Part 8

Many detached pieces in this grand collection are as full of interest as the complete harnesses. The sword, G. 21, once thought to be the “Colada” of the Cid, has lost little of its interest now that it has been identified with that equally famous blade, the “Lobera” of St Ferdinand. A part of the cloak in which the sainted king was buried is also shown with his long-necked spurs or “acicates.” Then we have (at G. 13) the heavy weapon of Ferdinand the Catholic, and the sword of state used by the Catholic sovereigns when conferring the accolade. The sword, inscribed with the Great Captain’s name, was presented to him, the Count of Valencia thinks, by some Italian city. The sword numbered G. 30 also belonged to him. And who can gaze without wonderment on the Valencian blade with which Pizarro won for Spain the vast empire of Peru?

From the New World comes a wonderful feather shield, made by the Mexican Indians under the direction of Spanish artists. On a wicker frame are depicted in feathers, mounted on skin, the battles of Navas de Tolosa, Tunis, and Lepanto, and the taking of Granada. In the centre a heron is seen defending its nest against serpents--a composition symbolical of the campaign against heresy. The whole is an extraordinary example of what can be achieved with such apparently impracticable materials.

Included in the collection is a brigantine made for Charles V. composed of hundreds of pieces of steel sewn on leather, making a garment as flexible as a jersey, and yet endowed with extraordinary resisting power.

Older, and from certain points of view more interesting than any of these exhibits, are the Visigothic crowns of Guarrazar, the companions of those in the Cluny museum. These were found one moonlit night in the year 1858 by two peasants, in the bed of a fountain, and only secured with difficulty by the government. Much of the treasure had already come into the possession of the goldsmiths of Toledo, and had been broken up or melted down. It is said to have comprised a beautiful golden dove, which, having been acquired by a jeweller, occasioned him so many qualms of conscience that he at last eased his mind by throwing it into the Tagus. The crowns were the offerings at shrines of King Swinthila and his successors. They consist of hoops studded with gems and dangling from a separate ornament of gold and rock-crystal. From the hoop hang pendants and letters in enamel, making up the inscription, _Swinthilanus Rex Offeret_. Adjacent are crosses and ornaments of the same period. An antique horse’s bit, ascribed by tradition to Witiza, is believed by the Count de Valencia to date from the Visigothic era.

The collection comprises a superb assortment of swords, beautiful specimens of the famous Toledo blades. Among those of historic interest, I forgot to mention that of Hernando Cortés. The sword of Philip II., numbered G. 47 has a magnificent hilt richly chased, with a spherical pommel. It is no doubt the work of Desiderius Colman, though believed, at one time, to have been designed by Benvenuto Cellini.

Among the trophies are the sword of the Duke of Weimar, taken at Nordlingen in 1634, the arms taken from Francis I. at Pavia, Moorish arms from Tunis, the breastplate of the Elector of Saxony, taken at Mühlberg, swords and standards from Lepanto, and flags taken by the famous Admiral Alvaro de Bazán. The arms belonging to his late Catholic Majesty, Alfonso XII., have also been added to the collection by the Queen Dowager, who well knew the profound interest her august husband took in this superb military museum.

THE ESCORIAL--LA GRANJA--EL PARDO

No one visits Madrid without making an excursion to the Escorial, which is to the Spanish capital what the Pyramids are to Cairo. Indeed, there is more than one point of resemblance between these buildings. Both impress mainly by their size, both produce no sensations of pleasure in the beholder, both embody the solemn and crushing conception of the majesty of death entertained by great and despotic kings.

The thoughts of Philip II., like those of the Pharaohs, turned perpetually graveward, and it is perhaps doing no injustice to a genuinely devout character to say that he pondered as much on the abode of the body after death as on the post-mortem vicissitudes of his soul. The pomp of death which, according to the sage, is to most men more terrible than death itself, had a rare fascination for the Pharaohs and the King of Spain. Philip in his tomb seemed a finer figure to Philip living than Philip on his throne. Death as a catastrophe is attractive, of course, to all manner of people, not otherwise morbid. But it was death in its most generally repugnant aspect that appealed to this strange, sombre sovereign of the Spains, and it was that predominating conception that inspired him in the erection of the Escorial. The building is his idea of the majesty and finality of Death expressed in stone.

