Chapter II: Part 2

The prince was astonished at this display of the lyrical gift by a woman of her condition, and ordered one of his eunuchs to conduct her to the palace. On being questioned, she informed him that she was called Romikiwa, because she was the slave of Romiya, and was a driver of mules.

“Are you married?” asked the prince.

“No, sire.”

“It is well, for I shall buy you and marry you.”

It is to be hoped that Romikiwa’s merits as a wife exceeded her abilities as a poetess.

The Alcazar, the palace inhabited by this dilettante amir and his successors of the race of Abbad, continued to be the principal residence of the subsequent rulers of Ishbiliyah, both Almoravides and Almohades. There can be no doubt that the latter restored and reconstructed the building to an extent that almost effaced the work of the founders. But the impress of the Berber architects was in its turn almost entirely lost when the fabric came into the possession of the Christians. Thus the Alcazar cannot be rightly classed among the monuments of the Almohade period. It is certain that its extent at this time was greater than it is now. Its enclosure was bounded by the city wall, which ran down to the river, and occupied the whole angle formed by the two. The Alcazar was then primarily a fortress, and its walls were flanked on every side by watch-towers such as those with which its front is still furnished. The principal entrance seems to have been at the Torre de la Plata (silver tower), which was standing as late as 1821. Finally, among the works of the last Musulman rulers of Seville, we must not omit to mention the great aqueduct of four hundred and ten arches, called the Caños de Carmona, constructed in 1172, which ensured the city an abundant supply of water from the reservoir of Alcalá de Guadaira. The Almohades had other palaces in the city. The old residence of Abdelasis yet remained, and we hear of the palaces of St Hermenegildo and of the Bib Ragel (or northern gate).

The Almohades kinged it nobly in Andalusia; but these successive revivals of fervour and activity in Western Islam may be compared to the last strong spasms of a dying man. Despite these furious inrushes of Almoravides and Al-Muwahedun, the Christians were slowly but surely gaining ground. The lieutenants of Abd-ul-Mumin subjugated Granada and Almeria in the east, Badajoz and Evora in the west. The Moorish amir of Valencia did homage to Yusuf, Abd-ul-Mumin’s son and successor, at Ishbiliyah. The third sovereign of the dynasty, Yakub Al Mansûr, dealt what seemed a crushing blow to the allied Spaniards at Alarcos in 1195. Had that victory been properly followed up, perhaps to this day a Mohammedan power might have been seated firmly in the south of Spain, and the Strait of Gibraltar might have been a western Dardanelles.

But the Christians rallied. In 1212 was fought the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, between the Moorish Khalif An-Nasr and the Castilian King, Alfonso VIII. The Musulmans were totally defeated. “Six hundred thousand combatants,” says El Makkari, with perhaps a trace of Oriental hyperbole, “were led by An-Nasr to the field of battle; all perished, except a few that did not amount to a thousand. This battle was a malediction, not only on Andalus but on all the West.”

Yet the downfall of the Islamite power did not immediately follow. An-Nasr survived his defeat seven years, and his son, Abu Yusuf Yakub Al-Mustanser, reigned four more inglorious years. His dying (1223) without children was the signal for dissensions and disturbances throughout his still vast empire. While Abd-ul-Wahed was proclaimed Khalifa in Morocco, Al Adil took up the reins of sovereignty in Murcia. Both pretenders soon disappeared from the troubled scene, Abd-ul-Wahed being assassinated, and his rival, after having been defeated in Spain by the Christians, being forced to take refuge in Morocco, there to abdicate in favour of An-Nasr’s son, Yahya. Abu-l-Ala, Al Adil’s brother, who had been left as governor in Ishbiliyah, declared himself Khalifa on learning the accession of Yahya. He was the last of the race of Abd-ul-Mumin to rule in the city. He was driven from Spain--to found a wider empire in Africa--by Mohammed Ben Yusuf, variously styled Ben Hud and Al Jodhami.

The storm-clouds were gathering fast over the beautiful city by the Guadalquivir. Spain’s great national hero, St Ferdinand, now wore the crown of Castile. He routed the Moors at Jerez, and in 1235 wrested from them their most ancient and glorious metropolis, Cordova. The discord and sedition which history shows are the usual prelude to the extinction of a state, were not wanting at Seville. Ben Hud died in 1238, and his subjects turned once more in their despair to the African Almohades. But no new army of Ghazis crossed the strait to do battle with the Unbeliever. Despite their protestations of allegiance to the Khalifa of Barbary, the Moors of Seville were left to fight their last fight unassisted. When the Castilian army appeared before the walls, the defence was directed, strangely enough for a Mohammedan community, by a junta of six persons. Their names are worthy of being recorded: Abu Faris, called by the Spaniards Axataf, Sakkáf, Shoayb, Ben Khaldûn, Ben Khiyar, and Abu Bekr Ben Sharih.

The siege of Ishbiliyah lasted fifteen months. Material assistance was lent to the Spaniards by Musulman auxiliaries, among them the Amirs of Jaën and Granada. The Castilian fleet under Admiral Ramon Bonifaz dispersed the Moorish ships, while the Sevillian land forces were driven to take refuge within the walls. The Admiral succeeded in breaking the chain stretched across the river, and thus cut off the garrison from their principal magazines in the suburb of Triana. Only when in the clutches of famine did the defenders ask for terms. They offered to give up the city, on the condition that they should be allowed to demolish the mosque. The Infante Alfonso replied that if a single brick were displaced, the whole population would be put to the sword. The garrison finally surrendered on the promise that all inhabitants who desired to do so should be free to leave the city with their families and property, and that those who elected to remain should pay the Castilian king the same tribute they had hitherto paid to the native ruler. The brave Abu Faris was invited to accept an honourable post under the conqueror, but he magnanimously declined and retired to Africa. Thither thousands of his countrymen followed him. Indeed, probably only a few thousand Moors remained behind in Seville.

