Italica and be exposed to the assaults of the city and of Triana, as long as the bridge existed, and this task was thought to be beyond the power and ingenuity of any enemy. The bridge of boats, protected by a great wooden chain, linked by iron rings, kept the communication open between the city and the Ajarafe, that vast and fertile district from This fertile territory, which the Saracens called the “Orchard of Hercules,” rose gradually to the west of Seville, after stretching along the right bank of the river. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—ROOM OF THE PRINCE. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE ALCAZAR—VIEW OF THE GALLERY FROM THE SECOND FLOOR. Its heights were covered with farmhouses and hamlets, as the Arab writer indicates, which formed, as it were, a continuous population, rich in provisions, from which Seville usually received abundant supplies of all necessaries. There were four principal villages: Aznalfarche (to-day, San Juan de Alfarache), Aznalcazar, Aznalcollar, and Solucar de Albayda, strong walled places, where the Mohammedans collected the revenues of the district. The fringe, formed by the heights of the Aljarafe, was given the name of “Mountain of Mercies” (Jebl arrahmah) by the Mohammedans, on account of its extraordinary fertility, a surprising abundance of figs, known as “Al-kuiti” and “Ash-shari,” being produced there. The Sevillians faced the Christian attack with boldness, bred of confidence, and a determination to strain every nerve, and exhaust every resource, in repelling the invaders. They were engaging upon their last throw for the sovereignty of Andalusia. Fernando’s warships encountered the Moorish fleet at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and drove them from their position, and the infidels collected their forces to make a last stand on land. But their stubborn front was broken by the Christian host, and the war-worn remnant of the Moorish army prepared to withstand a siege. Even when the bridge of boats was destroyed, and all communications with the suburb of Triana and the surrounding country was cut off, the Moors still fought on within the city walls, and it was not until fifteen months had elapsed that Seville was starved into submission. On the 23rd February, 1235, Fernando entered the city, and Abdul Hassan, rejecting the king’s invitation to become a dependent officer of the Spanish Crown, retired with thousands of his vanquished Almohades to Africa. Fernando’s first act was to have the mosque purified Pedro’s character has been made the study of many biographers and historians, and he has not been without his literary whitewashers, but the “incidents” which illuminate his career do not place him in a favourable light. His Bohemianism endeared him to the people, and a certain sense of justice, in cases in which his own interests were not concerned, has gained for him the title of “The Justiciary.” It may be that the plottings of Albuquerque, his father’s chancellor, and the perfidious behaviour of his relatives, including his own mother, served to warp and embitter his nature; but he had no sooner, at the instigation of his mistress, Maria de Padilla, taken up the reigns of government, than he revealed the cruelty and malignity of his character. Leonora de Guzmar, the mother of Alfonso’s illegitimate son, Enrique, was done to death in his prisons; Abu Said, the King of Granada, was seized by treachery, robbed, and executed; Urraca Osorio, for refusing Pedro’s addresses, was burned to death in the market-square of Seville; his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, was mysteriously murdered; Don Fadrique, his half-brother, was assassinated with Pedro’s dagger; and he himself was eventually defeated [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE TOWER OF THE GIRALDA. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE DETAILS OF THE GIRALDA TOWER. in battle by the troops of his brother Henry and Bertrand du Guesclin, and killed in single combat by Henry. Pedro wearied of his first wife, Blanche of Bourbon, in forty-eight hours; and, having had his marriage annulled, he espoused the handsome JuaÑa de Castro, only to desert her a few days later to return to his beautiful mistress, Maria de Padilla. This woman appears to have been the only person who inspired Pedro with more than a transitory passion, and the courtiers testified to the power she wielded by chivalrously drinking the waters of her bath in El Jardin del Crucero. But Pedro’s passion for his mistress, though lasting, was not monopolising, and his amours supply us with an incident which reveals at once the king’s ferocity, his humour, and his alleged respect for justice. It was his custom at night to muffle himself in a cloak and adventure alone into the city in quest of entertainment. On one of these excursions he encountered a hidalgo serenading a lady, whose favours he himself coveted. Cloaked by the dim light, and made secure by the emptiness of the street, the king fought and slew his rival, in defiance of his own order, which made street fighting punishable upon the officers of the city when they failed to bring the disturbers of the peace to justice. He had not bargained for the noise to disturb the rest of an old lady in the vicinity; he had not observed a venerable head protruding through an upper window. Believing the incident to be “wrapped in mystery,” he summoned the alcade of the city to his presence, acquainted him with the fact that the