Part 9

In his work on “Sevilla,” the same authority distinguishes between the art of the Mudejare, or transition artificers, and that of the Almohado Moors. “The latter art,” he observes, “is less simple, less select in its ornamentation, discloses less rational regularity, and is, generally speaking, more affected.” These differences may be seen in a comparison between the Moorish Giralda of Seville and the beautiful creation of artists of the Arab-Andalusian period which are to be studied in the ornamental parts of the Alhambra. The Almohade architecture displays a base taste, which imitates rather than feels, and creates forms by exaggerations which are unsuitable to the design, and thus differs in æsthetic principles from the Mudejaren-Moorish work of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, which reveals an instinctive feeling for the beautiful in ornamentation, which never loses sight of the elegant, the graceful, and the bold, and consequently never falls into aberration. The Almohade period, in short, discloses at once the force of the barbarous spirit civilised by conquest, while the latter offers the enduring character of cultured taste and wisdom in all the epochs of prosperous or adverse fortune; both are the faithful expression of people of different ages, origins, and aptitudes. “It is certain,” declares Señor de Madrazo, “that the innovations which characterise Mussulman architecture in Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries, cannot be explained as a natural mutation from the Arab art of the khalifate, or as a preparation or transition to the art of Granada, because there is very little similarity between the style called secondary or Moorish and the Arab-Byzantine and Andalusian, while on the other hand it is evident that the Saracen monuments of Fez and Morocco, of the reigns of Yusuf ben Texpin, Abdel-ben-Ali, Elmansur and Nasser, bear the principal character of the ornamentation which the Almohades made general in Spain.”

It must always be remembered when approaching the forbidding exterior of the alcazar, that it was erected to serve the purpose of a fortress as well as a palace. Yusuf is supposed to have used a Roman prætorium as the foundation of his castle, and there are parts of the wall which date back to Roman times. But the principal gateway which gives entrance to the palace is of Arab origin, and it is evident that all the upper part, from the frieze with the Gothic inscription, is purely Mohammedan, according to the Persic style, very much used in the entrances to mosques of the first period, in Asia. The two pilasters, in their entire height, as well as the sculptured framing of the lower part, are of the Arab style; but the balconies with arches, and Byzantine columns, the Roman capitals, the lintels of the doors and windows with Gothic springs, are indications, which prove the reconstruction of the time of Don Pedro. The later restorations have not completely

changed the primitive form, but have only modified it. On entering the palace one finds other works less Arab than these, the ornaments do not form an integral part of the decoration, and one can observe that in order to place them it was necessary to remove inscriptions and Mohammedan shields which filled the little spaces.

But in passing this square entrance, whose form recalls Egypt, and which began to be used when the horseshoe arch was no longer in vogue, we find ourselves in the chief courtyard of the alcazar, which makes a slight detour in order not to be overlooked from the street, and which offers an extravagant assemblage of lines without departing from exactness. The actual lines of this superb edifice, mentioning principally the two types of architecture which prevail, are the Moorish of the works erected from 1353 to 1364, and the Renaissance, in the works carried out under the monarchs of the house of Austria.

It is curious that while the Alhambra was allowed to fall into decay, and suffered periods of neglect that could be reckoned by scores of years at a stretch, the alcazar has seldom been free from the hands of the restorers. The fact accounts, of course, for the splendid state of preservation in which it is to be found to-day, but it also owes to it the weird incongruity of style and decoration which lovers of pure Moorish art deplore. After Pedro had almost entirely reconstructed the palace--and to him the alcazar owes many of its best portions--it came under the restoring influence of Juan II., that weak but artistic monarch, whose handiwork is seen in some of the chief apartments. The arch-vandal, Charles V., whose palace in the Alhambra would be a work of art anywhere save on the spot on which he chose to erect it, could not be expected to spare the alcazar. Under his direction the greater portion of the Renaissance additions were made, and the portraits of Spanish kings hung in the Hall of Ambassadors were introduced by his successor. In the 17th century this favourite residence of the kings of Spain attained to the zenith of its magnificence; and then for a whole century the palace was allowed, for the first and only time, to fall into a state of disrepair. Spain was passing through troublous times, and its rulers had weightier matters to absorb their attention. The alcazar, stricken by neglect, shrank to something like its original proportions, and its beauties fell into decay. In the middle of the 19th century Queen Isabella II. rescued the ancient structure from the ravages of time, and the present order and distinction which it now enjoys is largely due to her timely efforts.