Ferdinand took possession on December 22nd, 1248. He took up his residence in the Alcazar and allotted houses and territory to his officers. It is worthy of remark that the first Christian soldier to ascend the Giralda was a Scotsman named Lawrence Poore. Among the first duties of the saintly king was the purification of the mosque and its conversion into a Christian church.

Seville, after having remained in the hands of the Musulmans five hundred and thirty-six years, had passed from them for ever.

SEVILLE UNDER THE CASTILIAN KINGS

The outward transformation of the Moorish Ishbiliyah into Seville, the Christian capital, proceeded slowly and gradually. The personal devotion and profound religious fervour of King Ferdinand notwithstanding, even the war which resulted in the taking of the city cannot be regarded as a crusade. As we have seen, Mohammedan troops fought under the banners of the Christian king and contributed to his victory; and in the division of the spoils these allies were not forgotten. Satisfied with their triumph, the Castilians showed moderation in their treatment of their Muslim subjects. The fall of Ishbiliyah was attended by no outburst of iconoclastic fury. The conquerors were delighted with the beauty and richness of their prize, and had no desire to impair the handiwork of their predecessors.

The transition from the pure Arabic and Almohade styles of architecture to what is called the Mudejar style was therefore almost imperceptible. The physiognomy of the city altered but slowly. But the alteration was from the first inevitable. Houses and lands were bestowed on knights from all parts of Spain on the condition of their residing permanently in Seville. Catalans, Galicians, Castilians of all trades and ranks flocked in, and their influence was bound sooner or later to assert itself. But the builders and artisan class remained for many years composed of Moors--sometimes Christianised, but thoroughly imbued with the artistic traditions of their forebears. Thus came about that peculiar and graceful blending of the Moorish and Gothic and earlier Renaissance styles known to Spanish writers as the Mudejar. Its differentiation from the Arabic naturally became more marked as the centuries rolled by.

Moorish architecture was thus accepted by the conquerors of Seville both from choice and necessity. But certain important modifications in the structure of buildings became immediately necessary, owing to the difference of faith and customs. The mosque and the dwelling-house alike had to undergo some alteration. No _mihrab_ was required, nor minaret, nor the south-easterly position; in the dwelling-house there was no need for harem, for retired praying-place, for the baths so dear to the Andalusian Muslim.

Probably the first building of importance to be affected by the change of rulers was the mosque. The outermost naves were divided into chapels, the names and order of which have been preserved for us by Zuñiga (quoted by Madrazo).

The royal chapel occupied the centre of the eastern wall; the other chapels were: San Pedro, Santiago, Santa Barbara, San Bernardo, San Sebastian (in this chapel were buried some Moors of the blood royal who had been baptised and had served King Ferdinand, among them being Don Fernando Abdelmon, son of Abu Seyt, Amir of Baeza), San Ildefonso, San Francisco, San Andrés, San Clemente, San Felipe, San Mateo (containing the sepulchre of the Admiral of Castile, Don Juan de Luna), Don Alonso Perez de Guzman, San Miguel, San Marcos, San Lucas, San Bernabe, San Simon, and San Judas, and the Magdalena. In the last-named chapel were buried the knights who had taken part in the capture of the city. Attached to it was the altar of Nuestra Señora de Pilar, a reputedly miraculous shrine which became the objective of pilgrims in after years.

Chapels were also constructed in the four cloisters of the Patio de los Naranjos. The cloister of the Caballeros contained eight--one of which, Santa Lucia, was the place of sepulchre of the Haro family; the cloister of the Granada contained three; the cloister of San Esteban, three; the cloister of San Jorge or Del Lagarto, four--in one of which, San Jorge, reposed that doughty warrior, Garci Perez de Vargas, who distinguished himself before all his compeers at the assault of Seville. This cloister was named Del Lagarto from the remains of an enormous crocodile, a present from the Sultan of Egypt to King Alfonso el Sabio, which are still suspended from the roof.

The cathedral--for so we must now call the mosque--was endowed and richly embellished by St Ferdinand’s son and successor, the bookish monarch Alfonso el Sabio. He also bestowed upon Seville its existing coat-of-arms, consisting of the device NO8DO, which frequently appears, to the bewilderment of strangers, on public buildings, uniforms, and documents. The knot is in the vernacular _madeja_; the device thus reads _no madeja do_, or, with an excusable pun, _no me ha dejado_--“it has not deserted me.” This honourable motto the city won by its loyalty to Alfonso during the civil wars which distracted the kingdom during his reign. Seville bears the splendid title of “Most noble, most loyal, most heroic, and unconquered city” (_muy noble_, _muy leal_, _muy heroica_, _y invicta_). The surname “most noble” was bestowed upon it by St Ferdinand; the style “most faithful” it received from Juan II. in remembrance of its resistance to the Infante Don Enrique; “most heroic” from Fernando VII. in recognition of its devotion to the national cause during the War of Independence; and “unconquered” from Isabel II. to commemorate its defence against the army of Espartero in July 1843.