The story which immediately accounts for the founding of the Escorial is well known. On the 16th August 1557, the Spaniards commanded by Emmanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy, totally defeated the French under the walls of St Quentin. Philip arrived in time to assist at the taking of the town itself, to effect which it became necessary to demolish a convent dedicated to St Lawrence. By way of reparation to that saint, in thanksgiving for the victory, and in fulfilment of his father’s instructions to create a royal mausoleum, Philip determined to erect a vast monastery and palace under the invocation of St Lawrence. The present site having been chosen by a commission, the work was begun in the presence of the King himself, in the first week of April 1562. The plans were drawn by Juan Bautista de Toledo, an architect of distinction, who had studied at Rome and Naples. He died, however, in 1563, a few days after the laying of the first stone and the work was then entrusted to his assistant, the more celebrated Juan de Herrera (born in Asturias 1530, died at Madrid 1597). Villacastin, the Master of the Works, on being invited to assist at the ceremony of laying the first stone, replied, “Let others lay the first, I will place the last!” His words came true, for he laid on June 23rd, 1582, the last stone, which may be seen marked with a black cross on entering the Patio de los Reyes.

The real architect was Philip himself. His interest in the work was so intense, his attention to its details so minute, the idea of the whole so much his own and so tenaciously insisted upon, that Toledo and Herrera can have had little else to do than commit the scheme to paper.

The Escorial is essentially the work of one man, and the expression if not of his personality, at least of the idea that obsessed him.

It was the custom in Northern Europe to propitiate some half-forgotten infernal deities by burying a pig or a sheep alive in the foundations of every church. The monastery of San Lorenzo was similarly consecrated by human and animal sacrifices. After the Hermits of St Jerome (Charles V.’s favourite order) had established themselves in the incomplete edifice, it was whispered that a black dog persistently interrupted their chanting by his howlings. The animal was looked upon by the people as inspired by God thus to protest against the spoliation of the peasantry by the Hermits. It turned out that it was only one of the hounds of the Marquis de las Navas, bewailing his absent master; but the benevolent monks promptly hanged the poor brute from the roof of their cloister. In the same year a young man, twenty-four years of age, was (no doubt for some serious offence) burned at the stake on the spot in the neighbouring Jardin del Principe marked by a stone cross. Thus with most solemn rites was the great Christian temple consecrated to Death.

The building constitutes an immense parallelogram, its sides nearly facing the cardinal points of the compass. The small rectangular annex called the Palacio de Infantes projecting from the middle of the eastern face, gives the plan a purely accidental resemblance to a gridiron, which, according to legend, was the instrument of the titular saint’s martyrdom. The dimensions, according to a Spanish writer, are 744 Castilian feet from north to south, 580 from east to west, and 400,000 square feet in area. The whole building is of grey granite, and appears to form an integral part of the rock on which it stands. In its simplicity and hugeness it might easily be mistaken for the work of Nature, not of man. Artistically this is perhaps its sole merit, yet, as I have said, it never fails to awe. The style is that of the second Renaissance, here called Greco-Roman, which prefers the Doric order and rejects all superfluous ornament. Each angle is capped by a square tower, surmounted by a pinnacle. The façades, devoid of all decoration, are relieved only by rows of small square windows. The upper stories are faced with blue slate and sheets of lead. The Escorial is rivalled in simplicity and severity by the Pyramids alone.

The main entrance is in the middle of the west front. The lower stage is in the Doric style, four columns flanking the doorway on each side. The door itself is 20 feet high and 12 feet wide, and painted white with huge copper-gilt studs and knockers. Above is the second stage of the entrance in the Ionic style. Over the door is the colossal statue of St. Lawrence in granite, but with the head, hands, and feet in white marble. The sculptor, Monegro, received 20,900 reales for the Spanish coat-of-arms carved below.