After the restorations made by Don Pedro were finished, the alcazar had various entrances, but the principal were the two opened in the old Arab wall, which lead to the courts called the “Banderas y de la Monteria.” The delicate pointed arches which composed them were almost hidden between the massive towers of the neighbouring minaret; nothing externally reveals the dazzling beauty which is to be seen behind these walls.

In the courtyard one sees very fine ornaments placed hap-hazard, which had been left over from the last restorations of the palace of Granada, and which were sent here without any consideration for period or style. That this system prevailed can be proved by reference to the archives of the royal patrimony, where there is a document requesting, on the part of the keeper of the alcazar, that some of the “best” arabesques, which were being used for the restorations at Granada, should be sent to Seville. These ornaments, of different epochs and styles, can be seen on the walls of the alcazar, face to face with others corresponding to the

infancy of the art. The Alhambra does not suffer from these incongruities, because it has not suffered a great transformation similar to that which the alcazar underwent at the hands of Don Pedro. It has not been altered to suit the requirements of a Christian court, and it has never been occupied by great personages, with large revenues at their disposal, to reconstruct it according to their caprice.

The ornaments of the ceilings of the alcazar are magnificent, because, as Contreras points out, the Moorish workmen were beginning to understand all the majesty and grandeur that Christian art stamped upon the complicated and minute assemblage of Mussulman edifices; they began to make rich coverings, with bolts or stays with apertures, and with hollows in the form of an arch, and keystones imitating rhombus, stars, and bow ornaments. The famous Gothic roofs and ceilings of the Bretonne buildings of the ninth century have never been able to equal this one, because here one finds more beautiful specimens than in the other edifices, when the vaults with little stalactites had not yet acquired their complete development. The perfectly-worked and carved designs of the doors give a great relief to the palace. One remarks here that the ceilings are less magnificent or luxurious, when the ornamentation is less classic, and, as at Fez, the walls were covered with hangings instead of reliefs in plaster; and then they used more gold in the cornices, in the friezes, in the domes, in the lintels, and in the crownings, whilst the walls remained bare, as in the Moz-Arabian constructions. There was here such a mixture of styles, such a confusion of ideas, and such a number of little quadrangular windows, which interrupt the general line of the ornamentation, as one does not see anywhere else. One sees, too, walls covered with arabesques, stretching like pieces of tapestry or coverings of bright colours, and which produce a rich effect, beautiful and varied, thought-out and elegant--but not at all simple--which is the chief condition of art in the epochs of great culture.

In going through this alcazar one sees nothing but square saloons, one following the other, of the same shape and dimensions, occasionally varied by the composition of the arabesques traced there. Symmetry has been sacrificed to convenience, and the central arches to the alignment of the doors. In the time of the Arabs the alcazar constituted a series of constructions, flanked by the walls and the towers, which surrounded the town, which had not the symmetrical form of the rectangular plan of the buildings of the Renaissance. Neither does it resemble the palaces of Egypt or of Syria. These quays, placed side by side, give this edifice the appearance of a Christian house of the fifteenth century; and one can only confidently give the name “Arab” to the Court of the Damsels, the Hall of Ambassadors, and the apartments immediately adjoining it.

The Court of the Banners, and of the Hunters, lead to the Court of the Principal Façade, where one sees the first specimen of Mussulman decoration! In all these divisions the monument is only revealed by the vestiges of battlements of the towers and of the walls, in which the original doors were opened, and where the sultans had the chambers for judging the quarrels of their subjects,--a custom perpetrated by the Christian monarchs. In the Court of the Hunters one can still see the apartment named the Hall of Justice, where all writers suppose that the audiences were held. Here Don Pedro held his tribunal; and the traveller, Don Antonio Ponz, asserts that he saw one of the columns of the memorable seat occupied by the monarch when he held those famous audiences, which were an imitation of the

judgments of the East and of the feudal lords of the West, and which magnified the idea of justice in the eyes of foolish and irreflective people, but which were held by men of good sense to be a mere pretence of equity, with which to mask his tyranny. The place where justice was administered in the time of the Almohadan kings was in the Court of the Monteria--a vast and beautiful apartment, one of the oldest constructions in the alcazar, and of a more purely Moorish style.

