Chapter II: Preface (2)

"One can hardly see anything," says she,[11] "that looks more splendid than this house of theirs; they use the upper apartments, which are hung with tapestry, all done with raised work of gold. In one great chamber, which is longer than it is broad, you may see several glass doors, which go into closets, or little cells; the first of which is the Duchess of Terra Nova's, hung with grey, and a bed of the same, and all other things very plain. On one side lodges her daughter, the Duchess of Monteleon, who is a widow, and has her room furnished like her mother's. Afterwards you come to the Princess of Monteleon's chamber, which is not larger than the others; but her bed is of gold and green damask, lined with silver brocade, and trimmed with Point-de-Spain. The sheets were laced about with an English lace of half an ell deep. Over against it were the chambers of Monteleon and Hijar's children, which were furnished with white damask. Next to these is the little chamber of the Duchess Hijar, furnished with crimson coloured velvet upon a gold ground. Their rooms were no otherwise divided than by partitions of a certain sweet wood; and they told me that six of their women lay in their chambers upon beds brought thither at night. The ladies were in a great gallery, spread with a very rich foot-cloth. There were set round it crimson coloured velvet cushions embroidered with gold, and they are longer than they are broad. There were also several great cabinets inlaid, and adorned with precious stones; but they are not made in Spain. And between them were tables of silver, and admirable looking-glasses, both for their largeness and rich frames, the worst of which were of silver. But that which I thought finest, were their escaparates, which is a certain sort of close cabinet with one great glass, and filled with all the rarities which one can imagine, whether it be in amber, porcelain, crystal, bezoar-stone, branches of coral, mother-of-pearl, filligreen in gold, and a thousand other things of value."

LEON

MDW 1869

CALLE DELLA TESORIERA. LEON.]

PLATE XIII.

_LEON._

DETAIL FROM A HOUSE IN THE CALLE DE LA TESORIERA.

THIS pretty little keystone, with its acanthus leaf well drawn and freely cut in good cinque-cento style occurs over the Portal of an old house in one of the secondary streets of Leon. The pot of lilies which surmounts it is a pretty little "impresa," quaintly signifying the devotion of the owner of the house to the especial object of every good Spaniard's worship, the most holy Virgin "sin pecado concebida." The S shaped irons, which appear on the right and left of the pot of lilies, serve to help to support the light balcony, which generally occurs over entrance doors of minor importance in Spain, and which often serves as a small open air addition to the common sitting room, in which the women of the house do much of the usual needle work, spinning, &c.

SALAMANCA

CASA DE LAS CONCHAS

MDW 1869]

PLATE XIV.

_SALAMANCA._

EXTERIOR OF THE CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.

THIS is, upon the whole, the most complete house I met with of its period, answering in Art, and nearly in point of time, to the florid Burgundian style of the Low Countries, with which there was much intercourse at the probable date of its construction--the close of the fifteenth century. It stands almost opposite the great Church of the Gesuitas, some of the columns of an unfinished porch or portico of which may be seen upon the left hand side of the sketch. No doubt this fine mansion does not possess its original roofing, as testified by the comparatively modern windows of a portion of the top storey, but with that exception it is fairly complete, both externally and internally.

The little projections on the masonry looking like nail heads are, really, as will be seen by the details given in Plates XVII. and XIX., representations of shells, the heraldic badge of the owner of the house, from which, rather than from his name, the cognomen by which the house is known, has been derived. It is difficult now to divine in what way the top storey was originally constructed, but judging by analogy with what was usual in such houses elsewhere in Spain at the time, it appears probable that it may have consisted of a light open arcading, serving as a "look out"--"mirador"--and place for exercising for the ladies of the household, at times when the streets may have been neither safe nor agreeable.

SALAMANCA, CASA DE LAS CONCHAS

MDW 1869]

PLATE XV.

_SALAMANCA._

PATIO OF THE CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.

THE Patio of this house is yet more perfect than its façade, and, a rare circumstance in Spain, I found it both clean and well kept. It is not upon a large scale, and did not, perhaps, look the less elegant on that account. The upper arcade produces a far better effect than the lower, since in the latter the principle of the arch seems fantastically and heedlessly lost sight of. With the exception in the upper arcade of the way in which the wreaths and escutcheons are placed, as though to conceal a confusion in the lines of the archivolt, which the architect (or mason) did not seem quite to know how to bring together comfortably over the capitals, the whole effect is quiet and pretty. The open work parapet at the top is the only _motif_ in the design which appears to be borrowed from the architecture of the Moors.

CASA DE LAS CONCHAS

MDW 1869]

PLATE XVI.

_SALAMANCA._

STAIRCASE OF THE CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.

ON the side of the Patio, opposite to the entrance, occurs the archway through the wall which forms the back of the arcade on that side of the Court, and beyond which is seen the staircase which connects the upper and lower arcades. From its masonry bonded in with the enclosing walls, it assumes even, while simple in design, a thoroughly architectural character, while the depth of shade, which almost invariably covers the back wall and parts of the side wall, serve to throw the lower part of the staircase into brilliant relief. The graceful and gay figures which, in the characteristic costume of Salamanca, from time to time, went up or down the staircase, or linger upon it in groups chatting or smoking, or flirting, make up occasional pictures not rapidly to be effaced from the author's memory.

SALAMANCA

MDW 1869

CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.]

PLATE XVII.

