Chapter LXXXIV: Part of Ceiling of a Portico (6)

After the death of the Great Khalif, and, thenceforth until the Christian conquest, Toledo maintained a partial independence, tolerating the rule of Moslem princes, but paying no allegiance to Cordova. And in the end she was recovered to the Christians by a piece of picturesque treachery. Alfonso of Leon (Alfonso VI.) had fled from the monastery of Sagahun, and sought the protection of King Almamon of Toledo, from whom he received the most generous hospitality, including gifts of palaces, farms, and orchards, and the government of the Christian section of the inhabitants. The Moorish king demanded only the subscription of his guest’s allegiance, and, in return, he gave a sincere affection, and promises of faithful protection. Almamon, whose one vague but ever present concern was the possibility of Toledo ever falling again into the hands of the Christians, was discussing the subject one day with his courtiers in the garden of Alfonso’s palace, and engrossed in the consideration of the possible misfortune, he described minutely the only plan by which, in his opinion, the city might be taken. Alfonso, who was one of the company, affected to be asleep while this dissertation was in progress, and the courtiers, who were unable to restrain the eloquence of the king, endeavoured to obtain Almamon’s consent to the execution of his Christian guest. But the king refused to listen to this inhospitable proposition, and on the death of Sancho of Castile (who was murdered by Bellido, under the walls of Zamora), his brother, Alfonso of Leon, returned to his own kingdom, loaded with honours, and carrying with him the secret of Toledo’s vincibility. Before he departed the two kings swore eternal amity, and entered into an offensive and defensive alliance against the enemies of either, and the enemies of Almamon’s son, Yahya. But after the death of Almamon, Alfonso, forgetting his oath to his friend, and remembering only the plan of siege he had overheard in the garden of Toledo, adopted the principles invented by the Moorish theorist, and, in 1085, entered the city as its conqueror.

What has Toledo to show to-day for the three and a-half centuries of the artistic influence of Morisco culture and influence? Surprisingly little! And yet it would be an even greater surprise if she had more to show. The village that climbs the bosom of a mountain does not alter the contour of its impassive resting-place; the etchings traced upon a Toledo blade does not affect the temper of the steel. The city is still “Moorish in appearance,” to employ the guide-book phrase, but it is gradually divesting itself of the marks which at one time, and then only in part, disguised its Gothic ancestry. Since Alfonso, the tyrant of the Galicians, seized the town of Toledo, “that pearl of the necklace, that highest tower of the empire in this Peninsula”

ANCIENT GATE OF VISAGRA.]

(to quote Abon I Hasan), the Moorish bridge, near Santa Leocadia, and the other, which crossed the old Roman waterway, have disappeared, and the legendary Palace of Galiana is let out in miserable tenements to the lowest class of peasants.

Moratin has immortalised Galiana de Toledo, “most beautiful and marvellous,” and Calderon has written of the palace built for her by her father, Galafre, who ruled over Toledo for Abd-er-Rahman I. Galafre took the old Visigoth shell, and transformed the edifice, by the witchery of Moorish windows and arches and staircases, into a palace of delight. He devoted his knowledge of hydraulics to the unkempt Toledan Vega, and made of it a paradise of leaf and bloom and rill. In the fairy garden, Charlemagne, according to tradition, found the “most beautiful and marvellous” Galiana, and carried her away from the unwelcome addresses of her Moorish admirer, Prince Bradamante, to reign over France as his queen. The arms of the Guzmans, into whose possession the palace passed under Castillian rule, may still be descried upon its dismantled front.

The wonderful clepsydras, or water clocks of Toledo, the invention of Abou-l’-Casem, Abdo-er-Rahman, or Az-Zarcal, as he is more usually styled, are quaintly and vaguely described in the following Moorish document: “One of the greatest towns of Spain is Toledo, and Toledo is a large and well-populated city. On all sides it is washed by a splendid river, called the Tagus.... Among the rare and notable things of Toledo is that wheat may be kept more than seventy years without rotting, which is a great advantage, as all the land abounds in grain and seed of all kinds. But what is still more marvellous and surprising in Toledo, and what we believe no other inhabited town of all the world has anything to equal, are some clepsydras, or water clocks. It is said that Az-Zarcal, hearing of a certain talisman, which is in the city of Arin, of Eastern India, and which, Masudi says, shows the hours by means of aspas, or hands, from the time the sun rises till it sets, determined to fabricate an artifice by means of which the people could know the hour of day or night, and calculate the day of the moon. He made two great ponds in a house on the bank of the Tagus, not far from the Gate of the Tanners, making them so that they should be filled with water or emptied according to the rise and fall of the moon.”