The Court of the Hunters leads to another larger court, known as the Princes’ Hall. This is more regular in form, and in it rises the chief entrance, dazzling and richly ornamented with painting and gilding, from its twin windows to the topmost moulding of its projecting eaves, of the purest Almohadan style. How can one describe it? Not only the entrance, but the whole façade is of precious marbles, the capitals of the columns being in the most exquisite Moorish taste; and the facia of interlaced arches above the doorway display the escutcheons of Castile and Leon; while round another facia, running between the brackets over the twin windows of the principal floor, there is a legend in Gothic characters, which says: “The very high, and very noble, and very powerful, and very victorious Don Pedro, King of Castile and Leon, commanded these alcazars, and these palaces, and these doorways to be made, which was done in the era of one thousand four hundred and two.” The cupola of the Princes’ Hall rises above this façade, its outer walls being adorned with little arches and blue tile work, in imitation of a pyramid, and bearing at its summit, in the Oriental fashion, a weather-cock with gilded spheres.

On entering the vestibule, one sees first the result of unfortunate modern reformations, little rooms or recesses to right and left, now almost stripped of their ancient ornamentation. On taking the corridor, which is at the back of a sort of ante-chamber, nearly square, one arrives at the chief inner court called the Court of the Damsels. There is an unfounded tradition which says this court derives its name from the disgraceful tribute of one hundred damsels levied by Mauregato, and paid to the khalifs of Cordova, it being supposed that the throne upon which the Moorish king sat when receiving this tribute was situated in this court. In point of fact, as Pedro de Medrazo reminds us, there were no Moorish kings in Spain, and neither was Seville the capital of the Andalusian khalifate, nor can it be asserted that there was a Saracen palace there before the eleventh century. Without any doubt this court was part of the great restorations of the fourteenth century. Its plan is a rectangle, with galleries of marble columns in couples and pointed mitred arches; the central arches of each side are higher than the rest, and instead of resting, as these do on the columns, they are supported by small square pillars, which appear to be held up by the capitals. These small pillars have beautiful little columns at their angles, which at first sight seem to be a prelude to the caprices of the Renaissance, which loved so much to surmount one style by another; but here it is really an accident very characteristic of the Arabic-Granadian architecture, such as is often to be noticed in the Courts of the Alhambra.

These arches are only seen in the façade here, in the House of Pilate, and in the buildings of the eighth century in the East. One could not explain them unless there were hanging decorations, such as tapestries attached to the walls, which were neither seen nor guessed in the intercolumniations. It is a strange shape, which is elegant on account of the lobules, the point, and the horseshoe-formed

span, which at a later period regulated the arches of the palaces of Fez, of Tunis, and of Cairo.

The second gallery of the Court of the Damsels, added to the ancient construction, is an addition of little importance; but it is a fine court, if one considers the modifications of its style, its socles showing beautiful panels of decorated porcelain of admirable delicacy. Different doors lead to the saloon of Charles V., to that of the Ambassadors, and to those of the “Caracol,” or of Don Maria de Padilla. They have scarfs cut into polygons, which cover them on both sides, but this fine work has been badly restored with stucco barbarously painted.

The Hall of Ambassadors is a square apartment of a solemn aspect, with four frontages composed of high arches, which enclose twin windows, placed on slender columns, whose little arches are more than semi-circular, without having the characteristic form of the horse-shoe,--a curve which marks the decadent transition. The capitals are degenerate Greco-Roman; but the great decorative arch with running knots, although it has an Arab curve, has not the two squares in height from the floor of the hall, and that deprives it of elegance in its ornamentation. The spaces, or triangles, are not original, the work is interrupted, as in the inner side of the wall of the frontage, by shutters which open, as though escaping from the tympan of the twin windows. A wide frieze of windows, or painted transparencies, stretches above, in an admirable manner, and higher still there is a geometrical band of ornaments in the form of knots, and then come architraves and supports on which the roof rests. The sub-basements of porcelain are adorned with arabesques, and the connecting doors are decorated with almost exaggerated profusion. The open balconies, with the eagles on their consols, are an eternal affront for him who had them made; and we may say the same thing of the portraits with Gothic frames, placed under the arch-like hollows of the walls, and also of the gilding, which has not the fine ornamentation of blue, red, and black, which renders these little vaults more graceful, when they are done by Arabs. The spherical cupola, with rafters with arabesques forming stars of symmetrical polygons, may have been constructed for stained glass windows at a higher light, but later it was ineffectively decorated with little mirrors. The mosaics have been restored with pieces larger than the originals, and the jasper columns seem to be Roman and not Arab, as do many others of the decadence; and the capitals too, without uniformity, and unsuited to the columns, appear to be Moz-Arabian work, which is seen in many of the Saracen mosques.

