Part 6
Of the few remaining apartments of the Alhambra, the most interesting perhaps is the Tocador, or Queen’s Dressing-room, at the side of the Patio de Lindaraja, opposite the Mirador de Lindaraja. This was the apartment occupied by Washington Irving, according to his own showing: “On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one end of a suite of empty chambers of modern architecture, intended for the residence of the governor, was fitted up for my reception. It was in front of the Palace.... I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern apartment.... I found, in a remote gallery, a door communicating apparently with an extensive apartment locked against the public.... I procured the key, however, without difficulty; the door opened to a range of vacant chambers of European architecture, though built over a Moorish arcade.... This fanciful suite of rooms terminated in an open gallery with balustrades, which ran at right angles with a side of the garden.... I found that it was an apartment fitted up at the time when Philip V. and the beautiful Elizabeth of Parma were expected at the Alhambra, and was destined for the Queen and the ladies of her train. One of the loftiest chambers had been her sleeping-room, and a narrow staircase leading from it ... opened on to the delightful belvedere, originally a mirador of the Moorish sultanas, which still retains the name of the _tocador_. I determined at once to take up my quarters in this apartment. My determination occasioned great surprise, but I was not diverted from my humour.”
This exquisite apartment is adorned by four sixteenth-century paintings, representing the legend of Phaëton. On the artesonado ceiling, painted and gilded, may be read the invocation: “The help and protection of God and a glorious victory for our Lord, Abu-l-Hejaj, Amir of the Muslims!” Round the boudoir runs a gallery of nine arches on Arabic pillars, painted and decorated with the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, Justice, Strength, and Temperance, Jupiter, Neptune, Plenty, and the Vestals’ Fire. These paintings were the work of two Italians, Giulio Aquila and Sandro Mainere, both pupils of Raphael.
The charming little garden or patio of Lindaraja or Daraja, which intervenes between this regal boudoir and the Moorish _mirador_, appears to have been originally called _Jin Dar Aja_, or garden of the palace of Ayesha. The old Moorish garden that used to extend as far as the Tower of Comares is now confined by the walls of the Sala de las Ajimeces and three arcades of modern construction. The fountain in the centre dates from the seventeenth century. An enchanting spot is this, with its cypress, orange, and citron-trees rising from trim hedges of myrtle and rose.
Between this garden and the court of the Alberca lie the baths--those indispensable adjuncts to the Muslim household--most skilfully and artistically restored by Contreras. The plan is that usually followed throughout the East. Passing through the _Sala de las Cámas_ or Unrobing Room, where, from a high gallery the songs of the odalisques were wafted down to the sultan reclining in one of the alcoves, we enter the Sala de Baños, with its white marble bath and pavement of glazed tiles. This corresponds with the apartment called by the Arabs, the hararah, or vapour-bath, and described in Lane’s “Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians”; and it was under the graceful arcades which support the dome that the bathers underwent the kneading and rubbing processes lately introduced among us. The chamber is lighted from above through star-shaped apertures. The inscriptions refer to the felicity awaiting men in this palace of delight. The bathing-apartments consist of three halls and two smaller chambers, vulgarly called the Infantas’ Baths.
THE TOWERS AND GATES OF THE ALHAMBRA
“The wall of the Nasrites,” writes Señor Fernández Jiménez, “of which scarcely a patch remains unimpaired, measured about 1400 metres from one extremity to the other, and was defended by twenty-six towers, counting as one the two buttresses that defended the gate of the Siete Suelos. To this number should properly be added the Torre de las Armas, which is pierced by a gate common to the Alcazaba and Alhambra, and is therefore also a Nasrite work. The citadel was fortified, moreover, by five bastions, corresponding to as many gates, and by various external defences, of which traces remain in the modern alamedas. The thickness of the towers varies according to their situation and purpose, the distance between them ranging from 34 to 64 metres approximately.” At the present day we can count only fifteen towers, the names of which are: las Aguas, los Siete Suelos, las Cabezas, la Justicia, la Polvora, los Hidalgos, la Vela, las Armas, las Gallinas, los Puñales, las Damas, los Picos, del Candil, de la Cautiva, and las Infantas.