body of a hidalgo, pierced to the heart, had been found in the street, and gave him the option of discovering the murderer within forty-eight hours, or of being hanged in his stead. And hanged he doubtless would have been but for the timely confidence of the old lady who had witnessed the fight. The alcade The alcazar extends along the river as far as the Golden Tower, built during the reign of Yusuf Almotacid Ben Nasir, by the Almohadan governor Abulala. The view of Seville, from the Christina promenade, the famous thoroughfare, which extends from the palace of the Duke of Montpensier to the Golden Tower, is a spectacle of which the Sevillians never tire, and visitors are never weary of praising. The tower itself, which took its present name either from the fact that it held the gold which the Spanish ships brought from America, or because Don Pedro secreted his treasures there, is octagonal in shape, with three receding floors, crowned with battlements, and washed by the Guadalquivir. The shimmering Torre del Oro, reflecting its light upon the broad bosom of the rose-coloured river beneath the setting sun, has inspired poets and painters of every age and nationality. George Borrow believes it probable that it derived its name from the fact that the beams of the setting sun focussed upon it makes it appear to be built of pure gold; and then, carried away by the loveliness of the picture, he cries: “Cold, cold must the heart be which can remain insensible to the beauties of this magic [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS. scene, to do justice to which the pencil of Claude himself were barely equal. Often have I shed tears of rapture whilst I beheld it, and listened to the thrush and the nightingale piping forth their melodious songs in the woods, and inhaled the breeze laden with the perfume of the thousand orange gardens of Seville.” Of the great mosque of Seville, which was built by Abu Yakub Yusuf in 1171, and completed by the addition of the tower in 1196 by his son, only the barest traces now remain. It is impossible to determine who really designed the famous Tower, now called the Giralda; but historians favour the claims of the renowned architect, whose name is variously spelt Gever, Hever, or Djabir, and who is erroneously supposed to have been the inventor of algebra. In its original state this structure was an immense and stately pile, planned on the model of the mosque of Cordova, and decorated with lavish magnificence. In 1235 it was dedicated to the service of God and the Virgin, but it retained all its Moorish characteristics until 1401. The Moors would have destroyed the building and the beautiful Muezzin tower before it fell into the hands of San Fernando’s soldiers, and thus save their sacred temple from desecration by the “infidels,” but the king’s son, Alonso “el Sabio,” threatened to visit such spoliation upon the garrison by sacking the city. This threat had the desired effect, and for nearly two centuries the religious spirit of Seville found expression in a temple which had been built to the glory of Allah. But at the beginning of the fifteenth century the mosque was razed to the ground, and Seville cathedral began to take that huge and splendid form which, in the words of the pious originators, was to inspire succeeding generations with the idea that its designers were mad. It was to be the greatest cathedral in The Moors, in building their mosque, employed the remains of ruined Roman and Gothic structures, and the Spaniards in 1401 used the Arab foundations in the construction of their cathedral, while the Moorish tower was preserved to do duty as a spire. In its original form the Giralda was only 250 feet high, the additional 100 feet which forms the belfry being added by Fernando Ruiz in 1567. In 1506 the cathedral was completed. Five years later the dome collapsed, and was re-erected by Juan Gil de Hontanon. Extensive restoration work was carried out in 1882, under the superintendence of Cassova; but six years after this work was completed, the dome again gave way, and workmen have been constantly employed ever since in reconstructing this part of the vast building. According to Contreras, the Giralda is the most expressive monument of the Mohammedan dominion; and, despite all that has been said of its Moorish structure and primitive African style, it is in his opinion a perfect work of Arab art. The construction is anterior by four centuries, at least, to that of any tower of Granadian architecture such as that which to-day belongs to the Church of St. John of the Kings, but there is not the slightest difference in the manner of their ornamentation, and the rhomboids of painted bricks, the festoons of terra cotta, the windows with double arches, following the segments of a circle, present all the variety of the alcazar of Granada. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE HOUSE OF PILATOS—VIEW IN THE COURT BY THE DOOR OF THE CHAPEL. