Part 7

The most important monument of this period in Seville is the Casa Pilatos. It illustrates the fusion of the Moorish and Renaissance styles, almost to the effacement of the former. In the architecture of this period we usually find an Arabic groundwork nearly obscured by ornamentation of the newer style. In the schemes of decoration the conventional floral designs and geometrical patterns remain, while the inscriptions, which figured so largely in earlier work, disappear. The stucco and _azulejos_ no longer cover the whole walls, and the windows and doors become larger and less graceful. As Herr Schmidt remarks, effect was no longer sought for in the innately elegant but in bold, monumental compositions.

Mr Digby Wyatt (“An Architect’s Note-Book in Spain”) indicates as the two special points of architectural value possessed by the Casa de Pilatos, “the entirely moresque character of the stucco-work at a comparatively late date, and the profuse use of _azulejos_ or coloured tiles. It is ... in and about the splendid staircase that this charming tile lining, of the use of which we have here of very late years commenced a very satisfactory revival, asserts its value as a beautiful mode of introducing clean and permanent polychromatic decoration.”

The history of this beautiful building is of singular interest. Its erection was begun in 1500 by the _adelantado_ (governor), Don Per Enriquez, continued by his son, Don Fadrique Enriquez de Ribera, first Marqués de Tarifa, after his return from a two years’ pilgrimage in the Holy Land, and finished by Don Per Afan, first Duque de Alcalá, and sometime Viceroy of Naples, in 1533. Authorities differ whether it received its name from its having been modelled on the House of Pilate, seen by Don Fadrique, or from the relics presented to the Duque de Alcalá by Pope Pius V. The ex-Viceroy was a liberal patron of the arts. He enriched his house with priceless works of art and a fine library--since removed to Madrid. He played the part of Mæcenas to the Varros of his generation. Here the wits, the savants, and the virtuosi of Spain were made welcome, and here they met together in a noble coterie. Among the frequenters of the house may be named Pacheco the painter, Céspedes, the Herreras, Góngora the poet, Jauregui, Baltasar de Alcazár, Rioja, Juan de Arguizo, and (probably) Cervantes. Herr Schmidt tells us that Seville did not stand alone among the cities of Spain in boasting such a rallying-point for genius: “In Guadalajara, the palace of the Mendozas, in Alba de Tormes and Abadia, the castles of the Duque de Alba, in Madrid, the arts were treasured by Antonio Perez; in Zaragoza by the Duque de Villahermosa, in Plasencia by Don Luis de Avila, in Burgos by the Velascos. These and other families in Spain followed the example set by the Medici in Italy.”

The ground-plan of the Casa de Pilatos is Moorish, with an inner court, two storeys, guest-chambers, and high outer walls surrounding a garden. The exterior is plain and dignified. The portal is of marble, and over the arch is the text, “Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam,” etc. To the left of the door is a jasper cross fixed in the wall. In October 1521, the Marqués de Tarifa returned from the Holy Land, and having traversed the path trodden by Christ on His way from Pilate’s house to Calvary, he placed this cross on the wall and counted thence the fourteen stations of the cross. The last fortuitously coincided with the Cruz del Campo, raised near the Caños de Carmona, in the year 1482.

The central _patio_ is markedly Moorish in character, and is encircled with arcades of extraordinary symmetry and beauty. Pedro de Madrazo calls attention to the harmonious variety and irregularity of the arches and windows, comparing the effect thus produced to the admired disorder of the forest and plantation. The decoration of the walls and arches bears a general resemblance to that of the Alcazar, but on closer examination the influence of the plateresco, Late Gothic, and Renaissance styles is revealed. The fountain in the middle of the _patio_ is adorned with dolphins and four huge statues belonging to the best period of Roman art. The chapel is in the mixed pointed and Moorish styles. In the vestibule the _ajaraca_, or trellis-work, the _azulejos_, and the _ajimeces_, or twin-windows (now converted into ordinary windows) recall Moorish art; while the ceiling is in the plateresco style. The arch of the chapel is Gothic, and its walls are laid with _azulejos_ and stucco. In the middle of the floor stands a short marble column, a copy of the pillar at which Christ is supposed to have been scourged, preserved at Rome; it was the gift of Pius V.