The Puerta de la Justicia is the principal entrance to the Alhambra. It was built, as the inscription over the arch relates, by the Sultan Yusuf Abu-l-Hejaj, in 1348. Here justice was administered in Moorish days after the old patriarchal fashion. Above the arch is carved an open hand, the signification of which is a matter of controversy. The most probable explanation is that it is a religious symbol, the five fingers typifying Faith in God and the Prophet, and the commandments, to pray, to fast, to give alms, and to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The inner arch is beautifully decorated with arabesques, and with the symbol of the key. The entrance is continued through another gate, with winding passages contrived so as to embarrass an enemy. The arch which gives egress from the tower shows some fine enamelling and festoons.
Just outside this gate is the Pilar de Carlos V., a fountain in the Greco-Roman style, erected by the Alcaide Mendoza in 1545. It is ornamented with the Imperial arms, and sculptured heads of the river gods, Genil, Darro, and Beiro.
The double Torre de los Siete Suelos flanks a gateway, now walled up, which was formerly the principal entrance to the fortress. Through it the unfortunate Boabdil is said to have passed on his way to exile and obscurity. The tower is so called because it is believed to descend seven storeys underground. Four subterranean chambers have been investigated. Here tradition places the site of much buried treasure, and fables are told of phantom guards and enchanted sentries.
At the south-eastern angle of the _enceinte_ is the ruinous Torre del Agua, which derives its name from the aqueduct that at this point spans the ravine. On the north-eastern side we reach the Torre de las Infantas, the interior of which is a perfect model of the smaller Oriental dwelling-house. Through a small vestibule we reach a covered-in patio with a fountain in the centre, and alcoves opening out on three sides. The ornamentation is graceful and original. The tower is one of the most interesting parts of the fortress. Somewhat less complete and regular in its plan, but even more elegantly decorated with rose-coloured tiles, is the adjoining Torre de la Cautiva (Captive’s Tower). Here the inscriptions resound the praises of Abu-l-Hejaj and refer to the _Lion_ residing within these walls--a very different occupant from a captive!
The Torre de los Picos seems to have been so styled from the peaked battlements which crown it. It evidently underwent extensive remodelling about the time of the Spanish Reconquest, but some relics of the Nasrite rule remain in the shape of some beautifully moulded twin windows.
The Torre de Ismaïl, or de las Damas (Ladies’ Tower), was given by Mohammed V. to his son Ismaïl, and has a richly decorated belvedere and a hall very tastefully ornamented. The ruined tower of Puñales has some curious stucco decorations, differing from those found in other parts of the palace.
Between the Torres de los Picos and de las Damas is a little _mihrab_ or oratory built on the wall. At the Reconquest it was appropriated to the private use of one Astasio de Bracamonte. Though it has undergone deplorable “restorations,” the _kiblah_ or easterly niche and other indications of the Muslim rite can still be made out. Strangely enough, the portal is guarded by two Moorish lions brought from the old Mint--the injunctions of the Mohammedan religion being thus ignored in its own temple!
The parish church of Santa Maria, erected in 1581, occupies the site of the Mosque of which Al Khattíb appears to speak, writing of the deeds of Mohammed III. (1302-1309). “And among his great actions, the greatest and most remarkable was the construction of the great Mosque or Aljama of the Alhambra, with all that it contained of elegance and decoration, mosaics, and cements; as well as lamps of pure silver and other great marvels. In front of the Mosque were the baths, erected with the money levied from the Christians in his dominions. With the receipts from these baths the Mosque and its ministers were maintained.” The modern church is of brick, and contains nothing of note, except a Visigothic inscription, referring to the construction of three temples, dedicated to St. Stephen, St. John, and St. Vincent, in the years 594 and 607.
THE PALACE OF CHARLES V.