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE HOUSE OF PILATOS—CHAPEL. “Here one sees plainly,” Contreras says, “the origin of the superposed arch of the belvedere of Lindaraja of the Alhambra, of the hanging arch of the three entrances of the Lions’ Court, of the festoons of the Court of the Fountain, and of all those forms, so delicate and so luxurious, that they are without equal in architecture. It is in the Giralda that one finds the beginning of truly decorative art. Built of varnished bricks, with a stout construction, as is demanded by the faÇade of a very high tower, it is to be regretted that such a beautiful edifice should be crowned by so strange a body as its gilded frontages and painted porcelains.” With the exception of the Giralda, and part of the lower portions of the walls, the Moorish remains that are to be recognised in the cathedral are few and not remarkable. The Puerta del Perdon in the Calle de Alemanes was reconstructed by Alfonso XI., after the victory of Salado, and the plateresque ornamentations were added by Bartolome Lopez about 1522. But although the bronze-covered doors have been disfigured by paint, their Moorish character is still distinctly traceable. Through the gateway we enter the old Moorish courtyard, the Patio de los Naranjas (Court of Oranges), robbed of its former grandeur, but still distinguished by its beautiful Arabic fountain, with an octagonal basin, which occupies the centre of the court. From this spot we get a splendid view of the cathedral and the massive yet delicate Giralda tower, which has been declared to be even more to Seville than Giotto’s Campanile is to Florence, or that of St. Mark’s to Venice. “Long before the traveller reaches the city,” writes an imaginative admirer, “the Giralda seems to beckon him onwards to his promised land; during all his peregrinations through the intricate streets and lanes it is his trusted guide, always ready to serve him, soaring as it does far above all surroundings, it is a thing of unfailing From the Court of Oranges to the Giralda the way leads through the Capilla de la Granada of the cathedral. A solitary horseshoe arch reminds us of the Moorish origin of the building; and the huge elephant’s tusk suspended from the roof, a bridle that tradition declares belonged to the Cid’s steed, and a stuffed crocodile, are Oriental rather than Christian relics. And the Giralda, in spite of its added belfry—its surmounting figure symbolic of the Christian faith—and the fact that it is under the special patronage of the two Santas Justa and Rufina, “who are much revered at Seville,” is still a Moorish monument. At its base the tower is a square of fifty feet, and it rises by a series of stages, or cuerpos, which are named after the architecture, decoration or use for which they are designed. At the Cuerpo de Campanas is hung a peal of bells, of which the largest, Santa Maria, eighteen tons in weight, and referred to in the vernacular as “the plump,” was set up in 1588 by the order of the Archbishop Don Gonzola de Mena, at a cost of ten thousand ducats. Above, we come to the cuerpo of the Azucenas, or white lilies, with which it is embellished; and, going still higher, we reach El Cuerpo del Reloj, the clock-tower, in which was erected, in 1400, the first tower-clock ever made in Spain. Portions of this old timepiece were employed by the Monk Jose Cordero in making, in 1765, the clock which is working to this day. The belfry, which is the home of a colony of pigeons and hawks, is girdled with a motto from the proverb, “Nomen Domini fortissima turris”—(“The name of the Lord is a strong tower.”) The [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS. [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE GALLERY OF THE COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS. Moorish summit was crowned with four brazen balls, so large that in order to get them into the building it was necessary to remove the keystone of a door called the Gate of the Muezzin, leading from the mosque to the interior of the tower. The iron bar, which supported the balls, weighed about ten cwt., and the whole was cast by a celebrated alchemist, a Sicilian, named Abu Leyth, at a cost of £50,000 sterling. These particulars were set down by a Mohammedan writer of the period, and their accuracy was proved in 1395 (157 years after the overthrow of the Arab dominion), when the earthquake threw the entire mechanism, balls and supports, to the ground, where they were weighed, and the figures were found to be absolutely correct. The figure of La FÉ, “The Faith,” which now tops the Giralda, was cast by BartolomÉ Morel in 1568. It stands fourteen feet high, and weighs twenty-five cwts., yet so wonderful is the workmanship that it turns with every breath of the wind. The head of the female figure is crowned with a Roman helmet, the right hand bears the Labaro, or banner, of Constantine, and in the left it holds out a palm branch, symbolical of conquest. But when we return from this “strange composite fane,” with its Christian summit surmounting a Moslem tower, which again has its foundations in a Roman temple, when we re-cross the Court of Oranges, with its Moorish fountain, flanked by a Christian pulpit, and enter the cathedral, the mind is transported at a bound from the fairy-like beauties of Morisco ornamentation to the sombre, awe-inspiring majesty, which prompted Theophile Gautier to the reflection that “the most extravagant and monstrously prodigious Hindoo pagodas are not to be mentioned in the same century as the Cathedral of Seville. It is a mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy; Notre Dame, at The Italian rhapsodist, Edmondo de Amicis, who always succeeds in conveying a strikingly convincing impression of the spectacles that fascinate his sensitive mind, is at his best in his description of Seville cathedral. “At your first entrance,” he says, “you are bewildered, you feel as if you are wandering in an abyss, and for several moments you do nothing but glance around you in that immense