The successors of the sainted king made their home in the Alcazar, and adapted themselves to an environment created by their traditional foes. The personality which looms largest in the history of the city is that of Don Pedro I., surnamed the Cruel, or, by his few admirers, ‘the Justiciary.’ What Harun-al-Rashid is in the story of Bagdad is this ferocious monarch in the annals of Seville. Countless are the tales, the ballads, and traditions of which he is the subject. Curiously enough, Pedro enjoyed a certain measure of popularity in the country he misgoverned. He was undoubtedly a vigilant protector of the humbler classes of his subjects against the tyranny of the aristocracy, and officials, and appears to have combined a grim humour and a strain of what we should now call Bohemianism, with a tiger-like ferocity. He was fond of rambling _incognito_ through the poorer quarters of the city; and no account of Seville can be considered complete without a relation of one of his most notable adventures in the street called Calle de la Cabeza de Don Pedro.

The king had promulgated a decree holding the municipal authorities answerable with their lives for the preservation of peace and public order within their jurisdiction. A few nights later, wandering, heavily cloaked as we may suppose, through a dark alley, a gentleman brushed rudely against him. A brawl ensued, swords were drawn, and Pedro ran his subject through the body. Flattering himself that there had been no witness to the encounter, he stalked away. In the morning the hidalgo’s body was found, but there appeared to be no clue as to the assassin. The king summoned the Alcalde and reminded him of the edict. If the miscreant were not discovered within two days the luckless magistrate must himself pay the penalty on the scaffold. It was a situation with precisely the humorous aspect that Pedro relished.

But presently to the Alcalde came an old lady with a strange but welcome story. She told how she had seen a fight between two gentlemen, the previous night, from her bed-chamber window. She witnessed the fatal termination, and lo! the light of her candle fell full on the face of the murderer; and as he bent forward, she heard his knee crack. By his features and by this well-known physical peculiarity, she recognised, beyond all possibility of a mistake, the king.

Next day the Alcalde invited his sovereign to attend the execution of the criminal. Greatly wondering, no doubt, Pedro came. Dangling from a rope he beheld his own effigy. “It is well,” he said, after an ominous pause. “Justice has been done. I am satisfied.”

We may be inclined to disagree with the king’s conception of justice as evinced on this occasion. More equitable and humorous was his action when a priest, for murdering a shoemaker, was condemned by his ecclesiastical superiors to suspension from his sacerdotal functions for twelve months. Pedro thereupon decreed that any tradesman who slew a priest should be punished by being restrained from exercising his trade for the like period!

The catalogue of this Castilian monarch’s crimes proves interesting if gloomy reading. He left his wife, Blanche de Bourbon, to perish in a dungeon; he married Juana de Castro and insultingly repudiated her within forty-eight hours; he put to death his father’s mistress, Leonor de Guzman. He threw the young daughter of his brother, Enrique de Trastamara, naked to the lions, like some Christian virgin-martyr. But the good-humoured (and possibly well-fed) brutes refused to touch the proffered prey. Not wishing to be outdone in generosity by a wild beast, Pedro ever afterwards treated the maiden kindly. She was known, in remembrance of her terrible experience, as Leonor de los Leones.

The Jew, Don Simuel Ben Levi, had served Pedro long and only too faithfully as treasurer and tax-gatherer. It was whispered in his master’s ear that half the wealth that should fill the royal coffers was diverted into his own. Ben Levi was seized without warning and placed on the rack, where the noble Israelite is said to have died, not of pain, but of pure indignation. Under his house--so the story has it--was a cavern filled with three piles of gold and silver so high that a man standing behind any one of them was completely hidden. “Had Don Simuel given me the third of the least of these three piles,” exclaimed the king, “I would not have had him tortured. Why would he rather die than speak?”

Somewhat more excusable was the treatment meted out to the Red King of Granada, Abu Saïd; for this prince was himself a usurper, and had behaved traitorously towards his own sovereign and his suzerain, the King of Castile. Fearing Pedro’s resentment, he appeared at his court at Seville with a retinue of three hundred, loaded with presents, among which was the enormous ruby that now decorates the Crown of England. He was received in audience by the Spanish king, whom he begged to arbitrate between him and the deposed King of Granada. Pedro returned a gracious reply, and entertained the Red King in the Alcazar. Before many hours had passed the Moors were seized in their apartments and stripped of their raiment and valuables. Abu Saïd, mounted on a donkey and ridiculously attired, was taken, with thirty-six of his courtiers, to a field outside the town. There they were bound to posts. A train of horsemen appeared, Don Pedro among them, and transfixed the helpless men with darts, the king shouting as he hurled his missiles at the luckless Abu Saïd, “This for the treaty you made me conclude with Aragon!” “This for the castle you lost me!” The Moors met their death with the stoical resignation of their race.

That atrocities committed against Jews and infidels, against even members of the royal family, should be regarded with indifference by the public of that day need not surprise us. But the people of Seville tamely suffered the most cruel wrongs to be inflicted by the tyrant on their own fellow-citizens. After his (or rather the Black Prince’s) victory over Don Enrique at Najera (1367), the Admiral Bocanegra and Don Juan Ponce de Leon were beheaded on the Plaza San Francisco. Garci Jufre Tenorio, the mayor of the city, also suffered death. The property of Doña Teresa Jufre was confiscated because she had spoken ill of his Majesty. Doña Urraca Osorio, because her son had taken part with Don Enrique in the revolt, was burned at the stake on the Alameda. Her servant, Leonor Dávalos, threw herself into the flames and shared the fate of her mistress. In consequence of this persecution, Seville lost several of her most illustrious families, which either became extinguished or removed themselves to other parts of Spain.

So much for the picturesque if repugnant personality of Pedro I. With his sinister memory the Alcazar is so intimately associated, and the part he took in its reconstruction was so conspicuous that this may be deemed the proper place to deal with that famous building--one of the two most important in Seville.