A vestibule opens upon the Patio de los Reyes, so called from the statues of the Kings of Judah in granite and marble, also by Monegro, which stand on pedestals above the cornice. Jehoshaphat is represented with an axe, Hezekiah with a ram, Manasseh with the compass and square, Josiah and Solomon with books, David with harp and sword. These kings were selected as having had most to do with the building of the Temple, to which the Escorial was often compared by Spanish writers. The Temple, as represented by the Mosque of Omar, is by far the more cheerful and ornate structure of the two.

The eastern front of this court is formed by the west front of the church and the Escorial--undoubtedly the noblest part of the pile. It is rightly considered Herrera’s masterpiece. The shape is said to be that of a Greek cross, but seemed to me to be square. The west front is flanked by square towers considerably over 200 feet high, and terminating like those of the enceinte in pinnacles. Over the crossing rises a stately dome, supporting a graceful pyramid, above which rises an iron cross. These towers are the most ornamental features of the whole vast pile.

The interior of the church, truly observes Mr Lomas, “conveys exactly the idea which English people attach to the word ‘temple,’ a place wherein the majesty of the invisible dwarfs everything human.” It is constructed on the model of the first plan of St Peter’s. The lantern is carried on four enormous piers, from which to eight pilasters in the walls spring twenty-four mighty arches, forming three naves. Giants would seem to have been at work here. On entering we find ourselves in the dark Lower Choir, which is separated from the rest of the church by three bronze railings and to which were confined the lay worshippers. Above it is the choir, which it is unusual to find in Spain raised in a gallery at the west end of the church, instead of blocking up the nave. Here Philip often joined the monks in their devotions, his seat being the one nearest the door in the south-east angle. He was absorbed in prayer when on November 8th, 1571, during Vespers, a messenger entered and announced to those assembled the glorious victory obtained by Don John of Austria over the Ottoman fleet. The King gave no sign that he was elated, or that he had even heard the intelligence, but at the conclusion of the office he ordered a Te Deum to be intoned. He was a man never elated by success or cast down by failure. The evil tidings of the Armada found him as unperturbed as the good news of Lepanto. From the same seat he assisted at the solemn requiem Mass chanted by night for the repose of the soul of Mary, Queen of Scots. It is not without a certain emotion that we gaze around in this gallery. The stalls are elegantly and chastely carved in precious woods, after the designs of Herrera. The lectern and crystal chandelier are hardly so good. The eye turns at once to the marble crucifix signed by Benvenuto Cellini, who placed it among his finest works. Philip, one day, covered the loins of the figure with his handkerchief, a precedent which we see still followed in many churches in Spain and in convent chapels in France.

In the adjoining chambers, called the Antecoros, may be seen a statue converted into the “likeness” of St. Lawrence, and two pictures by Navarrete “el mudo.” That artist is said to have fallen foul of certain ecclesiastics by representing angels with beards, and an additional rule was laid down that neither cats and dogs nor any unbecoming figures were to be introduced into religious pictures, but only such things as incited to devotion. The frescoes are by Luca Giordano, as are also those which decorate the eight vaults of the church itself. In the choir library you may see the splendid antiphoners, beautifully bound and illuminated, and over a yard high by two yards broad.

In the church is the simple tomb of Queen Mercedes, first wife of his late Majesty, Don Alfonso XII. The plain gold cross at her feet was the offering of the British community of Madrid, by whom, as indeed by the whole world, her untimely death was profoundly deplored. She is buried here and not in the mausoleum below, as she was not the mother of a king.