The room called the Prætorium has a fine coffered ceiling and good tiling. The staircase is magnificent. Its walls are faced with _azulejos_, and its ceiling is in the cupola or half-orange style of the Salón de los Embajadores. Another room on the upper floor is adorned with paintings by Pacheco, the subject being Dædalus and Icarus. The view from the roof is perhaps the finest in the city.

The Casa de Pilatos, as might be inferred from the character of its founder, is a veritable cabinet of antiques and precious objects, marbles and fragments from Italica figuring largely in the collection.

A notable private residence, dating probably in its foundations from the beginning of the fifteenth century, is the Casa de Abades, sometimes called the Casa de los Pinelos. It passed into the hands of the Genoese family from which it derives its second name, and thence to the Cathedral Chapter (composed of _abbés_ or _abades_). In the sixteenth century it became the property of the Ribera family, the owners of the Casa de Pilatos. It is described by Madrazo as presenting a fine example of the Sevillian Renaissance style, which would appear to be compounded of all pre-existing styles. Mr Digby Wyatt, on the other hand, thinks the house more Italian than Spanish. But the beautiful _patio_, the dados of _azulejos_, and the _ajimeces_ looking on the courtyard are distinctly Andalusian features. There are also traces of Moorish geometrical ornamentation, covered with repeated coats of whitewash.

The Palacio de las Dueñas, more properly the Palace of the Dukes of Alba, and sometimes called Palacio de las Pinedas, is a vast and once splendid mansion, partaking of the mixed style of the two buildings last described. It boasted at one time eleven _patios_, with nine fountains, and over one hundred marble columns. A fine _patio_ remains, surrounded by a gallery with graceful columns. The staircase, with its vaulted roof, recalls that of the Casa de Pilatos. In the lower part is a chapel of the fifteenth century, which has fared very badly at the hands of restorers or rather demolishers. This palace was for a time the residence of Lord Holland, an ardent admirer of Spanish literature, and the author (1805) of a memoir on Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro.

Other notable residences of the nobility in Seville are the Casa de Bustos Tavera, and the Palaces of the Dukes of Osuna and Palomares and the Count of Peñaflor. These all date from what may be loosely called Mudejar times.

The Church of the University of Seville is of interest. The university itself was originally a college of the Society of Jesus, and was built in the middle of the sixteenth century, after designs ascribed to Herrera. Madrazo thinks it more likely that these were the work of the Jesuit Bartolomé de Bustamante. The church forms a Latin cross, a spacious half-orange dome covering the transept. The Renaissance style is followed. Here repose the members of the illustrious Ribera family, their remains having been transported hither on the suppression of the Cartuja (Carthusian Monastery). The oldest of the tombs is also that of the oldest Ribera, who died in 1423, aged 105 years. The finest is that of Doña Catalina (died 1505), the work of a Genoese sculptor. Other tombs are those of Don Pedro Henriquez, Diego Gomez de Ribera, Don Perafan de Ribera (1455), and Beatriz Portocarrero (1458). Let into the pavement is a magnificent bronze slab, to the memory of the Duque de Alcalá, the owner of the Casa de Pilatos. Among the sepulchres are those of the founder, Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, whose favourite dog is sculptured at his feet, and Benito Arias Montano, a _savant_ who died in 1598. Over the altar are three paintings: the “Holy Family,” the “Adoration of the Magi,” and the “Nativity”; the first by Roelas, the other two by his pupil, Juan de Varela. These, especially the first, are among the finest pictures in the city. The statue of St Ignatius Loyola by Montañez, coloured by Pacheco, is probably the only faithful likeness of the Saint. In this church are also to be seen two admirable works of Alonso Cano, “St John the Baptist” and “St John the Divine.”