The forlorn, roofless palace in the classical style, which seems so out of place amid these Oriental buildings, was begun by order of the Emperor Charles V. in 1538. It was never completed. The Flemish Cæsar’s intention seems to have been to establish a permanent residence here, whence he could contemplate the beauties of the Moorish palace. The building is a quadrangle of four façades, each seventeen metres high. The lower storey is of the Tuscan order, the upper, Ionic. Some of the marble portals are very fine. In the decoration appear allusions to the campaigns, on sea and land, directed by the Emperor, his motto, _Plus oultre_, and the emblem of the Golden Fleece.
The interior of the palace is occupied by an imposing circular court, with a gallery supported by thirty-two columns. The staircase is loftily designed, and altogether the palace, if it had been completed and built almost anywhere else, would have been a dignified memorial of Charles’s reign.
THE GENERALIFE
Across an ivy-draped ravine--a perfect study in green and red--the Palace of Recreations, the Generalife, overlooks the rugged walls of the Alhambra. The name is believed to have been derived from Jennatu-l’arif, “the garden of the architect.” The palace appears to have been built by a Moor called Omar, from whom it was purchased by the Sultan Abu-l-Walid. At the Reconquest it became the property of a renegade prince, Sidi Yahya, who adopted the name of Don Pedro de Granada, and whose descendants, the family of Campotejar, are to this day the actual owners.
The Generalife cannot be regarded as an important monument of Moorish architecture. Through the central court, which measures 48.70 by 12.80 metres, runs the conduit which irrigates the whole estate, and connects with the Acequia (or canal) de la Alhambra. The arcaded southern façade and the spacious hall adjoining have been altered in order to make a large vestibule. The arcade resembles that of the Court of the Fish-pond, and exhibits a poetical inscription declaring that Abu-l-Walid restored the palace in the year 1319.
The halls of the Generalife are of little interest in themselves, and contain several portraits of doubtful authenticity. Those of Ferdinand and Isabel, of Juana la Loca and her husband, and of the fourth wife of Philip II., are the most important. Among the portraits of the Granada family is one supposed to be that of Ben Hud Al Mutawakil, the rival of Al Ahmar, and ancestor of Sidi Yahya. This seems to be the portrait which English travellers persist in mistaking for that of Boabdil.
But if the palace is in no way remarkable, the gardens are a veritable bower of beauty and delight. Water bubbles up everywhere and moistens the roots of myrtles, cedars, and tall cypresses, the finest trees in all Spain. The legend of the Abencerrage discovered in dalliance with a Sultana, beneath one of these cypresses, is absolutely destitute of any sort of foundation. The nature of the spot--so eminently fitted for love and lovers’ trysts--may have suggested the story. But the garden is ill-kept, and many of the magnificent trees have been cut down.
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In the city of Granada itself the memorials of the Moorish domination are scanty and fast disappearing. In the Zacatin, which was in old times the chief bazaar, is a building formerly styled the Casa del Gallo de Viento (Weathercock House), and now known by the commonplace designation of Casa del Carbon (Charcoal House), owing to its having been appropriated to the storage of that useful product. Tradition avers that the palace (for such the house at one time was) was built by Badis Ibn Habus, a governor of Granada, who ruled about 1070 A.D., by whose direction a vane was made in the shape of a warrior, mounted and armed with shield and spear. In later years the building served as a corn exchange. The only notable features are the entrance with its horseshoe arch and twin-windows, and vestibule with dome and alcoves. Adjacent to the Casa del Carbon is the house of the Duque de Abrantes. Beneath it is said to be a subterranean passage communicating with the Alhambra--blocked up, oddly enough, by the present owner of the site, without any exploration or examination.
Entered from the Carrera de Darro is the once handsome Moorish bath house, now in the last stages of dilapidation and neglect. It is believed to date from the earliest period of Mohammedan rule. The arches are of the old horseshoe type, and the columns and capitals of a primitive order. An inscription beginning, “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate ...” may still be made out.
The bath itself, the various chambers of repose and disrobing, the usual alhamies, can also be traced.
The old Moorish mint was demolished in 1643, and the famous Gate of Bivarrambla can no longer be described in any sense as a Mohammedan work.