_SALAMANCA._

WINDOW FROM THE CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.

ONE of the most agreeable features in the design of the Casa de las Conchas, is the variety of detail of the different windows throughout the house. On the sketch under consideration, and in the two which follow it, evidence is afforded of the burning of the "lamp of life," as Mr. Ruskin would call it. They are all of them conceived in a transitional and composite but very picturesque style, and however different or possibly antagonistic the details of each window may appear amongst themselves, as a whole they agree and look exceedingly well.

This window occurs on the first floor of the façade, and possesses an additional interest from showing us pretty clearly what kind of windows may have been superseded in a similar situation by the Italian windows so much to be regretted in the fine Palace of the Duques del Infantado at Guadalajara. See Plate LXXVIII.

SALAMANCA

CASA DE LAS CONCHAS

MDW 1869]

PLATE XVIII.

_SALAMANCA._

WINDOW IN THE PATIO OF THE CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.

THIS window with its heavy ironwork, gives light through the back wall of the arcading of the Patio to a passage running behind a room, which derives its light from the external wall of the house. Such passages occur not unfrequently in Spanish houses, and are convenient, as they serve to bring three rooms into a suite without the necessity of having to pass through any one room to get to another. Of course of the three rooms two may be of the full width, extending from the external wall of the house to the back wall of the arcading of the Patio, and one of that width less the width of the passage, into which the three doors open, and which is lighted by a window from the Patio (such as that sketched), and frequently approached also from the arcading by a doorway adjoining the window. As the Patio is a comparatively public part of the house, such windows require, and usually have, the strong close iron work, which gives security and a certain amount of privacy to the external windows of the ground-floor of the house.

SALAMANCA

MDW 1869

CASA DE LAS CONCHAS]

PLATE XIX.

_SALAMANCA._

EXTERNAL WINDOW OF THE CASA DE LAS CONCHAS.

THE windows of the first-floors of Spanish houses are always the largest, airiest, and openest, of the whole of the windows of the house, excepting in the rare cases where there is a top story consisting of a large gallery, as frequently at Genoa, serving for promenade and look out--in fact a species of Belvedere. The importance of the rooms lighted is generally indicated by the relative richness of the window dressings. The profusion with which heraldic insignia are used in the window sketched, suffices, therefore, to show that with others of the same kind it lighted the principal saloons of the house. Another point of construction illustrated by the sketch, is the fact that the "conchas" or carved stone shells have been applied after the general building of the wall. This is proved by the regularity with which they are placed, irrespective of the heights of the various courses of masonry, and of the levels at which the joints occur.

SALAMANCA CASA MONTEREY.

MDW 1869]

PLATE XX.

_SALAMANCA_.

EXTERIOR OF THE CASA MONTEREY.

OF the very picturesque specimen of domestic architecture illustrated in Plate XX., and bearing the local name of the Casa de Monterey, but little seems to be known. Escosura confesses himself reduced to conjecture, and thus theorises on the subject. As to the exact epoch at which the Casa de Monterey was built, the following circumstances should be borne in mind. "The title of Conde de Monterey was created in favour of Don Baltasar de Zuñiga, who was Viceroy of Naples in the year 1626. This nobleman caused the Church of the Convent of Nuns which bore his name, and which stands opposite his palace, to be erected at his expense from the designs of the fashionable Italian architect, Fontana. May it be unreasonable to suppose that the Palace was designed at the same time by the same architect?"

To this question, the proper answer given by some better judge of architectural style would, probably, be "very," since it is difficult to perceive any similarity between the modes of design, upon which the two buildings are based. The architecture of the Church of the Convent, one angle of which appears on the left hand of the sketch, is in the large florid manner of the post-Palladian Italians, while that of the Palace is small in its ornamental parts, and instead of exhibiting Italian features, seems throughout to show the peculiar reading of Italian style adopted by the late Plateresque Spanish architects of the second half of the sixteenth century. This is particularly noticeable in the absence of a crowning balustrade, and in the substitution for it of the elaborate pierced cresting which apparently the Spanish architects adopted from Moorish rather than from any antique models.

The interior of this grand looking palace is said to have been all but destroyed by the French.

SALAMANCA

MDW 1869

OPPOSITE SAN BENITO.]

PLATE XXI.

_SALAMANCA_.

RENAISSANCE HOUSE OPPOSITE SAN BENITO.

IN every ancient city the largest and most costly building ever erected in it is usually the most enduring. The causes of this are various--for instance--the construction in itself may have been the most solid, the citizens may have taken such pride in it as to bestow unusual pains upon its conservation, they may have retained it for uses for which it may have become more or less unfit (as is the case with the majority of ancient Ecclesiastical buildings in Protestant countries), rather than face the expense of re-erecting appropriate buildings, or it may still be well suited for present purposes. Hence cathedrals, churches, palaces, (rarely castles, owing to the combative propensities of their owners), hospitals, great residences of ancient families, and in Catholic countries, convents and monasteries, of almost all periods, may remain to attest the changes of architectural style, &c.; but the ordinary residences of the middle classes, and of the numerous secondary nobility, get swept away by the tides of history, or are so altered by them as to leave scarcely any satisfactory land-marks to indicate what once gave its predominant character to the streets of many an ancient city. Such changes are effected almost equally by progress and by decay. By the former, all minor monuments become obliterated or transformed,--they represent in fact old age, pushed aside to make way for youth--while by the latter they descend in the social scale until beggars break up what nobles once built up. How constantly the traveller meets with some splendid old cathedral still "hale and hearty," with the weight of half-a-dozen or more centuries upon its head, around which he knows were once grouped teeming populations full of strength, life, and wealth, of which not a habitation may be left extending backwards for more than a hundred years from the present date? Any exceptions to such illustrations of the way in which fortune turns her wheel become the especially cherished haunts of the antiquary, who knows that from day to day they become rarer, and consequently more precious. Hence the enthusiasm with which the neglected quarters of every old town are visited in the hope of meeting with some relics of what may therein at least appear, "remains of an extinct civilization." Some such reward I met with in encountering, amidst much dirt and apparent poverty in the quarter of San Benito, in Salamanca, the pretty façades of old Renaissance houses which form the subjects of this sketch and of the one which succeeds it.