In Babylonia, India, and Egypt, the clepsydra was used from before the dawn of history, especially in astronomical observations, and Latin and Greek writers refer to a type which resembled the modern sand glass, and was used in the courts of law to limit the length of the pleadings. The general form of the clepsydra, which Pliny ascribed to Scipio Nasica, consisted essentially of a float, which slowly rose by the tricklings of water from above through a small hole in a plate of metal. As the float rose it pointed to a scale of hours at the side of the water vessel; or, in the more elaborate forms, moved a wheel by means of a ratchet, and thus turned a hand on a dial.

The Moorish recounter of the wonders of the water clocks of Toledo tells us that its movements were regulated by the moon. As soon as the moon became visible by means of invisible conducts, the water began to flow into the ponds, and, by day rise, the ponds were four-sevenths full. At night another seventh was added, so that by day or night the ponds continued to increase in water a seventh every twenty-four hours, and were quite full by the time the moon was full. On the 14th of the month, when the moon began to fall, the ponds also fell in like proportion. On the 21st of the month they were half empty, and on the 29th

completely so. The exact working of those clepsydras, however, is lost, as a bungling astronomer, who was deputed by Alfonso “the Learned” to examine them and discover the secret, broke the delicate machinery, and was forthwith dubbed a Jew by the indignant and exasperated Moors.

Beyond the walls of the city is a stretch of fertile land beside the Tagus, which is called the Garden of the King; and at the further end of it is the country palace of Galiana. This pleasure house is of a later date than the palace of the same name within the city; but, like that debased edifice, it is a ruin, its walls of extreme thickness, flanked with two massive towers, only remaining to represent what was once

“A palace lifting to eternal summer
Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
Of coolest foliage, musical with birds.”

In the War of Independence the French soldiers made a ruin of the one-time magnificent Casa de Vargas, which was built by Juan de Herrera, and has been described by Antonio Ponz as one of the architectural splendours of Toledo. Ponz tells us that “the façade is perfect Doric, of exquisite marble, with fluted columns on either side, and the pedestals have military emblems in bas-relief. The frieze consists of helmets, heads of bulls, and goblets. The coat of arms above the cornice is most beautiful, and the women’s forms, seated on each side, are life-size. Nothing could be finer than the details, as well as the whole of this façade, and for sure it is the most serious, the most lovely, and most finished of all I have seen in Toledo. You enter a spacious courtyard with lofty galleries running round it above and below the lower gallery, sustained by Doric pillars and by the upper Ionic columns. The staircase is truly regal, and likewise the various inner chambers. They contain different chimney pieces, ornamented with graceful fancies executed in bas-relief; and thus, in the lower quarters, as in the principal, are other galleries with columns like those of the courtyard, with delicious views of the meadows and the Tagus.”

In the most miserable quarter of the town, far up above the river, the visitor may see some huge blocks of stone, and a few broken arches--all that remains of the once magnificent Moorish palace of Henry of Aragon, lord of Villena. Henry of Aragon was an enlightened prince and erudite scholar, and the possessor of a superb collection of books, which were publicly burnt on the plea that their owner had intercourse with the devil. Don Enrique is said to have used the subterranean chambers and passages of the palace as a meeting-place for witches, and here he is supposed to have entertained his Satanic majesty. Samuel Levi, Pedro the Cruel’s treasurer, turned the palace vault into a strong-room, but the prince, in a needy moment, proved stronger; and the Toledans, following the example of their king, completed the sacking of the mansion. The Duke of Escalona, in the reign of Charles Quint, burnt the palace to the ground, and fled the city with his family, rather than give house-room to the treacherous Bourbon, the Constable of France, at the bidding of his royal master.

There is in the little plaza of Santa Isabel, a half-obliterated Arabian inscription, wishing “Lasting prosperity and perpetual glory to the master of this edifice.” This inscription identifies the ruin as the palace of King Pedro. The beautiful Casa de Mesa bears scarcely a trace of the exquisite Moorish workmanship which characterised the palace of the Dukes of Alva; it is impossible to determine from the dilapidated Casa de las Tormerias whether it was originally built for a Moorish palace or a mezquita; while

Plaster Ornaments, used as Upright and Horizontal Bands enclosing Panels on the Walls.]

some few scraps of Moorish inscription in the wood-work of a ruined wall still testify to the origin of the Casa de Munarriz. The alcazar, which was twice destroyed by fire, is represented by the façades, the three towers, the patio, and the enormous staircase--perhaps the only parts of the building that were not rebuilt by Charles Quint. The edifice commenced by that monarch, and completed by Philip II., was for long the most splendid and colossal palace in Spain. Staremberg’s troops destroyed the building by fire in 1710; and, a century later, the French troops fired the structure which Carlos III. had recomposed out of the ashes of Charles V.’s alcazar. The Casa de Mesa, the palace of Estevan de Illan, is reduced to a single chamber of exquisite Moorish workmanship; the remaining Moorish part of the Taller del Moro is used as a common workshop; the regal staircase of the alcazar, so wide that a whole army might march up its noble steps, ends in space.