The Renaissance made itself felt in Spain during the reign of Charles V., and was productive of the plateresco style. Seville contains two imposing monuments of this type of architecture--the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) and Lonja (Exchange). The first-named was begun in 1527 by Diego de Riaño, and completed under Felipe II., about forty years later. Madrazo considers the building “somewhat inharmonious through the variety, a little excessive, of its lines, but admirable for the richness of the decoration and for fine and delicate execution--a merit of the first importance in structures of this style, where the sculptor or stone-cutter ranked with the architect.”

The lower and older storey has three façades, all elaborately chased and designed like silversmiths’ work. The central façade, facing the Calle de Génova, bears the statues of Saints Ferdinand, Leandro, and Isidoro--symbolical of the temporal and spiritual power. The right façade is the purest and most regular of the three. The upper storey, belonging to the reign of Felipe II., appears almost plain in comparison with the tower. In the vestibule is a noble Latin inscription relating to justice. The lower Sala Capitular is a magnificent apartment worthy, as Madrazo remarks, of the Senate of a great republic. It is adorned with the statues of the Castilian kings down to Charles V., with a rich frieze designed with genii, masks, and animals, and with appropriate legends. The upper Sala Capitular has a magnificent _artesonado_ ceiling. Over the grand staircase are a fine coffered ceiling and another in the form of a cupola. The archives of the municipality contain several valuable historical documents, and the embroidered banner of St Ferdinand.

The Lonja or Exchange dates from Felipe II.’s reign. The Patio de los Naranjos was formerly frequented by the merchants and brokers of Seville for the transaction of business, and this practice interfering seriously with divine worship in the Cathedral, the Archbishop, Cristobal de Rojas, petitioned Felipe II. to follow the precedent just established by Sir Thomas Gresham and to build an Exchange or Casa de Contratacion. The preparation of the plans was confided to Herrera, and the building, under the direction of Juan de Minjares, was finished in 1598--at precisely the time, as Ford remarks, that the commerce of Seville began to decline. The Lonja in its stern simplicity reflects, like the Escorial, the temper of Felipe II.--a sovereign, unpopular though he may have been, in whom it is impossible not to recognise the elements of greatness. The edifice forms a perfectly regular quadrangle, and the sobriety of the decoration affords a striking contrast to the gorgeous profusion of the Ayuntamiento. The inner court is noble and severe with its gallery of Doric and Ionic columns. The dignity of the whole has been impaired by later additions and restorations. Here are deposited the archives of the Indies (_i.e._ South America), the documents being arranged in handsome mahogany cases. They have never been thoroughly gone through and examined. The business men of Seville soon abandoned their Exchange, and it is chiefly to be remembered as the seat of Murillo’s Academy of Painters, founded in 1660.

In connection with the American traffic of Seville it should be mentioned that in the village of Castilleja la Cuesta, near the city, is the house where Hernando Cortés died in 1547. The place has been acquired by the Duc de Montpensier, by whom it has been converted into a sort of museum. The Conquistador’s bones rest in the country which, with such intrepidity, he won for the Spanish race.

The Civil Hospital of Seville, otherwise known by the ghastly designation of the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas or del Sangre (of the Five Wounds or of the Blood), was designed in 1540 by Martin Gainza. It is a massive stone edifice of two storeys, the lower Doric and the upper Ionic. In the central _patio_ is the chapel in the form of a Greek cross, the façade exhibiting a tasteful combination of the three Grecian styles. The altarpiece is by Maeda and Alonzo Vazquez. The pictures of saints are by Zurbarán, and the “Apotheosis of St Hermenegild” and the “Descent from the Cross” by Roelas.

BUILDINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

About the middle of the seventeenth century there lived at Seville a young gallant, Don Miguel de Mañara by name, whose excesses and escapades horrified even that lax generation. Marriage with the heiress of the Mendozas did not sober him. Of him, at this period of his life, this much good may be said, that he patronised and encouraged Murillo. But one day something happened: quite suddenly the rake changed into a devotee, an ascetic--a saint in the seventeenth-century acceptation of the word. The wine-bibber forswore even chocolate as too tempting a beverage.