SALAMANCA

MDW 1869

CALLE DEL AGUILA]

PLATE XXII.

_SALAMANCA_.

RENAISSANCE HOUSE IN THE CALLE DEL AGUILA.

THE Renaissance house now presented to the reader, although richer in its ornaments, is not as complete as the one given in the preceding sketch, having apparently lost its original roof. Instead of the overhanging eaves casting a constantly cool shade over the open balustrading, through which light and air still pass to "a chamber that's next to the sky;" in this case nothing is probably left over the principal apartment, the window of which richly decorated with heraldry and arabesque is shown over the strong doorway with its deep flat arch, excepting a dark and scarcely habitable attic. I think it very likely that the wreath, coat of arms, and boys, which still occupy their original position over the principal window, once supported the sill of a superior window, and that the house which now appears to have two stories only, had once at least as many as three.

Such houses as these of the ancient nobility, of which I could find only two or three, must once have been common enough in the fashionable city of Gil Blas, when the university numbered seven thousand students, and eighty professors, with salaries of one thousand crowns each--a bountiful payment in those days for the exercise of the noblest talents--and swarms of assistants and "Pretendientes" on half-pay and unattached.[12]

AVILA

ENTRANCE TO THE CASA POLENTINA

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXIII.

_AVILA_.

ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF THE CASA POLENTINA.

THE Portal which forms the subject of my twenty-third sketch serves as the entrance to the dilapidated old mansion of the Condes de Polentinos at Avila, a view of the remains of the Patio of which will be found on turning over this page. The architectural characteristics of this striking gateway are certainly very singular. On catching a glimpse of it from a distance, and seizing the aspect only of its ponderous masonry and deep machicolations, I fully believed I was coming upon an old bit of castellated construction of the fourteenth or fifteenth century at latest. On nearer inspection, however, I found out my mistake, and arrived at the conclusion that the Señor Conde, late in the sixteenth century, who had caused the whole structure to be built, had probably charged his architect, either to preserve the general form of some much earlier portal of the old house, which he may have caused to be pulled down, or to imitate the general aspect of some other aristocratic portal of early date, which the Count may have admired elsewhere. Different as the corbelling, &c., looks to the gateway, and the window over it, I found that ornamental detail of a similar nature to, but somewhat coarser style than that of the door and window dressings was worked over most of the corbelling, and part of the upper gallery carried by the corbels, but apparently by a provincial hand. The stone work of the door and window had probably been left in the rough for awhile, possibly for some fifty years, and then its carving entrusted to some superior artist, working according to the latest lights of the fashion of the close of the sixteenth century. Although the style of all this carving is plateresque, there are many indications about it of an inclination to Greco-Roman work. For instance, the griffins, the lions' heads of antique type, and the arms and armour arranged as trophies, all indicate acquaintance with the prevalent materials of Italian arabesque design of late cinque-cento style. Indeed, the very form and fluting of the corselets, brasses, vambrasses, and cuisses, would indicate that armour of a date posterior to the middle of the sixteenth century had been adopted as types for the making up of the trophies.

AVILA

CASA POLENTINA

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXIV.

_AVILA_.

THE PATIO OF THE CASA POLENTINA.

NEXT to the general feeling of interest excited by the picturesque aspect of decayed architectural grandeur, which is presented by the remains of this dilapidated Patio, rises a feeling of curiosity as to the mode and manner of life of those whose wants such costly building subserved. Privacy and coolness appear to have been the chief desiderata, and those architectural ornaments seem to have been preferred, which recall, at almost every step, the hereditary dignities of the family tree. Madame d'Aulnois, whose Letters from Spain, written in 1679,[13] give the liveliest possible picture of life in those days in the Peninsula, gratifies our curiosity in the most agreeable manner, and with that quickness of perception, as to domestic habits, by means of which, none but a woman can seize at a glance, the telling details essential to give completeness and reality to a sketch. Speaking of the Spaniards of the upper and middle classes of the seventeenth century she says:--"All their houses have a great many rooms on a floor; you go through a dozen or fifteen parlours, or chambers, one after another. Those which are the worst lodged have six or seven. The rooms are generally longer than they are broad. The floors and ceilings are neither painted nor gilt; they are made of plaister quite plain, but so white that they dazzle one's eyes; for every year they are scraped, and whited as the walls, which look like marble, they are so well polished. The Court to their summer apartments is made of certain matter, which, after it has ten pails of water thrown upon it, yet is dry in half-an-hour, and leaves a pleasant coolness; so that in the morning they water all, and a little while after they spread mats or carpets made of fine rushes, which cover all the pavement. The whole apartments are hung with the same small mat about the depth of an ell, to hinder the coolness of the walls from hurting those which lean against them. On the top of these mats there are hung pictures and looking-glasses. The cushions, which are of gold and silver brocade, are placed upon the carpet; and the tables and cabinets are very fine; and at little distances there are set silver cases or boxes, filled with orange and jessamine trees. In their windows they set things made of straw, to keep the sun out; and in the evenings they work in their gardens. There are several houses which have very fine ones, where you see grottoes and fountains in abundance."