The dome of the Pantheon is covered by the steep flight of steps leading to the chancel, so that Mass is literally celebrated above the bodies of the kings. The altar, which cost about £(?)40,000, is isolated, and is made of marble and jasper, a single slab of the latter stone forming the table. According to the inscription on a bronze plate let into the back of the altar, it contains relics of Saints Peter and Paul, Lawrence and Vincent, and a multitude of other saints, and was consecrated in presence of Philip by the Papal Nuncio, Camillo Caietano, Patriarch of Alexandria, on August 30th, 1595. The beauty of the reredos or retablo is obscured by the dark hue of the stone employed, and by the sombre colour assumed by the paintings in course of the years. The light also is very bad. The three stages into which the retablo is divided correspond to the three Grecian orders of architecture. The columns are of dark red and green jasper, with capitals and pedestals of bronze gilt. The statues represent (looking upwards) the Four Doctors of the Church, the Four Evangelists, St James and St Andrew, St Peter and St Paul. The paintings depict the Nativity and Adoration of the Magi, the Saviour bearing the Cross, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the Resurrection, the Descent of the Holy Ghost and the Assumption. The cross surmounting the whole was made from the wood of the Portuguese warship, “the Five Wounds.” The architect of this fine work was the Milanese Giacomo Trezzo, the painters Tibaldi and Zuccaro, the sculptors Leone and Pompeio Leoni. The sanctuary to the east contains the superb tabernacle, designed by Herrera and executed by Trezzo, with instruments invented by him for the purpose. It was restored in 1827 by “the pious and august” Ferdinand VII. after it had been rifled and damaged by the French. The reliquaries in the sanctuary contain ten entire bodies of saints, 144 heads, and 306 entire arms and legs. Among these relics is the thigh of Saint Lawrence, showing the roasted flesh and the holes made by the skewers.

The sceptical foreigner will probably be more interested by the statues above the oratorios or royal tribunes surrounding the altar. We see Charles V. with his wife, daughters and sisters, Philip II. with all his wives, except Mary Tudor, and his son, the miserable Infante Carlos. It was not altogether a happy idea to represent a Christian prince attended at the _same time_ by his three wives. All these statues are faithful portraits. The oratorio on the Epistle side adjoins the bare, narrow chamber in which the devout king breathed his last, quitting without regret a world with which he had no sympathy and in which he moved as a melancholy exile.

The church contains forty-eight side chapels and altars, adorned by the paintings of Coello, Navarrete, and others of less note. The best pictures are to be seen in the Sacristia. Here there are several works of Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Zurbaran, and Ribera. The most interesting canvas is the “Santa Forma” by Claudio Coello. The heads are portraits of Charles II. and his ministers. The incident depicted is the ceremony of the Veneration of the Sacred Wafer, which being trodden upon and defiled by Protestants at Gorinchem in Holland, is said to have exuded blood. It is preserved behind the picture and exhibited twice a year.

Immediately under the high altar is the Pantheon, the last resting-place of the kings and queens of Spain. It is an octagonal chamber, lined with precious marbles, which also in the dreadfully sensible presence of death, seem to be decaying. No such rich chamber was desired by Philip. It dates from 1554.

Twenty-six marble urns placed in niches round the chamber contain all that was mortal of the monarchs of Spain and their consorts from Charles V. to Alfonso XII., Philip V. and Ferdinand VI. excepted. There are tombs, too, awaiting the living. Ascending the steps we pass the sealed door of the Pudridero, where the bodies are kept five years before being placed in the Pantheon, and may visit the burial chambers reserved to the Infantes and Infantas. Several of the vaults are still empty. They are in purer, colder style than the heavier Pantheon of the kings. As one ascends to the living world from these awful chambers, the question suggests itself, what is the object of it all? The Pyramids of Nile ought to have convinced man once for all of the hopelessness of any effort to preserve his body unprofaned and solemnly housed through all the years. No matter how great the dynasty, how strong the tomb, the day must come when the jealously and reverently guarded ashes will form the prey of some ghoulish invader. With Rameses exposed to the gaze of wondering Cockneys, with Alexander’s tomb an object of curiosity to tourists in the museum at Stamboul, with the tombs of the kings of Judah explored on allfours by Cook’s trippers, how can one hope for an eternal immunity from profanation for the Invalides, for Westminster, for the Escorial? Kings ought to have learnt the lesson that in the pages of history alone can they look for an earthly immortality.

