The Project Gutenberg eBook of Granada and the Alhambra, by Albert F. Calvert.

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
{iv}NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMVII

Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Limited
{v}Tavistock Street, London

TO
H.I.M. THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE
THIS SOUVENIR OF THAT FAIR GRANADAN HOME
FROM WHICH SHE CARRIED
THE CROWN OF SPANISH BEAUTY
TO GRACE THE THRONE OF FRANCE
IS DEDICATED
IN ACCORDANCE WITH HER MAJESTY’S
GRACIOUS PERMISSION
{vii}{vi}

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

Although the admission may be construed by the censorious as betraying a lack of becoming diffidence, I am tempted to believe that no apology will be demanded for the publication of this volume by that section of the reading public for which it has been chiefly compiled. My temerity goes even further, and I anticipate with some confidence that visitors to the Alhambra, and pilgrims to that famous Mecca of Moorish workmanship, will recognise in this book an earnest attempt to supply a long-felt want. When I paid my first visit to Granada some years ago, I was surprised and disappointed to find that no such thing as an even fairly adequate illustrated souvenir of this “city of the dawn” was to be obtained. Many tomes, costly and valuable (not necessarily the same thing), have been written to place on record the wonders of “the glorious sanctuary of Spain,” but these are beyond the reach of the general public. Many beautiful pictures have caught odd ecstasies of{viii} this superb and perfectly harmonised palace of art, but these impressions are not available to the ordinary tourist.

What is wanted, as I imagine, is a concise history and description of the Alhambra, illustrated with a series of pictures constituting a tangible remembrancer of the delights of this Granadian paradise

The Alhambra may be likened to an exquisite opera which can only be appreciated to the full when one is under the spell of its magic influence. But as the witchery of an inspired score can be recalled by the sound of an air whistled in the street, so—it is my hope—the pale ghost of this Moorish fairy-land may live again in the memories of travellers through the medium of this pictorial epitome.

I desire, however, to submit an explanation—or excuse—for the unusual form in which this volume is issued. At the commencement of my work I experienced no little difficulty in collecting the requisite illustrations, for most of the obtainable photographs were ill-chosen and but carelessly developed, and I was compelled to press my own cameras into the service of my scheme. But when my designs became known, I was inundated with offers of pictures of every description, until{ix} the embarrassment of artistic treasures entirely upset the original purpose of my book. Artists placed their studies at my disposal; collectors begged me, with irresistible Spanish courtesy, to regard their galleries as my own; and students directed my attention to little-known publications on the subject.

Don Mariano Contreras, Conservator of the Alhambra, the son of the gifted Raphaël Contreras, who devoted thirty-seven years of his life to the restoration of the Palace—gave me the benefit of his knowledge of this unique treasure-house of art; and I have also laid under contribution the beautiful plates of Owen Jones, who disposed of a Welsh inheritance in order to produce his great work on the Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra. Jones’s Grammar of Ornament, which has been described as “beautiful enough to be the horn-book of the Angels,” also contains the result of his researches in the Alhambra, which occupied him for the greater part of eleven years. A selection of these illustrations is here rescued from the obscurity of public libraries and the inaccessible fastnesses of private collections. The inclusion of John F. Lewis’s drawings, and the reproduction of a series of pictures by James C. Murphy, who spent seven years in the study of the artistic marvels of the Alhambra, I do not feel called upon to defend.{x} The photographs, several of which were placed at my disposal by Don Rafaël Garzón, represent the buildings as they appear to-day; the drawings were made before the Palace was damaged by the disastrous fire of September, 1890.

For the historical portions of the description contained in the letterpress I have levied tribute on a variety of authors. The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, by the learned Spanish Orientalist, Don Pascual de Gayángos; Raphaël Contreras’ Étude Descriptive des Monuments Arabes; Richard Ford’s reverent appreciations; Dr. R. Dozy’s history; Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole’s The Moors in Spain; Washington Irving’s fascinating writings; and The Alhambra Album, presented by Prince Dolgorouki in 1829, containing the autographs, poems, and thoughts of succeeding generations of visitors to Granada, these and many others have been drawn upon in the following pages.