The type of the African inscriptions in the alcazar is not as fine or as pure as are those in the Hall of Comares at Granada; but on the other hand the classic character of the cufic inscriptions here is more uniform and more simple. The ornaments, in the shape of leaves, of pine cones, and of palms interlaced with ribbons, with geometrical outlines, is a style that is no longer seen after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. The little windows, in parallelograms above the doors, the Roman imposts, the Gothic carvings, and the escutcheons with broken chiselings shown in this palace, are the work of several generations who were wanting in the consciousness of art.

Yet the Hall of Ambassadors is beyond dispute the most splendid and beautiful apartment of all the palaces of Moorish architecture belonging to the Crown in Spain. The painting and gilding of arabesques, the lovely carved wooden ceilings, now shaped like inverted bowls, now like sections of a sphere, and now like capricious many-sided

figures, which reflect the light and shade with a marvellous effect; the inscriptions in African characters; the rich doors of marquetry, surrounded by Arabic invocations (a beautiful work done by artificers of Toledo); the columns of various marbles with capitals of exquisite cut, now primitive, now Almohadan, now Moorish; the variegated marble of the pavement, the perforated stucco of the partitions, the ingenious work, with birds introduced in the doorways; and finally this strange combination of five different styles, which in theory is so impossible, and in practice so harmonious--Arabic, Almohadan, Gothic, Granadian, and Renaissance--to be seen in so many apartments of the alcazar, but more especially in this hall, are things which the pen could never describe satisfactorily, and which must be left to the impression produced by a sight of the original, or to a contemplation of its pictured representation. For this reason one may not endeavour to describe, either technically or minutely, this magnificent hall, to the gradual architectural composition of which overseers and workmen of so many different times contributed. The Abbaditas made the bold horse-shoe arches of the lower part; the Almohadans, and afterwards the school of Christians of Granada which arose, carried out the work of ornamenting the walls with the ornamental arches, the perforated windows, the facias of little interlaced arches, and the inscriptions; and they covered the hall with the marvellous dome shaped like an inverted bowl. It is probable that the architects of the Catholic monarchs constructed the third body in the pointed style, forming a series of corrupted trefoils bordered with lilies, in whose centres the portraits of the kings of Spain, from Chindasvinto, are reproduced; and, finally, the kings of the House of Austria added the third body of the decoration, four balconies, of great projection, which doubtless formerly were twin windows (ajimeces) with one or more columns, supported by griffons gilded, and of bold outline.

It was probably in this saloon that the ceremonious and perfidious reception of Abu Said, King of Granada, by Don Pedro took place. The usurper of the Throne of Granada presented himself to the owner of the alcazar, thinking he had ensured his personal safety by the gifts he had forwarded, and by his complete submission to the wishes of his host. But after being entertained at a splendid supper, he was rewarded with prison, and death, accompanied with the most horrible mockeries. Amongst the jewels, with which the unhappy Abu Said is supposed to have hoped to win the heart of his faithless enemy, was the immense ruby, which to-day shines in the royal crown of Edward VII. It was given by Don Pedro to the Black Prince; it later came into the possession of Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland, and through her son, James I., returned once more to England.

If the Hall of Ambassadors is rich, the Court of the Dolls is not less so in its own style. This, with some other saloons, constituted one of the remaining splendours of the alcazar which are associated with Don Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago, the timid son of Alonso XI. We cannot tell from what source this court has received its modern denomination. In the old chronicles there is no trace of such a name; but they, and tradition, have handed us down copious notes, all of which make this part of the alcazar the theatre of that sanguinary drama of the Fourteenth Century. After reading these chronicles and romances, one imagines the ghosts of the actors moving about the apartments; one sees Don Pedro, who has already planned his execrable plot, receiving, with false expressions of interest, his half-brother Don Fadrique; one sees the lovely Padilla,