space, almost as if to assure yourself that your eyes are not deceiving you, nor your fancy playing you some trick. Then you approach one of the pillars, measure it, and look at the more distant ones, which, though as large as towers, appear so slender that it makes you tremble to think that the building is resting upon them. You traverse them with [Image unavailable.] SEVILLE COURT OF THE PALACE OF MEDINA-CŒLI. a glance from floor to ceiling, and it seems as if you could almost count the moments it would take for the eye to climb them. There are five aisles, each one of which might form a church. In the centre one, another cathedral, with its cupola and bell tower, could easily stand. All of them together form sixty-eight bold vaulted ceilings, which seem to expand and rise slowly as you look at them. Every thing is enormous in this cathedral. The principal chapel, placed in the centre of the great nave, and almost high enough to touch the ceiling, looks like a chapel built for giant priests, to whose knees the ordinary altars would not reach. The paschal candle seems like the mast of a ship, and the bronze candlestick which holds it, like the pillars of a church. The choir is a museum of sculpture and chiselling. The chapels are worthy of the church, for they contain the masterpieces of sixty-seven sculptors and thirty-eight painters.... The chapel of San Ferdinand, which contains the sepulchres of this king and his wife Beatrice, of Alonso the Wise, the celebrated minister, Florida Blanca, and other illustrious personages, is one of the richest and most beautiful of all. The body of Ferdinand, who redeemed Seville from the dominion of the Arabs, clothed in his uniform, with crown and mantle, rests in a crystal casket, covered with a veil. On one side, is his sword which he carried on the day of his entrance into Seville; on the other, a staff of cane, an emblem of command. In that same chapel is preserved a little ivory Virgin, which the holy king carried to war with him, and other relics of great value.” And here also, although De Amicis makes no mention of them, are the keys of Seville which Abdul Hassan handed to Ferdinand at the surrender of the city. One key is of silver, and bears the inscription, “May Allah grant that Islam may rule for ever in this city.” The other In its churches and its old houses, Seville is rich in Moorish influences, and exhibits abundant traces of Morisco art, which prevailed against the material dominancy of the Christian conquerors. The reconciled Arabs who remained as subjects of Ferdinand became the chief of the most lavishly-remunerated artisans of the city. They pursued their craft in the dwellings of the rich; and in the churches of the “infidel.” Untrammelled by religion and uninspired by faith, they worked for art’s sake, and the substantial pecuniary award that sweetened their labours. The church of San Marco has a beautiful Moorish tower built in imitation of the Giralda, and second only to the minaret tower of the cathedral in point of height; San Gil is a Christianised Mezquita; Santa Catalina reveals the survival of Moorish art in its faÇade, while its principal chapel is Gothic. In nearly all the sacred edifices of antiquity the combination of Moorish and Renaissance architecture betrays an incongruity of style and sentiment which is only to be found among the Christian churches of Spain. And if the Catholic kings, who were sworn to the extirpation of the Moslems, allowed the Moors to build their churches in the style of temples devoted to Allah, it is not surprising that many of the finest private residences of the city retain a Moorish design, and possess a distinctly Oriental atmosphere. The Casa de Pilatos, which has been pronounced the fourth great monument of older Seville, was commenced in 1500 by Don Pedro Enriquez, in the then popular decadent Saracenic style, and was completed by his son, Fadrique, in imitation of Pilate’s palace at Jerusalem. In accordance with this scheme, he fashioned a reception-hall, called the PrÆtorium, erected an upright column—a gift of Pope Pius V.—copied from the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and made a replica of the basin into which the thirty pieces of silver were counted. When the house came into the possession of the first Duke of AlcalÁ, he was acting as the Spanish viceroy at Naples, and he filled the rooms and corridors with Roman busts and statuary, gathered from Italy and the ruins of Italica. On every side the art treasures of the Romans adorn the perfect Moorish colonnades, and the shadows of Roman sculptures are thrown upon diapered marble pavements from light that enters through Arab lattices and ajimez windows. It has been described as a great curiosity shop, but to the art lover it is a treasure house of almost infinite beauty and variety. The Moorish palace of the Duke de Alba, in the Calle de las DueÑas, once consisted of eleven courtyards, nine fountains, and more than a hundred marble pillars, and was surrounded by a garden, which is a forest of orange trees and myrtles. In Seville one wanders through streets which are redolent of Arabia, and peep into countless Oriental patios, cool with fountains, and shaded by palms and Eastern canopies. One “feels the East a-calling”—the colour, the scent, the witchery of it gets into one’s blood—and one recognises the truth that inspired the old Spanish saying: “To whom God loves He gives a house in Seville. | ||||||||||||
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