AVILA THE CATHEDRAL. IRON PULPIT.

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXV.

_AVILA_.

IRON PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL.

MR. STREET'S illustrations and description of all that is left of the old glories of Avila, previous to the epoch of the Renaissance, are so complete, that I can feel no compunction in having gleaned only from this delightful old city two specimens of the ability of the Spanish smiths of the period he repudiates, and two others showing remains of the domestic architecture of the same style.

Let it not be supposed, however, that it was only the school of the Renaissance which produced masterly iron-work, and even masterly iron pulpits, in Spain. Mr. Street has himself given us a beautiful woodcut of the pulpit in the church of St. Gil, at Burgos. This exhibits no other than Gothic details, while in the pulpit which forms the subject of my twenty-fifth sketch, as will no doubt be observed, Renaissance details are freely intermixed with Gothic ones. The whole, however different in style in different parts, appeared to me to be contemporaneous; and I, therefore, regard this pulpit as an interesting example of a transitional style, later of course, than that followed in the pulpit of Saint Gil, which Mr. Street describes as the earliest he saw. In both, the primitive mode of working through thin plates superposed to form tracery has been adhered to, and the whole of the ironwork has been applied to a wooden framework. I regard the pulpit at Burgos as likely to have been executed early in the fifteenth century, and the one now under consideration as of the close of the same century; and both may, I think, have been produced under the influence of the masters from Cologne, who did such wonders, and set so many fashions, in Burgos and its vicinity, especially at Miraflores.

AVILA

THE CATHEDRAL

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXVI.

_AVILA_.

IRON PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL.

IN method of manufacture no less than in style of design this pulpit, which forms a pendant to the one last given just outside the choir of Avila Cathedral, offers a contrast to its predecessor. We no longer meet with a superposition of perforated plates, but the operations of beating and chasing, and, indeed, cutting the metal with chisels, files and hammers; working in fact as the Italians term it "a massiccio." The basis of the design is no longer Gothic, but strictly of the regular Spanish Plateresque Renaissance with balustrade columns, figures in niches, and Arabesques imitated from the Italians. From all these details, we may fairly be justified in ascribing this work to about the middle of the sixteenth century.

The method of working this pulpit is no longer that of the simple smith, but really corresponds much more closely with that of the armourer which reached its zenith about this period. There can be no doubt that the Spaniards gained much of their well-known skill in the manipulation of iron and steel from the Moors, who had themselves obtained knowledge from Damascus, and perhaps even improved upon the knowledge they had derived from that source. From the times of the Carthaginians and Romans, the Celt-Iberian mines had been known as amongst the richest existing sources, from which iron could be procured. Many fragments of finely wrought iron work, of the middle ages, still exist in Spain; but for the most part in very fragmentary condition.[14] From the end of the fifteenth century, however, in the Rejas, great seals and minor screens, (such as that seen at the back of the pulpit in my sketch) of the churches and cathedrals, and especially in the arms and armour of Moorish and Christian Caballeros, (as attested by many splendid specimens in the Real Armeria of Madrid), perfect examples are to be met with of the skill of Spanish artificers in dealing with all the metallurgical processes by which iron and steel can be made to assume forms of grace and beauty. Charles V., Philip II., and Don Juan of Austria, were boundless in their extravagance in the encouragement of the best armourers, not of Toledo and Valladolid only, but of Milan and Augsburg as well. There can be no doubt that the models of beauty bought by these Sovereigns from artists in iron and steel, such as the Negroli and Piccinini, tended to develope that perfection of workmanship, which was attained in Spain in the reign of Philip III. The pains-taking editors of the Catalogue of the Madrid Armoury cite Pamplona as at the head of the trade at the close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, and name as the chief rivals to Pamplona of the cities of Spain, in the manufacture of splendid arms and armour, Tolosa, Barcelona, and Calatayud.[15]

J. ESCORIAL

MDW 1869]

PLATE XXVII.

_ESCORIAL_.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE ESCORIAL.

IN all Spain I saw nothing which so ill-agreed with my preconceptions as the Escorial. As for beauty, I could find none whatever in it. The building appeared to me thoroughly unsatisfactory alike as church, palace, or monastery. Still, to omit it altogether from any series of Spanish sketches with pen or pencil, would be to leave out the Monument which reflects, probably, more perfectly than any other in the Peninsula, the mixture of arrogant extravagance, and arid ascetism, which characterized its most potent rulers in the plenitude of their historical importance. In it, in my opinion, Herrera proved himself an architect thoroughly worthy of the masters who employed him, formal, pedantic, cold, extravagant to a degree, and yet mean. That the building contains many most interesting works of art, is as true, as that a visit to it should on no account be omitted by any one who would at all attempt to realize what the Spanish Court may have been in the days of Philip II.; but, after all, I am bound to confess that what most pleased me in the vast edifice, with the exception of some few pictures and illuminated books, was the work of Italians and not of Spaniards, viz., the marble crucifix of Benvenuto Cellini, the magnificent gilt bronze statues of the Kings and Queens of Spain in the Church, by Pompeio Leoni, and the decorations of the Library, principally by Pelegrino Tibaldi. To such a judgment may be objected that the structure now is not what it was, let us see what an acute observer says of it, writing late in the seventeenth century:--