THE ALCAZAR

“The Alcazar,” says Señor Rafaél Contreras, “is not a classic work, nor does it present to-day that stamp of originality and that ineffaceable character which distinguish ancient works like the Parthenon and modern works like the Escorial. In the Alcazar of Yakub Yusuf the influence of the heroic generation has faded away, and it portrays instead the daily life of our Christian kings who have enriched it with a thousand pages of glorious history. The Almohades, who impressed on the building their African characteristics in 1181, and Jalubi, who had been a follower of Al-Mehdi in the conquest of Africa, left on its walls traces of the Roman influences met with in the course of their movements. St Ferdinand, who conquered it, Don Pedro I., who restored it, Don Juan II., who reconstructed the most elegant apartments, the Catholic sovereigns, who built within its precincts chapels and oratories, Charles V., who added more than a half in the modified style of that epoch of the Renaissance, Philip III. and Philip V., who enlarged it still more by building in the adjacent gardens--these, and other princes who inhabited it during six centuries, have changed the original structure to such an extent that to-day it is far from being a monument of oriental art, though we find it covered with fine arabesques and embellished with mosaics and gilding.”

Though not a monument of oriental art, the Alcazar seems to us to have claims to rank as a specimen of Moorish architecture; for the general character of the structure was determined by the restorations effected by order of Pedro I., and these were, probably exclusively, the work of Moorish artisans, not only of Seville, but from Granada, then a Moorish city. This accounts for the resemblance of this palace to the more famous Alhambra. But the Alcazar is not to be dismissed as a mere pseudo-Moorish palace. It remains, to a great extent, the work of Moorish hands and the conception of Moorish architects.

In spite of the severe strictures of fastidious observers, the Alcazar produces a very pleasing impression on northern visitors. Mr W. M. Gallichan writes: “It is a palace of dreams, encircled by lovely perfumed gardens. Its courts and salons are redolent of Moorish days and haunted by the spirits of turbaned sheiks, philosophers, minstrels, and dark-eyed beauties of the harem.... The nightingales still sing among the odorous orange bloom, and in the tangles of roses birds still build their nests. Fountains tinkle beneath gently moving palms; the savour of orientalism clings to the spot. Here wise men discussed in the cool of summer nights, when the moon stood high over the Giralda and white beams fell through the spreading boughs of the lemon trees, and shivered upon the tiled pavements.

“In this garden the musicians played and the tawny dancers writhed and curved their lissome bodies, in dramatic Eastern dances. _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, lost in cogitation. 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 menials.”

The Alcazar, as we have said, at the time of the reconquest covered a much larger space than at present; and its area was even greater in the days of Pedro I. Its strength as a fortress may be gauged by a glance at the remaining walls, adjacent to the principal entrance. In the Plaza de Santo Tomas is an octagonal, one-storeyed tower, called the Torre de Abdalasis, which once formed part of the building, and is said to have been the spot on which St Ferdinand hoisted his flag on the fall of Seville. To enter the palace we pass across the Plaza del Triunfo and enter the Patio de las Banderas, so called either because a flag was hoisted here when the royal family were in residence or on account of the trophy displayed over one of the arches, composed of the Arms of Spain with supporting flags. From this court a colonnade called the Apeadero leads to the Patio de la Monteria. It was built, as an inscription over the portal records, by Philip III. in 1607, and restored and devoted to the purposes of an armoury by the fifth sovereign of that name in 1729. The Patio de la Monteria derives its name from the Royal Lifeguards, the Monteros de Espinosa, having their quarters here. These courts, with the commonplace private houses which surround them, occupy the site of the old Moorish palace of the Almohades. Some of the houses exhibit vestiges of fine Musulman work. The house No. 3 of the Patio de las Banderas formed part, in the opinion of Gestoso y Perez, of the Stucco Palace (Palacio del Yeso) mentioned by Ayala as having been built by Pedro I. That potentate, it is worthy of remark, was accustomed to administer justice, tempered with ferocity, after the oriental fashion, seated on a stone bench in a corner of this _patio_. The room in which the Almohade governors presided over their tribunals still exists. It is surrounded by houses, and is entered from the Patio de la Monteria. Contreras sees in this hall (the Sala de Justicia) the traces of a work anterior to the ninth century. It was, however, restored by Pedro. It is square, and measures nine metres across. The ceiling is of stucco and adorned with stars, wreaths, and a painted frieze. Inscriptions in beautiful Cufic characters constitute the principal decoration of the apartment. Round the four walls runs a tastefully worked stucco frieze, interrupted by several right-angled apertures. These were once covered, in the opinion of Herr Schmidt, by screens of plaster, which kept out the sun’s heat but admitted the light; or, according to Gestoso y Perez, by tapestries “which must have made the hall appear a miracle of wealth and splendour.” Thanks to its isolation, the Sala de Justicia escaped the “restoration” effected in the middle of the nineteenth century by order of the Duc de Montpensier.

It was in this hall (often overlooked by visitors) that Don Pedro overheard four judges discussing the division of a bribe they had received. They were beheaded on the spot, and their skulls are still to be seen in the walls of the king’s bed-chamber.

From the Patio de la Monteria we pass into the Patio del Leon. In the fifteenth century, we read, tournaments were often held here. Our attention is at once directed to the superb façade of the main building or Alcazar proper--the palace of Don Pedro. It is a splendid work of art. The columns are of rare marble with elegant Moorish capitals. The portal is imposing, and was rebuilt by Don Pedro, as the legend in curious Gothic characters informs us: ‘The most high, the most noble, the most powerful, and most victorious Don Pedro, King of Castile and Leon, commanded these palaces, these alcazares, and these entrances to be made in the year [of Cæsar] one thousand four hundred and two” (1364). Elsewhere on the façade are the oft-repeated inscriptions in Cufic characters: “There is no conqueror but Allah,” “Glory to our lord, the Sultan,” “Eternal glory to Allah,” “Eternal is the dominion of Allah,” etc.