As with the palaces of Toledo, so it is with its temples--the traces of Moorish art are nearly all defaced or obliterated. The mosque, which was replaced by the church of San Roman, possesses the purest mudejar steeple of Toledo, erected by Esteban de Illan, and another, if smaller, Moorish steeple, adorns the Santa Magdalena. A monument, which ranks among the most interesting in Spain, is the Cristo de la Luz, located between the Puerta del Sol and the Puerta Bisagra--a little gem of Moorish-Byzantine architecture, which is regarded as the oldest and most perfect specimen of its kind in the Peninsula. On the walls of this church, which remains to this day a perfect mosque, the conquering Alfonso VI. hung up his shield in 1035 to commemorate the first mass that was celebrated in Toledo after the defeat of the Moors. Until Tarik came to Toledo the mosque had been a Gothic temple, before which hung a cross, bearing an effigy of the crucified Christ. Legend declares that two impious Jews pricked the greatly-venerated body with a dagger, and that from the wound blood instantly gushed forth. The Jews, who attempted to evade the penalty of their folly by hiding the crucifix, were traced by the stains of blood to their house, and torn to pieces by the infuriated Christians. Tradition further asserts that the Jews planned a revenge by poisoning the feet of the restored statue, but that when a woman knelt before it the figure withdrew its foot from her kiss. Many other legends attach to the sacred relic, which was removed from before the church when the city was captured by the Moors, and secreted in a cavity in the wall, with a burning lamp placed before it. When the Moorish dominion came to an end, 370 years later, and the cavity was revealed, the unreplenished lamp was found to be still alight before the crucifix in the wall of the Moorish mosque. From this legend the church takes its name of the Christ of the Light.

This wonderful little monument, which is only twenty-two feet by twenty-five feet, possesses six short naves, which cross each other under nine vaults, and in the centre are four short, stout columns, surmounted by sculptured capitals, from which spring sixteen heavy horseshoe arches. This forest of naves and arches comprises a miniature reproduction of the mosque of Cordova. Arcades, cusped in Moorish fashion, and supported on shafts, pierce the walls; the inevitable “half orange” ceiling domes the centre, and above the principal arch is the shield of Alfonso VI., embellished with a white cross on a crimson ground, which the victorious king handed to Archbishop Bernardo to supply the place of a cross above the dismantled altar. This gem of Moorish-Byzantine architecture, so small yet so perfect,

so simple yet so fantastic, conveys an impression of amazing strength, and presents an admirable example of early Arabian work.

The nunnery of Santa Fe, which was originally a regal Moorish palace, has been shorn of nearly all its ancient beauty, which is now only traceable in the arcaded brickwork of the wall, almost obliterated by exuberant foliage. There are still the remnants of Moorish ornamentation in the convent halls and corridors of San Juan de la Penitencia, and the influence of Moorish art is also seen in some good azulejo and the artesonade ceiling of Santa Isabel.

The Alcantara bridge, which was originally a Roman structure, was repaired by the Goths in 687, and rebuilt by the Moors of 866. It was of this Moorish bridge that Rasis el Moro wrote: “It was such a rich and marvellous work, and so subtly wrought, that never man with truth could believe there was any other such fine work in Spain.” Since then it has been repaired and restored wholly, or in part, no fewer than eight times; and while these alterations have changed its style and appearance, it still remains one of the finest and most picturesque monuments of Toledo. The bridge of San Martin, which compares with it in interest and beauty, was built in 1203, and is guarded at either end with a tower and gateway adorned with Moorish arches and battlements. The bridge of San Martin gives entrance to the city through the gate of the Cambron. It is no longer Moorish, as it was in the time of Alfonso VI.; but on its half-renaissance, half-classical architecture, one may still read the remains of some of those grandiloquent utterances of the Moorish spirit which prompted Ponz to style Toledo the city of magnificent inscriptions. It was a devout, if somewhat credulous, spirit which inspired the transcription of the following article of faith: “There is but one God on earth, and Mohammed is His messenger. All the faithful who believe in our prophet Mohammed, and continue to kiss the hands and feet of Murabite Muley Abda Alcadar every day, will be without sin, will not be blind, nor deaf, nor lame, nor wounded; and receiving his benediction, when the time of his death comes, will only be three days ill and dying, will go with open eyes to Paradise forgiven of all sins.” Another inscription bore the following exhortation and compensatory promise: “Prayer and peace over our lord and prophet Mohammed. All the faithful, when they went to lie down in their beds, mentioning the Alfagiu Murabito Abdala, and recommending themselves to him, will enter no battle out of which they will not come victorious; and in whatever battle against Christians they may stain their lances with Christian blood, dying that same day, will go alive and whole with eyes open to Paradise, and his descendants will remain till the fourth generation forgiven.”