But the multiplicity of my illustrations convinced me that if I adhered to my idea of furnishing an amount of letterpress sufficient to “carry” the blocks, I should only end in producing a book that would tax the physical endurance of my readers by reason of its bulk, and exhaust their patience with a tedious super-abundance of minute descriptive pabulum. I resolved, therefore, to give pride of place to the{xi} pictorial side of the volume; to abandon the traditions regulating the proportions of prose to pictures; and make my appeal to the public by the beauty and variety of the illustrations I have collected, and the immensity of elaborate letterpress which I have not written.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The compilation of a book of this kind reveals in the author a refreshing optimism which does not always survive the ordeal of publication, and it is, perhaps, out of sympathy with the misgivings that assail him as he approaches the bar of public and critical opinion, that convention cedes to him the privilege of making some apology for the faith that is in him. In his preface he is permitted to explain himself, and this apologia or justification, call it which you will, stands as the last word in his own defence. But the demand for a further edition is the outcome of an amiable conspiracy on the part of the public, and it is not required of the author to explain, justify, or excuse an issue for which he is not directly responsible. Any revision or amplification, however, which is to be found in a second impression, may be briefly referred to, and at the same time tradition allows him to express the feelings of gratitude and gratification that the occasion inspires.

It has been my ambition to acknowledge the{xiv} favour with which this book has been received, by having the present edition produced with the greatest care on special paper, and by the addition of a number of new illustrations, including some half-tone and coloured plates reproduced from the Monumentos Arquitectónicos de España and other sources, which I have acquired since it was first produced. It will be seen that several of the coloured pictures in this book illustrate designs which are common to the Arabian ornamentation to be found in Cordova and Seville, and, as being representative of the Moresco work of the period, they also appear in the companion volume on Moorish Remains in Spain, but it may be stated that the whole of the plates reproduced here are from photographs and drawings secured or specially made to illustrate The Alhambra. In its pictorial appeal it has been my ambition to make this edition as worthy of its subject as means and ability permit, and I offer this assurance as an earnest of my sincere appreciation of the generous manner in which the Press and public rewarded my previous effort.

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

The generous appreciation with which my larger book on the Alhambra was received by both the Press and the public in Spain and America, as well as in this country, encourages me to hope that the present volume will prove a popular addition to this Spanish Series. Three years ago, when I published The Alhambra to supply what my own experience taught me to be a real want, the scale and quality of the illustrations made it impossible to issue the work at a popular price. I am now enabled to present an inexpensive and, I trust, adequate souvenir of the fascinating city of Granada and its Red Palace. The text is no mere reprint of the matter which appeared in my former work, but embodies the results of a more critical, though not less appreciative, survey of the last monuments of the Spanish Moor. Bearing in mind, too, that the illustrations, being on a reduced scale, called for fuller explanation, I have endeavoured to condense as much detail and descriptive matter into the letterpress as the limits I had laid down for myself admitted.{xvi} Those limits were still further encroached upon by the additional wealth of illustration which resulted from the decision to include the city of Granada in a work which, in previous issues, had been devoted entirely to the palace of the Alhambra, and the new pictorial matter so acquired threatened to annex all the space allotted for the text. But little as I liked the idea of further condensing the letterpress, I was even less inclined to neglect the opportunity of enhancing the pictorial value of the volume. In dealing with the Moorish art of Spain, I have always recognised that the popular want is for pictures rather than the printed word, and I venture to hope that the present volume, which surpasses its costlier predecessors in the number of the plates reproduced, will constitute a serviceable if not exhaustive guide to the beautiful Moorish capital, and an artistic remembrancer of its fascinating monuments.

I have to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. E. B. d’Auvergne for his kind and valuable assistance in the compilation of the text, and for permission to reproduce many of the additional photographs I am indebted to the courtesy of Don Senan y Gonzalez, of Herr Ernst Wasmuth of Berlin, publisher of Uhde’s Baudenkmaeler in Spanien und Portugal, and of Herr Eugen Twietmeyer of Leipzig, publisher of Junghandel’s Die Baukunst Spaniens.{xvii}

As I have remarked in the preface to the volume on Cordova, it may be thought that in the present work I have given an excess of detail of Arabian decoration and ornament, but it has been my aim to provide the last word on Moorish art—so far at least as the pictorial representation of it is concerned—wherever I have dealt with it in Spain. To the general reader these reproductions of tracery and elaborate detail may seem superfluous, but they will, I trust, lend to the book an additional interest in the eyes of students and artists, for whose delectation they are included here.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

G R A N A D A
THE CITY OF THE MOOR

Granada is the creation of the Moors. Its history is all of them—the record of their glory and their fall. The Pomegranate, as its conqueror styled it, ripened only in the warm sunshine of Islam, and withered with its decline. Under the Christian, it fell from the rank of a splendid capital to a poor provincial town. Now it subsists merely as a great monument to a vanished race and a dead civilisation.