This gate, in the opinion of Contreras, is of Arabic origin and in the Persian style, after which were built most of the entrances to mosques of the first period. The square opening is often seen in Egypt, and supplanted the more graceful horse-shoe arch. The pilasters are Arabic throughout; but the arch balconies, the Byzantine columns, and Roman capitals are works of Don Pedro’s time.

The palace of the Alcazar forms an irregular oblong. The Patio de las Doncellas or Patio Principal occupies the centre, roughly speaking, and upon it open the various halls and chambers according to the usual Moorish plan. This _patio_ is absurdly named from its being the supposed place in which were collected the hundred damsels said to have been sent by way of annual tribute by Mauregato to the Moors. It is hardly necessary to say that the damsels would have been sent to Cordova, which was the capital of the Khalifate, not to Seville, and that this court was among the restorations of the fourteenth century.

The court is rectangular, and surrounded by a gallery composed of white marble columns in pairs, supporting pointed arches. The soffite (or inner side) of the arch is scalloped or serrated. The central arch in each side is higher and larger than its fellows, and springs from square imposts resting on the twin columns. At each angle of the impost is a graceful little pillar--“a characteristic,” observes Madrazo, “of the Arabic-Grenadine architecture, such as may often be noticed in the magnificent Alhambra of the Alhamares.” Over the arches runs a flowing scroll with Arabic inscriptions, among them being “Glory to our lord the Sultan Don Pedro; may God lend him His aid and render him victorious”, and this very remarkable text, “There is but one God; He is eternal. He was not begotten and does not beget, and He has no equal.” This is evidently an inscription remaining from Musulman days, and spared in their ignorance by the Christian owners of the palace. On the frieze will also be noticed the escutcheons of Don Pedro and the Catholic sovereigns, and the favourite devices of Charles V.--the Pillars of Hercules and motto “Plus Oultre.” Behind the central arches are as many doors with elaborately ornamented arches. On either side of each door is a double window, framed with broad, ornamental bands, with conventional floral designs. Round the inner walls of the arcade runs a high dado of glazed tile mosaic (_azulejo_), brilliantly coloured and cut with exquisite skill. The combinations and variations of the design repay examination, and will be seen to extend all round the gallery. This decoration was probably executed by Moorish workmen in the time of Pedro I. Finally, above the doors run wide friezes with shuttered windows, through which the light falls on the gleaming mosaic. The ceiling of the gallery dates from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, but was restored in 1856.

Three recesses in the _patio_ are pointed out as the spots where Don Pedro held his audiences; but Contreras is of opinion that they are the walled-up entrances to former corridors which communicated with the Harem. That apartment probably faced the Salón de los Embajadores.

A wide cornice separates the lower part of the court from the upper gallery. This is composed of balustrades, arches, and columns in white marble of the Ionic order, and was the work of Don Luis de Vega (sixteenth century).

One of the doors opening on to the Patio de las Doncellas gives access to the Salón de los Embajadores (Hall of the Ambassadors), the finest apartment in the Alcazar. Its dazzling splendour is produced by the blending of five distinct styles, the Arabic, Almohade or true Moorish, Gothic, Grenadine or late Moorish, and Renaissance. Measuring about thirty-three feet square, it has four entrances, of which that giving on to the Patio de las Doncellas may be considered the principal. Here we find folding-doors in the Arabic style of extraordinary size and beauty. Each wing is 5.30 metres high by 1.97 broad, and adorned with painted inlaid work, varied by Arabic inscriptions. One of these latter is of great interest. It runs as follows: “Our Lord and Sultan, the exalted and high Don Pedro, King of Castile and Leon (may Allah prosper him and his architect), ordered these doors of carved wood to be made for this apartment (in honour of the noble and fortunate ambassadors), which is a source of joy to the happy city, in which the palaces, the alcazares, and these mansions for my Lord and Master were built, who only showed forth his splendour. The pious and generous Sultan ordered this to be done in the city of Seville with the aid of his intercessor [Saint Peter?] with God. Joy shone in their delightful construction and embellishment. Artificers from Toledo were employed in the work; and this took place in the fortunate year 1404 [1364 A.D.]. Like the evening twilight and the refulgence of the twilight of the aurora is this work. A throne resplendent in brilliant colours and eminence. Praise be to Allah!”

The three remaining portals present graceful round arches, enclosing three lesser arches (forming the actual entrances) of the horse-shoe type. These last are believed, as we have said elsewhere, to be of Abbadite origin. The capitals of their supporting columns are fine examples of the Arab-Byzantine style. Above the horse-shoe arches, and comprised within the outer arch, are three lattices. The whole space within the arch is covered with delicate filigree work.

This hall was once known as the Salón de la Media Naranja (Hall of the Half Orange) from the elegant shaping of its carved wooden ceiling. This rests upon a frieze decorated with the Tower and Lion, and supporting this again are beautiful carved and gilded stalactites or pendants. On the intervening wall spaces are Cufic inscriptions on a blue ground, and female heads painted by sixteenth-century vandals. Then follows another frieze with the devices of Castile and Leon, below which is a row of fifty-six niches, containing the portraits of the kings of Spain from Receswinto the Goth to Philip III. The earliest of these seem to have been painted in the sixteenth century, while the little columns and trefoil windows that separate them may be ascribed to the end of the fourteenth. The series is interrupted by four rectangular spaces, formerly occupied by windows, but now taken up by elegant balconies in wrought iron, the work of Francisco López (1592). The decoration of this magnificent chamber is completed by a high dado of white, blue, and green glazed tiles. It was probably in this hall that Abu Saïd, “the Red King,” was received by Don Pedro prior to his murder.