The effacement of the Moorish character of Granada, as compared with its survival in Seville, serves to show how much more intense the religious and racial bias became in Spain during the two hundred and odd years that elapsed between the conquests of the two cities. The spirit in which St. Ferdinand, Alfonso el Sabio, and Pedro I. approached the works of their Mohammedan foes and subjects presented a very favourable contrast to that manifested by the Catholic sovereigns, Charles V. and Philip II.
CATHOLIC GRANADA
Almost the first act performed by a Spanish king on his entry into a conquered Mohammedan city was to convert the chief mosque (aljama) into a Christian church. This was also done at Granada, but the chapel of the Alhambra remained for some time the cathedral of the new See. The mosque in the city, afterwards elevated to that rank, is described by the Abbé Bertaut of Rouen (quoted by Valladar), writing in 1669, as “square, or rather longer than wide, without vaults, and the roof covered with tiles, which for the most part were not even joined. The whole was supported by a number of small stone columns, harmoniously arranged.” Jorquera says the mosque was composed of five low naves. Whether or not it was originally a Visigothic church, as some writers pretend, the temple probably dated from the earliest centuries of the Muslim occupation, and the tower which contained the mihrab was long famous as the Torre Turpiana.
The building, after serving the purposes of the Catholic rite for two centuries, disappeared between 1705 and 1759 to make room for the present sacristia (sacristy). As a cathedral, it had been superseded by the adjoining and existing edifice, dedicated on August 17, 1561.
Older by about a quarter of a century than the foundations of the cathedral is the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real), which is the most striking and interesting memorial of the Conquest of Granada. It was begun in 1505 as a mausoleum for the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, under the direction of the famous Enrique Egas, and completed in the year 1517--a year after the king’s death and thirteen years after the queen’s. The chapel is shaped like a Latin cross, and is one of the latest specimens of the Spanish Gothic style. It is a comparatively modest and simple building, contrasting strongly with the ornate and elaborate structures of the succeeding age. The decoration of the interior consists almost entirely in a frieze bearing a long inscription in gilt letters which reads: “This chapel was ordered to be built by the most Catholic Don Ferdinand and Doña Isabella,” &c. &c. There is a suggestion of Gothic influence in the magnificent railing or grille, partly of iron, partly gilt, which divides the nave from the transept, and was made in 1522 by Maestre Bartolome. The kneeling figures of the Catholic sovereigns are seen on either side of the high altar. These, says Ford, “are very remarkable, being exact representations of their faces, forms, and costumes: behind Ferdinand is the victorious banner of Castile, while the absorbing policy for which both lived and died--the conquest of the Moor and the conversion of the infidel--are embodied beneath them in singular painted carvings; these have been attributed to Felipe Vigarny, and are certainly of the highest antiquarian interest. In that which illustrates the surrender of the Alhambra, Isabel is represented riding on a white palfrey between Ferdinand and the great Cardinal Mendoza, who sits on his trapped mule, like Wolsey. He alone wears gloves; his pinched aquiline face contrasts with the chubbiness of the king and queen. He opens his hand to receive the key, which the dismounted Boabdil presents, holding it by the wards. Behind are ladies, knights, and halberdiers, while captives come out of the gates in pairs. Few things of the kind in Spain are more interesting. The other basso-relievo records the ‘Conversion of the Infidel’; in it the reluctant flock is represented as undergoing the ceremony of wholesale baptism, the principal actors being shorn monks. The mufflers and leg-wrappers of the women--the Roman _fasciæ_--are precisely those still worn at Tetuan by their descendants.”
These reliefs are unquestionably more vigorous and artistic, and also more in harmony with the structure generally, than the gorgeous Renaissance cenotaphs of Ferdinand and Isabella--most probably the work of the Spanish sculptor, Bartolome Ordoñez. The two great sovereigns are shown lying side by side, the faces expressing infinite dignity and repose. At each corner of the sepulchre is seated one of the four Doctors of the Church, below whom is a Sphinx. Medallions on two of the four sides represent respectively the Baptism and Resurrection of Jesus, and St. George and St. James. Beautifully done are the figures of the Twelve Apostles, the escutcheons, and, in fact, all the details of this grandiose but unimpressive monument.