What had happened to produce this startling reformation? Accounts vary. Some say that Don Miguel, traversing the streets in insensate rage against some custom-house officials, was suddenly and vividly made conscious of the enormous wickedness of his life. A more picturesque version is the following: Returning from a carousal one night, the Don found himself absolutely unable to discover his house or the way thither. Wandering desperately up and down distressed, and in perplexity of mind, he perceived a funeral cortège approaching. Impelled by irresistible curiosity, he stepped up to the bearers of the bier and asked whose body they were carrying. Came the reply: “The corpse of Don Miguel de Mañara.” The horror-stricken prodigal tore aside the pall, and lo! the face of the dead man was his own. The vision disappeared, and the same instant the Don found himself at the door of his own house. He entered it a changed man.

The church and hospital of La Caridad are the existing fruits of Don Miguel’s conversion. As far back as 1578, there had existed at Seville a confraternity, the objects of which were to assist condemned criminals at their last moments and to provide them with Christian burial. To this association the reformed rake turned his attention. He converted the chapel into a hospital for the sick, the poor, and the pilgrims of all nations, and liberally endowed it out of his ample resources.

The edifice is in the decadent Greco-Roman style, and was designed by Bernardo Simón de Pereda. The Baroque façade is adorned with five large blue faïence designs on a white ground, the subjects being Faith, Hope, and Charity, St James, and St George. Tradition has it that these were made after drawings by Murillo at the _azulejo_ factory of Triana. The church hardly appears to us to warrant the description “one of the most elegant in Seville,” applied to it by Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell. Under the High Altar is buried the founder, Don Miguel. His own wish was to be buried at the entrance to the church, with the epitaph: _Aqui yacen los huesos y cenizas del peor hombre que ha habido en el mundo_ (Here lie the bones and ashes of the worst man that ever lived in this world). His sword, and his portrait painted by Valdés Leal, are preserved in the Hospital.

As a museum of Spanish art, La Caridad possesses great importance. The altarpiece, “The Descent from the Cross,” is the masterpiece of Pedro Roldan. The two paintings near the entrance by Juan de Valdés Leal (1630-1691) are regarded by Herr Schmidt as entitling that artist to rank as one of the greatest masters of realism of any age. This opinion is not shared by a recent writer (C. Gasquoine Hartley), who considers the pictures theatrical, though the execution exhibits a certain power. “In one of them a hand holds a pair of scales, in which the sins of the world--represented by bats, peacocks, serpents, and other objects--are weighed against the emblems of Christ’s Passion; in the other, which is the finer composition, Death, with a coffin under one arm, is about to extinguish a taper, which lights a table spread with crowns, jewels, and all the gewgaws of earthly pomp. The words ‘In Ictu Oculi’ circle the gleaming light of the taper, while upon the ground rests an open coffin, dimly revealing the corpse within.” Murillo said this picture had to be looked at with the nostrils closed. For the two paintings Valdés received 5740 reals.

Of the eleven pictures painted by Murillo for this church, only six remain, the others having been carried off by the French. The subjects are “Moses striking the Rock,” the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,” the “Charity of San Juan de Dios,” the “Annunciation,” the “Infant Jesus,” and “St John.” The first picture, depicting, as it does, the terrible thirst experienced by the Israelites, is known as _La Sed_ (Thirst). Some critics think this is one of the finest of the master’s productions. As is usual in his compositions, the figures are all those of ordinary Sevillian types. “The personality of Christ in the ‘Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,’” says C. Gasquoine Hartley, “lacks the force of the ancient prophet, and the work as a whole is inferior to its companion picture.” The “Charity of San Juan de Dios”--representing the Saint carrying a beggar with the help of an angel--is the best and most characteristic of the six paintings. The “Infant Jesus” and the “St John” are also very fine. For the “San Juan de Dios” and the “St Elizabeth of Hungary”--_El Tiñoso_--(now at Madrid) together, Murillo was paid 18,840 reals; for the Moses, 13,300 reals; and for the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,” 15,973 reals.