The present Visagra Gate, rebuilt under Charles V., dates back to the Moors. It is entirely Moorish in character, with the heavy simple features, the triple horseshoe arches and upper crenellated apertures which we associate with the first period of Morisco architecture. Through this gate, which is now blocked up, Alfonso VI. entered Toledo. The two graceful square towers, roofed with green and white tiles, which compose the edifice, are joined by the high turreted walls of a square courtyard, and the decorations include the Senate’s dedication of the gate to Charles Quint, the sculptured arms of the emperor, a statue of St. Eugenie, two others of Gothic kings, and a life-sized angel holding an unsheathed sword. This cold, bare inventory of the ornaments of the gate convey no idea of the splendid impressiveness of the structure, the splendour and charm of

Blank Window.]

which sink into comparative insignificance beside its glorious neighbour, the Gate of the Sun.

This magnificent gate of rough stone, with its towers of brown granite, has been rightly described as one of the world’s masterpieces. Yet here again the pen is powerless to do justice to its beauty; and to describe its proportions and decoration is to complicate, rather than explain, the impression that is conveyed by the camera. The square towers, with their semi-circular fronts, and the great central arch resting on two Moorish columns, and the zones of ornamental arches above the horse-shaped openings, comprise a Moorish gem against a Spanish sky, a miracle of loveliness upon a rough and naked rampart. But how, cries Hannah Lynch, to write of this Puerta del Sol, that “thing of beauty even among crowded enchantments! It is to pick one’s way through superlatives and points of exclamation and call in vain on the goddess of sobriety to subdue our tendency to excess and incoherence. Put this matchless gate in the middle of the desert of Sahara; it would then be worth while making the frightful journey alone to look at it. However far you may have journeyed, you would still be for ever thankful to have seen such a masterpiece--incontestably a work of supreme art, perhaps the rarest thing of the world.” Whether the writer intends her high eulogy to be applied generally to any “work of supreme art,” or to the Puerta del Sol in particular, most people who have come under the witching influence of the art of the Moors, will not deny that it is well deserved.

Rafters of a Roof over a Doorway, now destroyed, beneath the Tocador de la Reyna.]

MOORISH ORNAMENT

A NOTE ON THE ELEMENTS OF ARAB ART

In art, precept is subservient; practice is supreme. The idea which may be hidden in a picture is of little moment; it is the design, fully accomplished, which is prized. Its inspiration may become a “light to shine before men,” but it attains its paramount value only when realised.

Refinement of manners and acuteness of intellect have, in the East, nothing in common with what we call education. In this social state, ignorance, which, among us, condemns a man, may be the condition of great originality. The Arab tent-dweller was, and is, often, a very superior man; for the tent is a kind of school, always open, where, from contact with educated guests who have seen men and cities, was produced an intellectual movement which led the Arab, in exchanging his nomadic life for a settled habitation, to translate the tent to a more solid form; to commute the tent-pole for a slender marble column; and to transform luxurious products of the loom, which had adorned his former dwelling, to a semblance of their golden tissues on fairy-decorated diapery.

If the poetry and refinement of the South of Europe in modern times cannot be traced, as many authors would have us believe--notably Father Andres, a learned Spaniard, anxious to give to his own country the honour of imparting to the rest of Europe the first impulse of refinement after the fall of the Roman Empire--to the Arabs of Spain, much must still be allowed to their influence; for their progress in refinement was hardly less brilliant and rapid than their progress in Empire. At the period of the glory of Cordova, which began about A.D. 750, and continued to the time of its conquest by the Christians in 1236, the scholars of Spain were in a higher state of cultivation than could be found elsewhere; and if the Kingdom of Granada--the last stronghold of the Moslem--which ended in 1492, was less refined, it was perhaps more splendid and luxurious. The public schools and libraries of the Spanish Arabs were resorted to, not only by those of their own faith at home and in the East, but by Christians from different parts of Europe; and Pope Sylvester the Second (Gerbet, a Frenchman, Pope 999-1003), one of the most remarkable men of his age, is believed to have owed his elevation to the culture he absorbed in Seville and Cordova.