With Granada before it became the centre of an independent kingdom, we need concern ourselves but little. Its real interest dates from the establishment of the Nasrite dynasty in the first half of the thirteenth century. It was the time when the great Almohade Empire was breaking up. Probably all Andalusia would have shared the fate of Cordova and Seville, and the conquests of the Catholic kings been anticipated by two centuries, had not a young man of Arjona, Ibn Al Ahmar by name, determined to fashion for himself a kingdom out of{2} the fragments of empire. With an ever-increasing following, he seized upon Jaen in 1232, and obtained possession of Granada itself in 1237. City after city opened its gates to him, including Malaga and Almeria, and in 1241 he was recognised as Lord and Sultan of all the territory between the Sierra Morena and the Pillars of Hercules, from Ronda to Baza.

A great man, in every sense, was this founder of the Nasrite dynasty. His presence was fine and commanding, his manner bland and amiable, his courage worthy of the heroic age. For all his valour and prowess on the battlefield, no monarch prized peace more highly. He proved himself a true national hero and the father of his people. He fostered industry and agriculture, was a patron, like all his race, of arts and letters, and encouraged immigration by every means in his power. A far-sighted statesman, he perceived that a state so limited in area as his own could only hope to exist by virtue of an unusual density of population, and he offered every inducement to Muslims from the provinces conquered by the Christians to settle within his dominions. Granada was the last hope of Islam in Europe, and he resorted to all possible means to safeguard it. He concluded alliances with the rulers of Morocco, Tlemsen, and Tunis, and even of distant Baghdad. Above all, he neglected no means{3} of humouring and conciliating the irresistible Castilian. He negotiated an alliance with Fernando III., binding himself to attend the Cortes (a curious stipulation for a Mohammedan) and to attend the king in his wars with 1500 lances. This latter part of the bargain he was speedily called upon to fulfil, and against his own co-religionists of Seville. It seemed an unnatural warfare, but, to palliate the iniquity, let it be said that Ibn Al Ahmar probably looked upon the Almohade citizens of Ishbiliah as heretics. At all events, whether his conscience approved his action or not, he contributed in no small measure to Fernando’s success, and was hailed enthusiastically as a conqueror upon his return to Granada. That the assistance he rendered was not looked upon as altogether voluntary by the people of Seville is shown by the fact that thousands of them migrated to his dominions and settled there.

Ibn Al Ahmar dreaded the might of Castile. The only hope for the Mohammedans of Spain lay, he knew, in rest and consolidation. Careful not to give offence to his dreaded neighbour, he courteously received the revolted and exiled Infante Don Enrique when he sought refuge at Granada, but sent him on to Tunis with letters recommending him to the Sultan of that country. All his diplomacy, however, could not avert a{4} war with Alfonso, and to add to his troubles, the Walis of Guadix, Malaga, and Gomares revolted against his authority. But an insurrection soon after broke out in Castile, and Alfonso was compelled to leave the Walis to fight their own battles. Ibn Al Ahmar, an old man of eighty years, wearily girded on his armour for another of the campaigns he had learned to hate. But his time for rest had come at last. A few miles beyond the gates of his capital, his charger threw him, as he rode at the head of his army. He breathed his last at sundown, by the roadside, surrounded by his weeping warriors. It was a dark night for Granada.

Al Ahmar’s son, under the style of Mohammed II., succeeded him at the age of thirty-eight years, on January 21, 1273. Arabic historians have lavished their encomiums upon him, as indeed upon most of his dynasty. He is described as a warrior and a statesman, as a man of letters and a poet of considerable ability. During his reign of twenty-nine years, he was almost continuously at war. Soon after his accession he crushed the rebel Walis at Antequera, and then paid a visit to Alfonso X. at Seville, with a view to detaching the Castilian king from his alliance with the defeated insurgents. In this he was successful. Queen Violante, however, at the conclusion of his visit, asked of him a boon,{5} which, according to the custom of the times, as a true knight, he was bound to grant. He then discovered, too late, that he had been tricked into granting a year’s truce to the Walis. Smouldering with rage, he returned to Granada and spent the year in maturing plans for the complete overthrow of his enemies. This he effected with the aid of the Sultan Yusuf of Morocco, whose army of 100,000 men landed at Tarifa in 1275. The Africans, as on previous occasions in Moorish history, proved dangerous allies. Mohammed found himself embroiled in a long and absolutely unprofitable war with Castile, and had the mortification of seeing the Africans possess themselves of Algeciras, Tarifa, and Malaga. He recovered possession of the latter town by bribing the governor to exchange it for the town of Salobreña, to be held as a personal acquisition; and rid himself at last of the troublesome Africans by means of an alliance with Sancho of Castile. But in 1302 we find him again at war with the Christians, fighting against whom he died.