The adjacent sepulchre of Ferdinand and Isabella’s daughter, the unhappy Queen Juana, and of her husband, Philip I., the Handsome, is inferior in design and execution. The heads of the recumbent figures are not faithful portraits. The reliefs represent the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Agony in the Garden, and the Entombment. In the niches are figures of the Cardinal Virtues (not conspicuous in Philip during life), and at the corners the statues of Saints Michael, George, Andrew, and John the Divine. Very beautiful are the figures of children, and much of the heraldic decoration. The whole is in the most florid style of the Renaissance, and was carved at Genoa by order of Juana’s son, Charles V.
Very different are the actual resting-places of the sovereigns so gorgeously commemorated in stone above. Descending to a narrow vault beneath the cenotaphs, we find five rude coffins, with iron bands. Herein repose the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Juana and Philip, and of their son, Prince Juan. Ferdinand’s coffin may be identified by the letter F. “Here,” writes Pi Margall, “lie together in the dim light fathers and sons, monarchs of three dynasties united in less than a century for the greater glory of the fatherland; here lie the last princes of the Mediæval Age, and those who at its close inaugurated the Modern Era. Here they lie--heroes and fathers of heroes--kings who never retreated before the face of danger, and queens whose lives were consumed in the fire of profound love; fortunate ones who, returning from the battle, found rest and refreshment in the arms of their beloved; and unhappy souls who drained the cup of suffering, without finding in the dregs even that lethargy which the excess of grief procures for some. Who can enter this murky precinct without feeling his heart swayed by contrary emotions--without inclining with reverence before the lead which covers the men who rescued the nations from the anarchy of feudalism? While a tear may drop on the bier of that great princess [Isabella], who can restrain his pity for that unhappy queen [Juana] who, intoxicated with love, passed the night waiting for the dawn to break that she might go forth, alone, to the ends of the world, in search of her adored husband, and would not leave his coffin till the tomb had closed upon it?”
We leave these great and unhappy ones of a bygone age, passing away to nothingness in their last dark palace, and ascend to the chapel. There is not much more to see. In the sacristy are preserved the crown and sceptre of the Catholic queen, the sword of Ferdinand, and some rich Gothic vestments. Over an altar on the south side is a _Descent from the Cross_, of which Ford speaks highly. The Chapel Royal communicates with the cathedral by a noble portal in the Late Gothic style. The pillars on each side are adorned by the statues of kings-at-arms. Above the entrance an eagle upholds the Arms of Spain. Heraldic devices, religious emblems, and reliefs of saints and cherubim are mingled in the decoration, which is beautiful and not over-elaborate.
The Chapel Royal, though architecturally forming part of the cathedral building, has an entirely independent ecclesiastical organisation of its own, with its own chapter and clergy. Amusing instances are recorded of the bad blood existing between the cathedral canons and the royal chaplains. This enmity (says Valladar) was carried so far that once, when the Archbishop Carrillo de Alderete wished to visit the chapel, attended by his canons, the chaplains refused to admit them. The archbishop accordingly caused the disobliging priests to be arrested, whereupon a long lawsuit ensued. The chaplains had the right of passage across the cathedral transept to the Puerta del Perdon, which is the official or state entrance to the royal mausoleum--a privilege which seems to have galled the canons to the quick. Strange that such ludicrous bickerings should have arisen out of a foundation which commemorates the grandest and most epoch-making events in the national history. Truly from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.
THE CATHEDRAL
The Cathedral of Granada was built adjoining and connecting with the Chapel Royal and sacristy or old mosque, between the years 1523 and 1561. Charles V. preferred the Gothic style, but at last consented to the adoption of the designs of Diego de Siloe. The church is described by Ford as one of the finest examples of the Græco-Roman style, but the plan is distinctly Gothic, nor can the edifice be said to deserve the description, “the most magnificent temple in Europe after the Vatican.” It is impressive in its severity and vastness, and may be described as dignified rather than beautiful.