Arab art takes its place with the arts of Greece and Japan as one of the three great schools into which all styles of ornament naturally fall. Beauty and simplicity--the restrained rhythm and order which form the essential foundation of Greek art--is as distinct from the vivacious realism and unsymmetrical, haphazard decoration of the Japanese, as from that elegance and complexity produced by geometrical involutions symmetrically constructed, which constitute the basis of Moorish art. These three styles have been compared by Monsieur J. Bourgoin, in his _Elements of Arab Art_, to the three kingdoms of Nature. Greek art he likens to the animal kingdom, the Japanese art to the vegetable kingdom, and Arabian art, from the symmetry which recalls the crystallisation of minerals in its uniformity of configuration, and its elementary structure, he compares with the mineral kingdom.

Band at Springing of Arch at the Entrance to one of the Halls.]

In the art of the Arabs the inspiration is completely independent of living nature. The Arab artist proceeds from within to the exterior; he sets himself problems, and transfers them by means of the compass and rule. The decorative impulse of Arab art consists of geometrical diagrams either carved into relief, or inlaid, or simply laid flat. Since the inspiration is dry, and purely abstract, the artistic development is slight and unimportant; and, since the motive is restricted, Arab decorative art has remained simple, but still of an incomparable elegance, because the harmony between inspiration and execution is perfect. By their creed Mohammedan artists were forbidden to represent living forms, yet they adopted the principles they found in Nature, and developed them with absolute fidelity. Thus, as I showed in dealing with the architecture of the Alhambra, in surface decoration by the Moors the lines flow from a parent stem; every ornament, however distant, can be traced to its branch and root. In all cases we find the lines radiating from a parent stem, as we may see exemplified in Nature by the human hand, or in a leaf. We are never offended, as in modern practice, by the random introduction of an ornament set down without a reason for its existence. However irregular the expanse they have to decorate, they always commence by dividing the field into equal areas, and round these main lines they fill in their details, which invariably return to their parent stem, a system which proves them to have been absolute masters of space.

In the introduction to my volume on the Alhambra, I emphasised this fact, that the Moors ever had regard to the first principle of architecture--to decorate construction, never to construct decoration. In Arabian architecture, not only does the decoration arise naturally out of the construction, but the constructive idea is carried out in every detail of the ornamentation of the surfaces. A superfluous or useless ornament is never found in Moorish decoration; every ornament arises naturally and inevitably from the parent design. The general forms were first laid down; they were subdivided by general lines; the interstices were then filled in with ornament, to be again subdivided and enriched for closer inspection. The principle was carried out with the greatest refinement, and the harmony and beauty of all Moorish ornamentation is derived from its observance. The highest distinction was thereby obtained; the detail never interfering with the general form. Seen at a distance, the main lines strike the eye; on nearer approach, the ornamentation comes into the composition; and a minute inspection reveals the detail on the surface of the ornaments themselves.

Monsieur A. Rhone, in his _L’Egypte à Petites Journées_, holds that, “seeing the marvellous resources which the Arabs have found in geometry for decorating surfaces, one regrets less for art that the laws of Islamism have forbidden them, as an idolatrous act, to introduce representations of animated forms. Although these laws were not so strictly observed as is generally believed, who knows, if in turning the Arabian artists away from sculpture and statuary, they have not been the means of preserving this special and almost transcendant aptitude that the Semites have for all subtle combinations, and especially for those of geometrical numbers, lines, and figures?”

Although the principles of Moorish art are so rigid and severe, the Arabs have not remained exempt from exterior influence, but have adapted and incorporated foreign feeling into their art, and modified it to their purpose. A note by the late Owen Jones greatly emphasises this fact. He says:--“When the Mohammedan religion and civilisation

Panelling of a Recess.]

rose with such astonishing rapidity in the East, the Arabs, in their mosques, made use of the materials which they found ready to their hands in the ruins of old Roman buildings which they purposely destroyed; they took columns with their Corinthian capitals, etc., and adapted them to the arrangement required for their own temples. In their subsequent works they did not, as we should have done, continue to copy and reproduce the models which were at first so convenient to them; but, applying to them their own peculiar feelings, they gradually departed from the original model, to such an extent at last, that but for the intermediate steps we should be unable to discover the least analogy between them. Yet by this process the capitals of their columns can be traced back to the Corinthian order which they, in the first instance, found so abundantly for their use.”