The convent occupies the southern part of the building. It was inhabited, as I have said, by the religious known as the Hermits of St Jerome or Hieronymites, an Order established or recognised by Pope Gregory XI. in 1373. If it still exists it counts very few members and has played an insignificant part in ecclesiastical history compared with the spiritual descendants of Benedict, Dominic, Francis, Bruno, and Ignatius. For some reason or other Charles V. held the Hermits in particular esteem, and it was this predilection that determined his son to offer them the new monastery in 1561. The Order is likely to be best remembered by the ecclesiologist for the peculiar plan of its churches--cruciform, with diagonal lines extending from the ends of the cross-piece to the head of the upright limb.

The granite cloisters in the Doric style are, or rather were, decorated with frescoes after designs of Tibaldi, now shockingly “restored.” In the centre of the Patio de los Evangelistas is a little octagonal temple, covering a fountain. It is one of Herrera’s best works, in which granite and marble have been combined with admirable skill. The white statues of the Evangelists at the corners were sculptured by Monegro; the appropriate inscriptions are in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Syriac.

The three Chapter Rooms of the monastery form a picture gallery of high interest. Titian is represented by a Last Supper--sadly restored; Tintoretto, by “Christ washing His Disciples’ feet,” “Christ at the house of the Pharisee,” and “Queen Esther”--all bought from the Collection of our Charles I. by the Spanish Ambassador--and by an “Ecce Homo,” “Entombment,” “Adoration of the Shepherds,” and “Annunciation”; Velazquez, by “The sons of Jacob”--perhaps the best work in the collection; El Mudo, by the “Martyrdom of St James”; El Greco, by the “Dream of Philip II. (Glory, Purgatory, and Hell)”; Ribera, by several canvasses. There is a good “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” by Titian in the old chapel, and a few good pictures, especially by El Mudo, in the upper cloisters, reached by a grand staircase. One of the halls is called the Aula de Moral, being reserved for conferences on points of morality.

The Library is decidedly of more interest than the Convent. The books, oddly enough, are arranged with the faces, instead of the backs, outwards. The cases of ebony and cedar were designed by Herrera and harmonise well with the marble pavement and tables. There are several portraits of sovereigns here, and in cases are arranged some of the rarer books, such as the prayer-books of Charles V., Isabel the Catholic, Philip III., etc., a Virgil of the fifteenth century, and an eleventh century Codex, with the four Gospels written in letters of gold. This priceless work was begun by order of Conrad II., Emperor of the Romans. Eighteen pounds’ weight of gold is said to have been employed in the illumination.

The beginning of the collection was Philip’s own library, of 4000 volumes, to which was added in 1614 the valuable library of the Sultan of Morocco. It has of course been increased by other collections from time to time. The Arabic MSS., though not as numerous as might be expected, are extremely valuable. Gayangos, that patient Spanish Orientalist, I am informed, never had the opportunity of inspecting them.

The palace occupies the northern side of the huge edifice. It forms the least meritorious part of Herrera’s design, and was not improved by the alterations effected by order of Charles IV. The halls are dull, dreary, and altogether in the style of the eighteenth century--a sufficient condemnation. Those were days when every monarch wanted a Versailles: we see the same effort at imitation at Caserta, at the Superga, at Wilhelmshöhe and Philippsruhe. There is, of course, a Hall of Battles, celebrating with the exception of the pictures of the fight at St Quentin, Lepanto, and Higueruela, victories over the Dutch and Flemings. National self-glorification may be carried too far, but in England we are too forgetful of our glorious past. We do not dream of adorning our palaces with pictures of Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Blenheim, Trafalgar, and Waterloo. You may search England in vain for monuments to William the Conqueror, the founder of the monarchy, to Edward, our great justiciar, to the Black Prince, to de Montfort or to Langton, to whom we owe our constitutional liberties. One unacquainted with our history might suppose we sprang into existence a bare century ago. In a generally conservative country like ours, this complete detachment from the past appears strangely contradictory.