In an apartment to the right of the Ambassadors’ Hall, a plaster frieze of Arabic origin, showing figures in silhouette, may be noticed; and in a room to the left, other silhouettes, apparently referring to the qualities attributed by his admirers to Pedro I.

On the north side of the Patio de las Doncellas lies the so-called Dormitorio de los Reyes Moros (Bed-chamber of the Moorish Kings). The entrance arch is semicircular, and includes three graceful lattice windows, richly ornamented. On either side of the door is a beautiful double-window with columns dating from the Khalifate. The doors themselves are richly inlaid, and painted with geometrical patterns. The interior of the chamber is adorned, like all other apartments in the Alcazar, with plaster friezes, and is so richly decorated that scarcely a hand’s-breadth (remarks Herr Schmidt) is without ornamentation. To the right of the entrance lies a small apartment known as the Sultan’s Alcove. Opposite the entrance from the _patio_ are three horse-shoe arches belonging to the earliest period of Spanish-Arabic art, leading to an _Al-Hami_ or alcove.

From the Dormitorio we may pass into the quaintly named Patio de las Muñecas, or Puppet’s Court. It is a spot with tragical associations, for here took place the murder of the Master of Santiago, Don Fadrique de Trastamara, by his brother, Don Pedro--a fratricide to be avenged years after by another fratricide at Montiel. The Master, after a campaign in Murcia, had been graciously received by the king, and went to pay his respects to the lovely Maria de Padilla in another part of the palace. It is said that she warned him of his impending fate; perhaps her manner, if not her words, should have aroused him to a sense of his danger; but the soldier prince returned to the royal presence. “Kill the Master of Santiago!” Pedro shouted, so the story goes. The Master’s sword was entangled in his scarf; he was separated from his retinue. He fled to this court, where he was struck down. One of his retainers took refuge in Maria de Padilla’s apartment, where he tried to screen himself by holding the king’s daughter, Doña Beatriz, before his breast. Pedro tore the child away, and despatched the unfortunate man with his own hand.

The Patio de las Muñecas is in the Grenadine style. It has suffered severely at the hands of the restorers of 1833 and 1843. The arches are semicircular and spring from brick pillars, which are supported by marble columns with rich capitals. The arches, which form an arcade round the court, are decorated with fine mosaic and trellis (_ajaraca_) work. The whole is tastefully painted. The arches vary in size, that looking towards the Ambassadors’ Hall being almost pear-shaped. The columns are of different colours, and the pillars they uphold are inscribed with Cufic characters. The upper part of the _patio_ reveals a not very skilful attempt to imitate the lower.

“The Ambassadors’ Hall as well as the Puppet’s Court,” says Pedro de Madrazo, “are surrounded by elegant saloons, commencing at the principal façade of the Alcazar, running round the north-west angle of the building, adjoining the galleries of the gardens del Principe, de la Gruta, and de la Danza, and terminating at the south-eastern angle of the Patio de las Doncellas. Here is now the chapel, and there it is believed that the luxurious apartment of the Caracol (inhabited by Maria de Padilla) stood. This part was, without doubt, that which was called the Palacio del Yeso, or Stucco Palace, on account of the plaster decorations in the fashion of Granada; but in which of these rooms Don Pedro was playing draughts when the Master of Santiago appeared before him, it is impossible to say with certainty.”

The Salón del Principe occupies the upper floor of the chief façade, and receives light through the beautiful _ajimices_ or twin-windows so noticeable from without. This spacious hall is divided into three compartments, each of which has a fine ceiling. Two have been restored, but the third was the work of Juan de Simancas in the year 1543. The scheme of decoration is Moorish. The columns in this hall and the adjoinng apartments are of marble, with rich capitals. According to Zurita (quoted by Madrazo), these columns came from the royal palace at Valencia, after the defeat of Pedro of Aragon by the King of Castile.

The oratory was built by order of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1504. It contains an admirable retablo in blue glazed tiles--probably the finest work of the kind in Spain--designed by an Italian, Francesco Niculoso. The centre-piece represents the Visitation. It is believed that some parts of the work were drawn by Pedro Millán, a sculptor of Seville.

The oratory is on the upper floor of the palace. On the same storey is the Comedor, or dining-hall, a long, narrow room with a fine fifteenth-century ceiling, and good tapestries on the walls. A more interesting apartment is the bed-chamber of Don Pedro, which has a good carved roof and dados of _azulejos_ and stucco. Over the door four heads may be seen painted. They represent the skulls of the corrupt judges on whom the unjust king executed summary justice. The decoration of this chamber is of the sixteenth century.

The royal apartments on this floor contain several important works of art. In the room of the Infantes is a portrait of Maria Luisa by Goya. The Salón Azul (Blue Room), so-called from the colour of its tapestries, contains some fine pastel paintings by Muraton, and some notable miniatures on ivory. The portraits of the family of Isabel II. by Bartolomé López are worthy of inspection.

Returning to the ground floor, we enter the spacious Salón de Carlos V., occupying one side of the Patio de las Doncellas. Here, it is asserted, St Ferdinand died; but it is more probable that he expired in the old Moorish Alcazar. The fine ceiling, decorated with the heads of warriors and ladies, was built by the Emperor after whom the hall is named. The stucco and the work are very beautiful.