Arab art must ever remain distinct from every other school and style, because the essential foundation of it is fixed and limited. Now, those who resign themselves to a style of art reduce themselves to formulas, to copies, or to diagrams. Greco-Roman art has its formulas of ordinance and propositions; Chino-Japanese art has its characteristic copies; and Syro-Arabian art its abstract and geometrical diagrams. The general elements of Arabian art, as applied to architecture and decoration, consist of stalactites, intertwinings, and ornaments. Stalactites, which are at the same time ornaments and members of architecture, are employed in corbelling, in coving, and in pendentives, and are modelled and superposed by tapia, or cut in wood and placed side by side, or opened into hollows by superficial casings in wire and tressing. The intertwinings which embellish the surfaces are carved and trimmed in splitboards of carpentry, or laid in compartments, or carved in open work, or engraved in stone, wood, and metal; or set in filigree, vignettes, or mosaics. The ornaments, which divide themselves into decoration by embroidery or embellishment in sections, reduce themselves to a small number of elements, or flower-work cut flat in outline. The outlines, complete in the boundary which limits them, are quite characteristic. They do not resemble in any way, except in so far as the unalterable laws of geometry decree, the outline drawn by Europeans, nor the cursive traits used by the Chinese and Japanese. All Arab ornament is by involution of lines; in short, it may be said to be _entirely_ geometric.

The art of the Mohammedan, so powerful in appeal to the imagination, not only by beauty and grace, but by the doctrine of the Koran inscribed in their temples on every side in ornamented characters,--so admirably traced that they appear to form part of a perfected design proclaiming the power of Allah, and impressing upon the believer respect for the laws and the love of virtue;--produces an effect little short of magical. Still does that art accompany its religion in a lingering death. Crushed by the rapid strides which surrounding nations have made in the progress of civilization, and which have outrun and ruined it, yet do a few bright emanations appear, to show that as in religion they are faithful to their creed, so in art do their crumbling monuments preserve their shattered remains on which the observer still may see, in deep characters, the chronicles of the times.

In the illustrations which accompany these brief notes, the Arab’s mastery of line in the composition of design may be studied, and its mystery revealed; but to reduce these geometrical intertwinings to their original elements demands patience, application, and very much time. At first sight these diagrams may appear monotonous, but each is constructed on a particular theme. Most of them spread

Blank Window.]

throughout the Orient, and may be more particularly studied in the Moorish monuments in Spain, where they are employed indifferently in carvings, in mosaic and inlaid work, in application to chased bronze, and in compartments of decoration and embroidery. The infinite variety the artists are able to introduce while working on strict rules, which admit of no exception, is the result of instinct perfected by centuries of practice. That in their work was something to be learned, as well as to be felt, is evident from the Moorish poet’s exhortation to us to attentively contemplate the adornments of their palaces, and thereby reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration. It is, then, for the benefit of students who would know something more of Arabian ornamentation than can be derived from the sensation produced by broad effects, and for lovers of the fine arts who would understand the inwardness of Moorish refinement and reduce its mysteries to their primary bases, that the accompanying diagrams have been reproduced.

At foot of each diagram is added a short explanatory note; but it is expedient for the student to give consideration to the _plan_ which is, in every case, set out in dotted lines. By this means, he will discover, if he approaches his subject with a free mind, that his task will offer less difficulty than would appear at the outset. To minutely describe the construction of each diagram, and, at the same time comply with the stringent rules of geometry, would occupy much too great a space; nor would the result, perhaps, be proportioned to the labour.

1 GREEK, RECTILINEAR. 1’ GREEK, CURVILINEAR. 2 CHINESE, RECTILINEAR. 2’ GREEK, CURVILINEAR. 3 and 4, GREEK, ALTERNATING PATTERN. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, GREEK, INTERCALARY PATTERNS.

11 CHINESE. 12 ASSYRIAN. 13 POMPEIAN. 14 GREEK. 15 GREEK. 16 GREEK. 17 CHINESE, ALTERNATING PATTERN.

18 GREEK, ALTERNATING PATTERN. 19 CHINESE. 20 CHINESE. 21 ARABIAN. 22 CHINESE. 23 GREEK. 24 RENAISSANCE.

25 ARABIAN. 26 CHINESE. 27 CHINESE. 28 PERSIAN. 29 POMPEIAN. 30 CHINESE. 31 CHINESE. 32 GREEK.]

Ornaments on the Walls, House of Sanchez.]

1, 2, 3, 4, GREEK AND ALBANIAN. 5, 6, 7, 8, RENAISSANCE. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, ITALIAN. 15, 16, GALLO-ROMAN. 17, 18, 19, ITALIAN. 20 ITALIAN. 21, 22, ITALIAN FAÏENCE. 23 PONDICHERY. 24 ARABIAN. 25, 26, GREEK.]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, ARABIAN. 9 CHINESE. 11 RENAISSANCE. 12 GREEK. 13 ARABIAN. 14 ARABIAN. 15 GREEK, ALTERNATING PATTERN. 16 GREEK. 17 MEXICAN AND ARABIAN. 18 GREEK. 19 ARABIAN. 20 AMERICAN, ANCIENT POTTERY. 21, 22, ARABIAN.]