The last building which may be said to rank as an architectural monument erected in Seville is the Palacio de San Telmo, now the residence of the Duc de Montpensier. In the year 1682 the Naval School of San Telmo was founded on the site of the former palace of the Bishops of Morocco and the tribunal of the Holy Office. The present edifice, begun, after plans by Antonio Rodriguez, in 1734, was not completed till 1796. The palace adjoins the beautiful gardens of the Delicias. The façade is exceedingly ornate, the decoration being in the Plateresco style. The general effect is pleasing, but critics have been unsparing in their denunciations of the structure. It certainly reflects the debasing influence of the architect Jose Churriguera (1665-1725), who has given his name (_Churrigueresque_) to one of the most tawdry and tasteless styles of architecture.

The Archiepiscopal Palace, adjacent to the Cathedral, is also in the bad style of the later seventeenth century. The interior, however, is worth visiting for the sake of the noble marble staircase, one of the finest in the city. Here are three paintings by Alejo Fernandez, an early seventeenth-century artist, whom Lord Leighton considered “the most conspicuous among the Gothic painters.”

The Fabrica de Tabacos is a vast building completed in 1757. Apart from its size, it possesses no architectural interest, and though a favourite showplace for tourists, does not come within the scope of a work of this character.

THE PAINTERS OF SEVILLE

BY

ALBERT F. CALVERT AND C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY

In Seville, perhaps to a greater extent than in any city, even in Spain, the country of passionate individualism, art is the reflection of the life and temper of the people; and to understand Seville we must know her painters. As we look at the pictures of the Spanish primitives, at the emphatic canvases of Juan de las Roelas and Herrera, for instance; at the realism of Zubarán, or, still more, at the ecstatic visions of Murillo--as we see them in the old Convento de la Merced, now the Museo Provincial, in the Cathedral, or in one or another of the numerous churches in the city, we find the special spirit of Andalusia.

There is one quality that, at a first glance, impresses us in these pictures, so different, and yet all having one aim. It is their profound seriousness. Rarely, indeed, shall we find a picture in which the idea of beauty, whether it is the beauty of colour or the beauty of form, has stood first in the painter’s mind; almost in vain shall we search for any love of landscape, for any passage introduced just for its own sake. For, let it be remembered, in Andalusia art was devotional always. “The chief end of art,” says Pacheco, the master of Velazquez, in his _Arte de la Pintura_, “is to persuade men to piety and to incline them to God.” Pictures had other purposes to serve than that of beauty. They were painted for the Church to enforce its lessons, they were used as warnings, and as a means of recording the lives of the Saints. In other countries, it is true, painters have spent their strength in religious art, but almost always we can find as well as the sacred, some outside motive, some human love of the subject for itself--for its opportunities of beauty. The intense realism of these Spanish pictures is a thing apart; these Assumptions, Martyrdoms, and Saintly Legends were painted with a vivid sense of the reality of these things by men who felt upon them the hand of God. We know that Luis de Vargas daily humbled himself by scourging and by wearing a hair shirt, and Juan Juanes prepared himself for a new picture by communion and confession. These are two examples chosen out of many. A legend we read of Don Miguel de Mañara, the founder of the Hospital of La Caridad, illustrates this dramatic religious sense of Spain. One day in church Don Miguel saw a beautiful nun, and, forgetful of her habit, made amorous proposals. She did not speak; instead, she turned to look at him; whereupon he saw the side of her face which had been hidden from his eyes: it was eaten away, corrupted by a hideous disease, so that it seemed more horrible than the face of death. It was such scenes as this that the Spanish artists chose to paint. But, indeed, it would be tedious to enumerate the examples which Spain offers of this curious, often, it would seem to us, corrupted sense of the gloom of life, carrying with it as one result the passionate responsibility of art. Always, we feel certain that the Spanish painters felt all that they express.