An uninteresting apartment was erected by Ferdinand VI. over the famous Baths of Maria de Padilla, which are approached through an arched entrance, and, surrounded by thick walls, have more the appearance of a dungeon than of a resort of Love and Beauty. The pool still remains where the lovely favourite bathed her fair limbs. In her time it had no other roof than the blue sky of Andalusia, and no further protection from prying eyes than that afforded by the orange and lemon trees. At Pedro’s court it was esteemed a mark of gallantry and loyalty to drink the waters of the bath, after Maria had performed her ablutions. Observing that one of his knights refrained from this act of homage, the king questioned him and elicited the reply, “I dare not drink of the water, lest, having tasted the sauce, I should covet the partridge.” These baths were no doubt used by the ladies of the harem in Moorish days.

The gardens of the Alcazar form a delicious pleasaunce, where the orange and the citron diffuse their fragrance, and fairy-like fountains spring up suddenly beneath the unwary passenger’s feet, sprinkling him with a cooling and perhaps not unwelcome dew. But this paradise has its serpent, and that is the truculent shade of the cruel king, which for ever seems to haunt the Alcazar. Here Pedro prowled one day, when four candidates for the office of judge presented themselves before him. To test their fitness for the post, the king pointed to an orange floating on the surface of a pool close by. He asked each of the lawyers in succession what the floating object was. The three first replied without consideration, “An orange, sire.” But the fourth drew the fruit from the water with his staff, glanced at it, and replied with absolute accuracy, “_Half_ an orange, sire.” He was appointed to the vacant magistracy.

Before leaving the Alcazar, we will briefly summarise the history of its transformations and reconstructions. As we have seen, the palace generally may be considered the work of Don Pedro. In the reign of Juan II., the Salón de los Embajadores was enriched with its fine cupola. A tablet, discovered in 1843, testifies that the architect was Don Diego Roiz, and that the artisans employed in the work were made freemen of the city.

Various parts of the building were built or reconstructed by order of Ferdinand and Isabella. The architects were for the most part Christianised Moors, among whom are mentioned Maestre Mohammed Agudo (1479), Juan Fernandez (1479), Diego Fernandez (1496), and Francisco Fernandez. The latter was appointed Master of the Alcazar in 1502, and previous to his adoption of Catholicism was named Hamet Kubeji. According to Gestoso y Perez, a surprising number of artificers and craftsmen were engaged about the Alcazar at this time, a powerful inducement being exemption from taxes and military service. The names of Juan and Francisco de Limpias (1479-1540) have been preserved among the carpenters; and Diego Sanchez (1437), Alfonso Ruiz (1479), and the two Sanchez de Castro (1500), among the painters.

Several improvements were carried out under Charles V. and Philip II., and a great deal of restoration was unfortunately necessitated by the fires which seemed to break out with increasing frequency during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Still more disastrous was the effect of the great earthquake of 1755. Then began the reign of the vandal, which did more damage to the palace than time, fire, and earthquake combined.

In 1762, the minister Wall ordered the Alcazar to be repaired in “the modern manner.” The ceilings which had been destroyed by fire were replaced by others much too low, and valuable arabesques were recklessly sacrificed. In 1805, some director with a genius for transmogrification whitewashed the fine stucco work in the Salon del Principe, and altered the main entrance. He also substituted a plaster ceiling for the bowl-shaped Arab roofing, and made strenuous efforts to impair the beauty of the Ambassadors’ Hall. In 1833 a reaction took place. Don Joaquin Cortes and Señor Raso effected an artistic and sympathetic restoration both of the Prince’s Hall and the Patio de las Muñecas. A more serious restoration was begun in 1842, at the instance of the administrator, Don Domingo de Alcega. The artist Becquer contributed materially to the success of the work. In the ’fifties, the task of replacing and restoring the stucco ornamentation was completed; and under Isabel II. the thirty-six arches of the Patio de las Doncellas were restored. Since that date the reconstructions have not always displayed good taste; but the revival of interest in her ancient monuments which has taken place in Spain of late years encourages us to hope, at least, that the appalling blunders of the early nineteenth century will never be repeated.

After the Alcazar, the most noteworthy monument in Seville, dating from the reign of Don Pedro, is the church of Omnium Sanctorum. This edifice occupies the site of a Roman temple, and was built by the Cruel King in 1356. It exhibits a very happy combination of the Moorish and Gothic styles. It is entered by three ogival doors, and is divided into three naves. To the left of the façade is a graceful tower, the first storey of which is Moorish, ornamented somewhat after the style of the Giralda. On one of the doors is a shield bearing the arms of Portugal, which, tradition says, commemorates the pious generosity of Diniz, king of that country, when he visited Alfonso the Wise. If the Sevillians have writ their annals true, this goes to prove that an earlier structure than the present must have existed here. This, by the way, was the parish church of Rioja the poet.

San Lorenzo exhibits the fusion of the contending styles in an interesting fashion. It has five naves; and the horseshoe windows in its tower were converted into ogives at the time of its adaptation to the Christian cult. The arcades of the naves are ogival in the middle, and become by degrees semi-circular towards the extremities as the roof becomes lower. This church contains the miraculous picture of Nuestra Señora de Rocamadour. Rocamadour, in southern France, was a celebrated shrine of pilgrims in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Several other churches in Seville date from this epoch, and present, to a greater or less extent, evidences of the conflict between the Moorish and Gothic styles. In addition to those mentioned, Madrazo names the following: Santa Marina, San Ildefonso, San Vicente, San Julián, San Esteban, Santa Catalina, San Andrés, San Miguel, San Nicolas, San Martin, San Gil, Santa Lucia, San Pedro, and San Isidoro. When a mosque was converted into a Christian church, the same authority remarks, the horseshoe arch was pointed, bells were placed in the minaret, and the orientation was altered from north to south, to east to west. The five last-named churches were erected in the thirteenth century. Santa Maria de las Nieves was, until the year 1391, a synagogue. The decoration is in the plateresco style, and the doors are Gothic. The church contains a painting by Luis de Vargas, and a picture attributed to Murillo.