Ornament in panels on the Walls.]

1, 2, EGYPTIAN. 3 EGYPTIAN NECKLACE. 4 ASSYRIAN. 5 POMPEIAN. 6 ITALIAN. 7 EGYPTIAN. 8 FRIEZE. 18TH CENTURY. 9 GREEK. 10 UNCERTAIN. 11 ARABIAN. 12 FRIEZE. 18TH CENTURY.]

1, 2, 3, 4, FROM PAINTED VASES. 5 GREEK. 6 ORIENTAL FILIGREE. 7, 8, GREEK. 9 PERSIAN. 10 GREEK. 11 CHINESE. 12 ORIENTAL FILIGREE. 13 INDIAN. 14, 15, PERSIAN. 16 ARABIAN. 17 GREEK. 18 PERSIAN. 19 ORIENTAL CHASING. 20 ARABIAN. 21 PERSIAN. 22 TURKISH. 23 GREEK. 24 PASSEMENTERIE. 25 NEAPOLITAN.]

1, 1´, DAMASCENE. 2, 2´, 2´´, 2´´´, ARABIAN. 3, 3´, ARABIAN. 4, 4´, 4´´, DAMASCENE (ANALOGOUS TO FIGS. 1´, 2´´´, 3´). 5, 5´, ARABIAN. 6, 6´, ARABIAN. 7, 8, 9, ARABIAN. 10, 10´, 11, 11’, CHINESE. 12, 12´, GREEK. 13, 14, PERSIAN. 15, 16, ANGLO-SAXON.]

1, 2, 3, GREEK. 4 EGYPTIAN. 5 STYLE “LABROUSTE.” 5´ BYZANTINE. 6 GREEK. 7, 7´, GREEK. 8, 9, 10, 10´, 11, 11´, GREEK (PARTHENON).]

_Arabian Construction._

1, 1´, ONE SPIRAL. 2, 2´, TWO SPIRALS. 3, 3´, THREE SPIRALS. 4 CROSS QUARTERLY INDICATING POSITIONS ESSENTIAL TO THE _motif_ NUMBER 3. 5, 6, 7, 8, REPETITIONS OF _motif_ NUMBER 3 VARIOUSLY TREATED. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, ARRANGEMENTS BY ALTERNATING TREATMENT OF _motif_ NUMBER 3. THESE ARRANGEMENTS AFFORD EXCELLENT EXAMPLES OF THE ENDLESS DIVERSITY OF GEOMETRIC FORMS.]

Centre Ornament of the Window.

Dado. Dado.

Pilaster. Pilasters.

Mosaic Dado in a window.

The recess or divan containing these beautiful Mosaics was, doubtless, the throne of the Moorish kings. The Mosaics are as perfect as when originally executed, and seem, indeed, to be imperishable. They are formed of baked clay squeezed into moulds of the different figures, glazed on the surface.]

Mosaic Dados on pillars between windows.

The Mosaic Dados on the pillars present a great variety in their patterns, although the component parts are in each the same.]

Mosaic Dados on pillars between windows.

These Mosaics, though in appearance so different from those of the preceding plate, will be found on examination to be composed of the same pieces differently combined.]

Lining of one of Pilaster. the columns.

Dado. Dado. Dado.

The beautiful Mosaic in the centre of this plate is part of the Dado.]

Pavement of the Hall of the Baths.

Mosaic Dado round the internal walls of the Mosque.

Mosaics from the Mosque and the Hall of the Baths. The Mosaic Dados
round the walls of the Mosque appear to be the only portions of the
ancient private Mosque attached to the Palace which have been
preserved intact in their original situation. The motto of the
Kings of Granada, “_There is no conqueror but God_,” was replaced
by “_Nec plus ultra_” of Charles V., when the Mosque was converted
by him into a chapel. The beautiful Mosaic at the top of the plate
is placed round the fountain of the Chamber of Repose of the Baths.]

Azulejos. Painted Tiles.

On the floor of one of the alcoves of the Hall of Justice are to be seen the painted tiles delineated in the centre of this plate.]

Mosaics in the Baths.]

Mosaic from the portico of the Generalife.]

4, 5, 6, VARIATIONS ON A _motif_ HISPANO-ARABIAN.

7, 8, 9, VARIATIONS ON A _motif_, SYRO-ARABIAN.