"A while after we went to the Escurial, which to give it no less than its due, may in Spain pass for an admirable structure, but where building is understood, would not be looked on as very extraordinary. In a general consideration, it seems a mass of stone of great perfection; but going to particulars, scarce any of them but falls very short of the magnificence imagined, and that so much, that if Philip the Second, who built it, and was called the Solomon of his age, did no more resemble that wise king then this edifice does his Temple, to which it is often compared, the copy comes very short of the original; in the meantime to stretch the comparison they please themselves in saying, that Charles the Fifth, like another David, only designed his holy work, which (being a man of war and blood) God reserved for his son. Ignorant strangers are entertained with this tale, but such as are versed in history tell us, that after the battle of St. Quentin, Philip the Second made two vows, one never to go in person to the wars, the other to build this cloyster for the Order of St. Jerome instead of that which had been burnt, it cost him near six millions of gold, though out of consideration of parsimony and convenience of bringing stone, he made choice of the worst situation in nature, for it is at the foot of a barren mountain, and hard by a wretched village called Escurial, that can hardly lodge a man of any fashion; this may seem very strange to those that know the Court is there twice in a year: the place it stands on is, by transcendence, called the Seat, because it was levelled in order to build on.

"The fabrick is very fair, with four towers at the four corners, but coming to it, one knows not which way to enter, for as soon as out of the great walk, in a kind of Piazza, you see only little doors, which, when you are over it, lead into two pavilions, that contain offices and lodgings for some of the Court; when you have well viewed this side of the square, you come to that which is towards the mountain, where there is a very large magnificent portal, on each side beautify'd with pillars; by this stately gate you enter a quadrangle, where right over against it stands the Church, ascended to it by a stair of five or six steps, as long as the Court is large, extending from one side of it to the other, very fair columnes support the porch, and on the top of the wall stand six statues, the middlemost of which are David and Solomon, by whom they would represent Charles the Fifth, and Philip the Second. About the church are many pavillions, all comprehended in the exact square which environs that building. Report mentions many Bascourts, but we could not reckon above seven or eight. That this is a very fair cloyster for Friers cannot be denied, neither can it be allowed to be a pallace magnificent enough for such a monarch as Philip the Second, who having built it in one-and-twenty years, and enjoyed it twelve or thirteen, boasted, that from the foot of a mountain and his closet, with two inches of paper, he made himself obeyed in the Old and New World.

"The King and Queen's apartments have nothing in them that appears roial, they are altogether unfurnished, and they say, when the King goes to any of his houses of pleasure, they remove all to the very bedsteads; the rooms are little and low; the roofs not beautiful enough to invite the eyes to look up to them; its many pictures of excellent masters, and especially of Titian, that wrought a great while there, are very much vaunted, yet there are not so many as report gives out. The Spaniards have so little understanding of pictures, they are alike taken with all, and the Marquis Serragenovese, that accompanied us, sufficiently laughed at the foolishness of a Castillian, who, willing to have us admire the slightest and wretchedest landskipes of a gallery where we were, told us nothing could equalize them, because in a place where their King sometimes walked. There are yet in the vestry some good pieces, especially a Christ, and Mary Magdalen; and in the Church others very estimable. For paintings in fresco, the quire, done by Titian, is doubtlessly an excellent work, and so is the library, I think by the same hand, where amongst the rest is represented the ancient Roman manner of defending criminals, who stand by bound hand and foot; Cicero is also there pleading for Milo, or some other, I not being sufficiently acquainted with his meen, to be positive, and without apprehension of mistaking; this library is truly very considerable, as well for its length, breadth, height, and light; the pictures and marble tables that stand in the midst of it, as for its quantity of choice and rare books, if we may believe the monks; they are certainly very well bound and guilded, and if I mistake not, but seldom read. In the vestry, they show priests' copes, where embroidery and pearl with emulation contend whether art or matter renders them more rich and sumptuous; they showed us a cross of very fair pearl, diamonds, and emeralds; it is a very pretty knack, and would not become less such if it changed countreys, I would willingly have undertaken for it if they would have suffered it to pass the Pyreneans, had it been only to show my friends a hundred thousand crowns in a nut-shell. The library I have spoken of, the high altar and monument of their kings, which they call Pantheon (though I know not why, unless because a single round arch like the Pantheon at Rome), are certainly the best pieces of this magnificent fabrick. The high altar is approached by steps of red marble, and invironed by sixteen pillars of jasper, which reach the top of the quire, and cost only a matter of fifty or sixty thousand crowns cutting, between these are niches with statues of guilded brass, and so there are on the side of the tables and praying places. The Pantheon is under the altar, and descended by stairs, though narrow, very light; at the entrance of this rich chappel, a marble shines, whose lustre is heightened by reflexion of the gold, with which all the iron-work and part of that fair stone are overlaid. In the middle of it, and right against the altar, is a fair candlestick of brass, gilded, and in six several niches, twenty-four sepulchres of black marble to receive as many bodies; above the gate are two more. This stately monument is small, but sumptuous, it was finished by the present King, who, about six months since placed there the bodies of Charles the Fifth, Philip the Second, and Philip the Third. The first was most intire; in the niches, on the left, lie the Queens, and the last of them Queen Elizabeth of Burbon. He that preached the day that these seven tombs or sepulchres had bodies laid in them, began by his apprehension to speak in presence of so many kings who had conquered the world, and expressed himself so well, and so highly pleased the King that he got a yearly pension of a thousand crowns. Nothing attaining such perfection as to secure it from the teeth of criticks, the three pieces I have now mentioned, have been attacqued by them. It is objected against the Library, that its entrance suits not with its magnificence and grandeur, and that it stands as if stoln in, and not of the same piece with the rest.