Nearly in the centre of the city is the Convent of Santa Inés, with a beautiful and tastefully restored chapel. The façade is ancient and graceful. This church contains the remains (said to be uncorrupted) of the foundress, Doña Maria Coronel, one of Don Pedro’s numerous victims. That monarch had conceived a violent passion for her, in the hopes of gratifying which he put her husband to death in the Torre del Oro. The widow, far from yielding to his solicitations, took the veil, and at last, to secure herself from his persecutions, destroyed her beauty by means of vitriol--a species of self-immolation much applauded by the devout in the ages of faith. Her sister, Doña Aldonza, was less successful in resisting the ardent monarch, but died, in the odour of sanctity, Abbess of Santa Inés.

Among the secular buildings erected under the Castilian _régime_ was the existing Tower of Don Fadrique, standing in the gardens of the Convent of the Poor Clares. It was named after the son of St Ferdinand and Beatriz of Swabia, who was put to death by Alfonso el Sabio in 1276. The tower is a fine square structure of Roman workmanship, seemingly, in its lowest floor, and showing a mixture of Moorish and Gothic architecture in its upper half. It formed part of a sumptuous palace erected in 1252, and bestowed in 1289 on the Poor Clares by King Sancho the Brave.

In the Calle Guzman el Bueno is a mansion called the Casa Olea. It contains a fine hall, 8½ metres square, the work of Moorish artisans of the time of Don Pedro. The beautiful inlaid and gilded _artesonado_ ceiling was removed about a century ago; light is admitted through windows of the horseshoe pattern, and the decorations consist of the characteristic stucco-work, latticing, and _ajaraca_ or trellis-work, as fine as any to be seen at the Lindaraja of Granada. The dado of coloured tiles has almost completely disappeared. The Palacio de Montijo, near the church of Omnium Sanctorum, reveals many traces of Mudejar workmanship, as also does a hall in the _Casa morisca_ of the Calle de Abades--not to be confounded with the Casa de Abades, belonging to the Renaissance.

Seville in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries possessed no doubt many palaces and private dwellings of magnificence; but it was in ecclesiastical architecture that the spirit of the age found its truest expression and noblest monuments.

THE CATHEDRAL

On the eighth day of July in the year 1401, the Dean and Chapter of Seville assembled in the Court of the Elms, and solemnly resolved that, the Cathedral having been practically ruined by recent earthquakes, a new one should be built so splendid that it should have no equal; and that, if the revenue of the See should not prove sufficient for the cost of the undertaking, each one present should contribute from his own stipend as much as might be necessary. Then uprose a zealous prebendary, and cried, “Let us build a church so great that those who come after us may think us mad to have attempted it!”

Such was the greatness of spirit in which the foundation of the existing Cathedral of Seville was undertaken. And the result is worthy of the deep and fervid zeal of those old Catholics of Spain.

The church took one hundred and twenty years to build. Pity it was that the noble-hearted priests who decreed the raising of the fane should never have gazed upon much more than its skeleton! First of all, the mosque-cathedral of Yakub was demolished, only the Giralda and the _Patio de los Naranjos_, with the northern, eastern, and western gates, being spared. The Royal Chapel was pulled down in 1432, by permission of Juan II. The first stone had been laid in 1402; but, strangely and sadly enough, the name of the architect who traced the plan has not been preserved. Some believe him to have been Alonso Martinez; others, Pero García. Fame, we may well believe, was a prize which the pious builder esteemed but lightly. His reward lay in the greater glorification of his faith.

In 1462, we find Juan Normán directing the works; in 1488, he had passed from the scene and was succeeded by Juan de Hoz. Then came Alonso Ruiz and Alonso Rodriguez. The building was practically finished when, in 1511, the cupola collapsed. In 1519, Juan Gil de Hontañon, the architect of Salamanca Cathedral, completed the reconstruction, and the cathedral may be considered as having been finished, though restorations and remodelling of various parts of the edifice have been going on ever since, and masons are to this day engaged upon the dome.

This magnificent church is pre-eminent for size among the cathedrals of Spain, and ranks third in this respect among the sacred edifices of the world. St Peter’s covers 230,000 square feet, the Mezquita at Cordova 160,000, and the Cathedral of Seville 125,000. Our St Paul’s covers only 84,000 square feet. It follows that this cathedral is the largest of Gothic temples.

So stupendous a monument has naturally attracted comment from distinguished travellers and critics. All have come under the spell of its majesty and massive nobility. Théophile Gautier expressed himself as follows: “The most extravagant and most 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 de Paris might walk erect in the middle nave, which is of frightful height; pillars with the girth of towers, and which appear so slender that they make you shudder, rise out of the ground or descend from the vaulted roof, like stalactites in a giant’s grotto.”

The Italian, De Amicis, is less fantastical in his rhapsodies. “At your first entrance, you are bewildered, you feel as if you are wandering in an abyss, and for several moments you can only glance around in this vast spaciousness, to assure yourself that your eyes do not deceive you, that your fancy is playing you no trick; you approach one of the pillars, measure it, and look at those in the distance; though large as towers, they appear so slender that you tremble to think the building is resting upon them. You traverse them with a glance from floor to ceiling, and it seems that you could almost count the moments it would take for the eye to climb them.... In the central aisle, another cathedral, with its cupola and bell-tower, could easily stand.”

Lomas, who is no great admirer of the building, admits that “the first view of the interior is one of the supreme moments of a lifetime. The glory and majesty of it are almost terrible. No other building, surely, is so fortunate as this in what may be called its presence.”