10, 11, 12, VARIATIONS ON A _motif_, GALLO-ROMAN.]

Ornaments in Panels.]

2 DOUBLE PLAIT.

3 SIMPLE PLAIT, INTERSECTED.

4 PLAIT, FROM A GREEK VASE.

5 REDOUBLED PLAIT, GREEK.

6 INFLECTED PLAIT, GREEK.

7 INFLECTED PLAIT, GREEK.

8 QUADRUPLED PLAITS, INTERLACED, SICILIAN.

9 SICILIAN.

10 TRIPLE PLAIT, GREEK.

11 TRIPLE PLAIT, GREEK.

12 DIVERSIFIED PLAIT, NEAPOLITAN.

13 GREEK.

14 GREEK.

15 ARABIAN.

16 PERSIAN (THREE PLAITS, INTERSECTED).

17 GREEK.]

Ornaments over Arches at one of the Entrances.]

1 DERIVED FROM THE PENTAGON.

2 VARIETY OF PROCEEDING.

3, 4, TRIGONOMETRICAL.

5 OCTAGONAL.

6 HEPTAGONAL.

7 QUADRILATERAL.

8 OCTAGONAL.]

1 SQUARES AND OCTAGONS.

2 DERIVED FROM SQUARES.

3 DERIVED FROM THE SQUARE: FROM THE CENTRE A DODECAGON AND OTHER FIGURES ARE FORMED BY SUB-DIVISION.

4 DERIVED FROM THE SQUARE: THE ANGLES BEING DIVIDED, THE RESULTING RAYS DETERMINE THE FIGURES BY INTERSECTION.

5 ANALOGOUS TO FIGURE 2.

6 TRIGONOMETRICAL.

7 HEXAGONAL.]

Ornaments on the Walls.]

2, 3, 4, ARABIAN.

5 JAPANESE.

6 GRECO-ASSYRIAN.

7 ARABIAN.

8 CHINESE.]

2 ORNAMENTED BRICK, ROSETTA.

3, 4, 5, 6, FOUR ANALOGOUS _motifs_, RESPECTIVELY CHINESE, ARABIAN (_bis_) AND GRECO-ASSYRIAN.

7 ARABIAN.

8 GRECO-EGYPTIAN.]

Ornaments in Panels on the Walls.]

2 CEILING, LOUIS XIII.

3, 4, 5, ARABIAN (DAMASCUS)?

6 INDIAN.]

2 RENAISSANCE.

3 MEXICAN.

4 CHINESE.

5 EGYPTIAN.

6 ARABIAN.

7, 8, 9, EARLY TILES, FROM DAMASCUS, ROME, AND FLORENCE RESPECTIVELY.

10 ITALIAN.

11, 11’, EGYPTIAN.

12 ITALIAN.]

Small Panel in Jamb of a Window.]

2 ARABIAN CEILING, FROM CAIRO.

3 CEILING, PAINTED BY DUBAN.

4 BYZANTINE.

5 CHINESE.

6 POMPEIAN.]

Small Panel in Jamb of a Window.]

3, 3’, EGYPTIAN.

4, 4’, EGYPTIAN.

5, 6, EGYPTIAN.]

4 EGYPTIAN. STRANGELY ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 3.

5, 6, 7, ANGLO-SAXON.

8 EGYPTIAN.]

2 ITALIAN.

3 RENAISSANCE.

4 ARABIAN.

5 ARABIAN.

6 ARABIAN.]

4 SICILIAN.

5, 6, 7, 8, ARABIAN.

9, 10, CHISELLINGS ON STONE, JERUSALEM.

11 MARBLE CHASING, JERUSALEM.

12, 13, ARABIAN CHASINGS, ON COPPER.]

Panel in the Upper Chamber of the House of Sanchez.]

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, GREEK, FROM EXAMPLES AT ATHENS.]

FIGURE 7 IS FROM A MURAL DECORATION AT POMPEII.]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES

HEXAGONAL FAMILY

Spandril from Niche of Doorway at one of the Entrances.]

Lintel of a Doorway.]

Capital of Columns.]

Capital of Columns.]

Capital of Columns.]

SEVILLE.

Socle of the Entrance Arch to the Antechapel.]

SEVILLE.

Socle of the Entrance Arch to the Chapel.]

Detail of the Tiles of the Altar.]

SEVILLE.

Socle in the Interior of the Chapel.]

SEVILLE.

Socle in the Interior of the Chapel.]

Mosaics from Various Halls.]

Part of Ceiling of a Portico.]

]

]

End of Project Gutenberg's Moorish Remains in Spain, by Albert F. Calvert