"Over against the great altar, where all is so well proportioned, they wish away a silver lamp, whose size corresponds not with that of the place it burns in, which is vast and large. In the Pantheon they find great fault, that all the steps by which it is descended are not marble, and that the sides of the walls are not incrusted with it, the chappel being all so, and a like magnificence requisite everywhere. In the brazen candlestick, the inner part which is not guilded is discerned amongst the black and foul branches that extend from it. It cost ten thousand crowns, which is ten times more than it is worth; but it is common in this country to boast things of excessive price, which they would have admired on that account, as if because they are foolish merchants, the ware they buy too dear, were therefore the more valuable. These are my observations of the so famous Escurial, adorned only by some small parterras and fountains; one side of it affords a handsome prospect, but the ground near it is the greatest part rock or heath, some walks and groves are planted about it, but being cold and windy, trees thrive not. There are some deer in a kind of park, ill-designed, and with very low walls, the way to it is nothing pleasant, and the King who goes thither thrice every year, one of which times is in the winter, cannot certainly find any great diversion in those journeys, for during three months all is covered with snow."

Nothing need be added, I think, to so graphic a "boutade" as this, which, though somewhat satirical, would not appear to have been much too highly coloured for the occasion.

SEGOVIA

GATE IN WALLS

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PLATE XXVIII.

_SEGOVIA_.

GATEWAY IN THE CITY WALLS.

THERE is probably no city in all Spain, and few perhaps in any part of the world, in which within a similar compass, so many good, although fragmentary, materials could be found for illustrating styles and inflections of style in building, from the days of the Romans through those of the Moors and Christians, up to the period of the Renaissance, than Segovia. Of this last named period, two of the greatest masters, Gil de Ontañon and his son Rodrigo, have nobly left their mark in the splendid Cathedral, a worthy rival to that of Salamanca, also executed from the designs, and under the personal superintendence of the elder of the two Ontañones. The city, probably, owes these varied monuments to its merits, as a strong, as well as a beautiful position. Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that its old walls should offer many features of interest as well as picturesqueness. In fact, to the educated eye, the former is almost a necessary ingredient to making up the latter. As I wended my way upwards, therefore, from the railway station to the town, through this gateway, about which I caught indications here of one style, and there of another, Roman, Moor, and Christian doing here a jot and there a little, that I should linger on my way for awhile; partly, perhaps, to cool myself, and partly to make the little sketch I present herewith to my readers.

I need, perhaps, only add that the rough but effective cornice of the gateway is made up from its top to its bottom by different combinations of common tiles, and that its little enriched frieze is a specimen of the clever stucco-work, probably executed by workmen of Moorish descent in Renaissance times. The whole, even to the painting of the Virgin, is roughly executed, but is not the less graceful, perhaps, from the apparent absence of all effort. An aspect of spontaneity in works of art has its own particular charm, as has the semblance of the most careful solicitude under appropriate circumstances. The true artist, heedful of his "when" and "how," is master of both moods.

SEGOVIA

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THE ALCAZAR. HALL OF THE KINGS.]

PLATE XXIX.

_SEGOVIA._

ARCHWAY IN THE HALL OF THE KINGS.

DON Juan Alvarez de Colmenar,[16] writing at the commencement of the eighteenth century, gives the following description of the Royal Palace at Segovia--

"The Alcazar," he says, "is situated on a mountain in the highest part of the city. It is entirely covered with lead; the access to it being by means of a staircase cut in the rock. There is always a sentinel in the towers, and on a platform may be seen many cannons of which the greater number are pointed against the city and the residue towards the faubourg and country. It contains sixteen richly tapestried chambers, one of which has a fire-place of porphyry. Thence a descent may be made to another platform smaller than the first mentioned, also furnished with cannon. From this, access is obtained to a small chamber with gilt dado, marble fire-place, and walls covered with mirrors up to the ceiling. Near this room is the Royal Chapel, splendidly gilt and decorated with very fine pictures, amongst which that of the Magi is of the highest beauty. Issuing from the chapel is a magnificent hall gilt from top to bottom. It is called the Sala de los Reyes, ("literally the Hall of the Kings,") because therein are all the Kings of Spain from Pelayo to Jane, mother of the Emperors Charles V. and Ferdinand. They are represented seated on thrones under canopies, so artistically worked that they look like agates. There is another hall lined with glasses of the height of three feet, with marble seats and ceilings gilt with pure gold. All these halls are differently ornamented, and with the exception of the gilding there is not one like the others. The river which surrounds the château forms its moat."[17]

I have preferred quoting this old description to giving one of the present aspect of this once splendid palace, since of all its magnificence nothing is now left but its massive walls covered here and there with elegant stucco-work, some of which is given in my sketches, and its commanding and noble position which is one of very great natural strength. Here it was that the Moors, who never failed to fortify such spots, reared the great central tower around which, after its capture by the Christians, the Spanish sovereigns built the palace which contained the majority of the apartments described by Colmenares, employing the subjugated Moorish artificers for many of the original decorations. In 1412, a splendid hall called, from its celebrated ceiling, the Sala del Arteson, was completed, as testified by an inscription to that effect given at length by Cean Bermudez.[18] Other inscriptions mark the work executed by the king, Henry IV., in 1452, 1456, and 1458, who resided in it amidst his treasures, and the glorious spoils taken in what one inscription designates "la guerra de los Moros." Here dwelt Isabella la Catolica, and at a later date Charles V. The decorations described by Colmenares were probably for the most part those executed by command of Philip II., the elegant stucco work given in the sketch (No. 29) being clearly of the time of Henry IV. Here lodged our Charles I. in 1623. The wretched Philip V. with congenial propriety converted it into a prison, justifying Le Sage's amusing sketch of the committal to it of Gil Blas. Many of the Algerine and Barbary pirates taken by the Spanish men-of-war were here confined. At length it was converted into an academy for artillery cadets, and made a miserable sort of Woolwich. Decorations were torn down, old windows blocked up, and new ones made in the most barbarous style. Stoves were placed in most dangerous situations, until as a natural consequence a fire broke out, and the "coup de grâce" was given to the glories of this palatial fortress, which is now alike useless for royal, military, or civic purposes.

MDW 1869

SEGOVIA. ALCAZAR.]

PLATE XXX.

_SEGOVIA._

DETAIL FROM THE ALCAZAR.

In describing the last sketch (No. 29), some particulars were given of the building from which both that and this (No. 30) were taken. It may be well to note now the peculiar style of design illustrated by both. This style is what is technically known in Spain as "Mudejar," _i.e._, neither Gothic nor Moorish strictly, but a compound of both. The date of these particular specimens happens to be well fixed by the inscriptions to which allusion has been recently made, and of one of which a portion is shown in the sketch (No. 30), as running horizontally between two string courses on each side of the small quasi-rose windows. This "Mudejar" work was certainly executed between the years 1452 and 1458, in the reign of Enrique IV., King of Castille. It was the wise policy of the most sagacious of the Spanish monarchs in their contests with the Moors, to half-shut their eyes to what they could not eradicate, viz., the secret Islamism of the race. They long continued this laudable inclination to tolerate and use the skilful Arabian artificers, under Christian guidance and superintendence, in the various localities in which they successively planted the Standard of the Cross, tearing down that of the Crescent. At last the inflation which followed their ultimate conquests under Ferdinand and Isabella, led to the establishment of the pernicious Inquisition, the "teterrima causa" of infinite misery, and the subverter of tolerance and progress throughout the country. From that period gradually disappeared--lingering, as we shall have occasion to observe, much longer in the South than in the North--the skilled artificer, learned in all the technicalities, and the elaborate geometrical principles of the combination of ornamental form, which Arabian genius had engrafted upon the traditions of Ancient Rome, handed down to them through the medium of Byzantium. The very antagonism of creed induced the Moor to avoid polluting his art with types of form or processes borrowed from the Christian, as he would have avoided polluting his faith with Catholic legend or tenets. Hence when he and his became the spoil of the Christian, which, to a great extent, they did, the Christian necessarily inherited no unimportant addition to his repertory of beautiful, fresh, and valuable arts and industries. This precious inheritance was not altogether appreciated by the Spaniards, as it might have been by a people of greater producing energies; but in spite of their comparative ineptitude, they gained greatly by the leaven of Moorish skill and talent; and as one of the first and best fruits of the gradual conquest and absorption of the race, we may certainly reckon the leading features of the "Mudejar" style.

EL PARRAL.

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SEGOVIA.]

PLATE XXXI.

_SEGOVIA._

EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE MONASTERY OF EL PARRAL.

IN Mr. Street's work on "Gothic Architecture on Spain," so justly praised by all who know anything of ancient Spanish Art will be found on Plate VIII a sketch plan, and on pages 185 and 186 a full description of this extensive old Convent, and especially of the Church of the Vera Cruz to which it is attached. I felt, therefore, that my duty to the student would be best fulfilled by simply laying before him a sketch of the exterior to supplement Mr. Street's ground plan, referring the student for all further information to his work. It would have been easy to extract from Cean Bermudez the same historical details; but it could only have resulted in a thrice-told tale. It may suffice to note that the entrance to the Convent may be sought (with much but rarely effectual knocking and ringing) through the curious old porch represented in my sketch on the right hand of the Church, which should be visited in the morning, on account of its beautiful arrangement of lighting, mainly from the East.

ALCALA DE HENARES. COLEGIO DE SAN ILDEFONSO.

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PLATE XXXII.

_ALCALA-DE-HEÑARES._

EXTERIOR OF THE COLEGIO DE SAN ILDEFONSO.

SUCH a man as Francis Ximenez de Cisneros--the founder of the University at Alcala de Heñares--would have been a man amongst men anywhere; but in Spain, his union of prudence with strength, courage with calmness, learning in the closet with action in the field, humility with aptitude for supreme command, benevolence with the sternest energy, raised him rapidly from poverty and insignificance to the Regency of that country. So aggrandized, he ruled the kingdom for many years, until his death, in 1517, with far greater wisdom, and more to the benefit of the State, than any Sovereign who has ever sat upon its throne. This is not the place in which to dwell upon his life, intensely interesting as it was, but only to briefly allude to the relics of his greatness as displayed in Alcala de Heñares, in which locality he himself commenced his studies. Protected by Mendoza he became confessor to Isabella in 1492, who made him Archbishop of Toledo in 1495. Three years afterwards he founded his great University dedicated to Saint Ildefonso; but which, in honour of his ever famous labour, the compilation of the Complutensian Polyglot,[19] bears the distinguished name in Spain of the "Universidad Complutense."

The building, of which the main block of the façade shown in my sketch, is about one hundred feet long, by about sixty-five feet high, contains no less than three Patios of different styles. It was designed by Pedro Gumiel, and, as originally planned, finished in 1533, by Rodrigo Gil. The whole façade which is of marble, with the exception of the basement of grey granite, was no doubt entirely the work of the last named architect. The structure has been well illustrated, architecturally, in the great government publication--the "Monumentos Arquitectonicos de España"--to which the student may be referred for the details of this immense establishment. About it, in the days of its full prosperity, there were grouped no less than eleven thousand students, and nineteen colleges. Nothing shows, perhaps, more clearly the "high estate" from which the poor Spain of the present day has fallen, than a contrast between the muster rolls of the University of Madrid of late years, and those of Salamanca, and Alcala, in the sixteenth century.

The visitor to the "Colegio" of Alcala should on no account omit to see the chapel built by Gil de Ontañon, since within it rests the Wolsey of Spain. Upon a monument of white marble, by the skilful hand of Domenico of Florence, reposes an effigy of Cardinal Cisneros. A lithograph of this and of the quasi-Mudejar style of the chapel is given in the work of Villa Amil,[20] and we may well take to heart the concluding sentence of the description of it by Patricio Escosura:--"Una pregunta, y concluimos; ¿Cuantos monumentos como el que acabamos de ejaminar dejarémos nosotros en herencia à nuestros nietos?"[*]

ALCALA DE HENARES

ARZOBISPADO

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PLATE XXXIII.

_ALCALA-DE-HEÑARES._

WINDOW OF THE ARZOBISPADO.

THE Archi-episcopal Palace of Alcala de Heñares is a building of many periods and many styles. Founded upon the Old Alcazar, of which vestiges remain, it contains several pretty mediæval windows, one of which Mr. Street thought not unworthy of his pencil. The late Plateresque details of its double Patios arrested my attention, and I was pleased to observe in them a more than usual elegance of moulding, and originality, with propriety of style. On account of their possession of these qualities, their invention and the execution of the medallion-heads and ornaments have been ascribed to Alonzo Berruguete, whose studies in Florence have been looked upon as the main agents in purifying the then prevalent tendency to exuberance in Plateresque design to which he might have surrendered himself, but for his opportunities of becoming acquainted with the works of Michael Angelo and other great contemporary masters of Italian Art. If Berruguete had no hand in this work, (and I have been able to find no proof whatever that he had), it lends greater probability to the theory I have ventured to broach in the description of the next sketch, which is taken from another but contemporary part of the same building.

Another attribution of the design of these details has been to Alonso de Covarrubias, but I can find no other authority for it than the fact that Ponz considered them to resemble certain windows of the Alcazar at Toledo which were known to have been designed by that master.

EL ARZOBISPADO

ALCALA DE HENARES]

PLATE XXXIV.

_ALCALA-DE-HEÑARES._

DETAIL FROM THE ARZOBISPADO.

ALTHOUGH commonly described as Plateresque, the architecture of the Patio of the Archbishop's Palace at Alcala de Heñares, of which my sketch represents the detail of the upper story, excites a far more forcible reminiscence of good cinque-cento work. It seems to have been executed principally by Spaniards of the sixteenth century, but still to have been founded on pure Italian models. This is particularly shown, as it appeared to me, in the regular form of the bell and volutes of the capitals of the columns with the well drawn and cut acanthus leaves, and the regular eggs and tongues of the cornice. Recognising this, and noticing the correspondence in style between the execution of this work, and that of the architectural parts of the monument to Cardinal Cisneros alluded to in the description of the last sketch but one, I could not but fancy it possible that the same artist, Domenico of Florence, who is allowed to have produced that monument, may, after its completion, have been retained to work upon the Patios of the Archi-episcopal Palace; and possibly also upon some portions of the façade of the University which was not as we know set in hand until some time after the Cardinal's death.

TOLEDO

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PLATE XXXV.

_TOLEDO_.

VIEW OF THE REMAINS OF A MOORISH FORTRESS ON THE RIVER.

THE situation of Toledo is most romantic, and presents as many charms from its beauty to the architect, as the site for a commanding city, as no doubt it offered from, its great natural strength, to the "man of war" who must needs have regarded it as an almost heaven-born fortress. It owes much, both of its beauty and its strength, to the clear and abundant current of the Tagus, which more than half surrounds it. This river has, as we shall have occasion to observe, been nobly spanned by Roman, Moor, and Christian; and on its banks are yet traceable, in architectural fragments, the handiwork of each of those races.