Mohammed III. was the worthy son of his father, and is specially commended for his indefatigable energy. He took a short way with traitors, even for those rough times. Ibn Nasr, the governor of Guadix, having been removed from his office by the Sultan, exerted himself{6} to form a faction in his favour. Mohammed III., hearing of this, summoned him to court, and had him slain there and then in his presence. A more honourable exploit was his conquest of the town of Ceuta, opposite Gibraltar, in the year 1306. With the rich spoils of the foray, he built a magnificent mosque at Granada, resplendent with gold and silver, jasper and marble. His success perhaps excited the jealousy of the Catholic powers. Attacked on either side by the Kings of Castile and Aragon, he was forced to conclude a humiliating peace. On his return to his capital he was seized in the Alhambra itself by a band of conspirators and forced to abdicate in favour of his brother, Muley Nasr. The new Sultan began his reign with some military successes (1309). He forced Jaime of Aragon to raise the siege of Almeria; but as a set-off, he had to deal with conspiracies and rebellions at home, the most formidable of these being headed by his nephew, Abu-l-Walid. In the midst of these complications a curious incident occurred. Nasr was stricken with apoplexy and left for dead. His deposed brother, Mohammed III., was then released by some courtiers and brought to Granada, only to find that the usurper had recovered his health and his crown. The luckless Mohammed did not long survive his partisans’ mistake. But retribution speedily{7} overtook his brother. He was forced to yield to Abu-l-Walid, and was glad to be allowed to retire to Guadix, the sovereignty of which was allotted to him. Usurper though he was, Nasr conducted himself with the dignity of a philosopher. His rival’s triumph chagrined him not at all, and when invited by Pedro I. to join him in an attack on Granada, he patriotically declined. He was a brave man, who did not complain at meeting the fate to which he had subjected others.

The new monarch of Granada, Abu-l-Walid Ismail, was a fighter and a fanatic. He was fond of saying that he believed only in God and his good sword. His faith in the latter weapon was justified. He annihilated a Spanish army which had approached Granada, among the slain being the Infantes, Don Juan and Don Pedro; and carrying his victorious arms eastwards, wrested Baza and Martos from the enemies of his race. But others also reposed their faith in the sword. Like another Agamemnon, he appropriated a beautiful captive, the prize of the young Mohammed of Algeciras. Three days after his triumphal entry into his capital he fell at the gates of the Alhambra, a victim to the poniard of the man he had injured. Perceiving his sovereign to be at the point of death and resolving to avert the horrors of a disputed succession, the Wizir summoned the chief men of Granada to{8} the palace, and announced that Abu-l-Walid was recovering from his wounds. The royal order was that all present should take the oath to the boy-prince, Muley Mohammed Ben Ismail, as successor to the kingdom. When this command had been obeyed, the wily Wizir announced the death of Abu-l-Walid and the accession of Mohammed IV. This was in the year 1325.

When he had freed himself from the control of an unpopular regent, the young Sultan displayed qualities of heart and mind in no way inferior to those of his progenitors. It must be admitted that Arab historians have been somewhat too partial to this line of kings, for there is hardly one who is not described more or less explicitly as a paragon of all the virtues. Mohammed IV. had to fight hard to hold his own against the Spaniards on one side and the Africans on the other. He took Gibraltar, and lost it again to Abu-l-Hasan of Fez. But the African king was soon after obliged to ask his help to hold the fortress against the Christians. Mohammed generously responded to the appeal, fell like a thunderbolt upon the Spanish camp, and raised the siege. He was ill repaid. In August 1333, he was imprudent enough to reproach his African allies with their inability to hold the fortress; and a day or two later, having sent his army{9} home, made an excursion to the summit of the Rock. He was followed by some among those he had reproached, and quickly despatched by their poniards. His body, naked and mangled, was found at the foot of the Rock, and conveyed to Malaga. No attempt seems to have been made to identify or to punish his murderers.

The ill-fated Mohammed was succeeded by his brother, Yusuf I., Abu-l-Hejaj. While possessed, of course, of the virtues which seem to have been inherent in the Nasrite dynasty, this prince was exceptional in being an ardent, almost a passionate, lover of peace. He believed, says Don Francisco Pi Margall, that it was more glorious to remedy evils than to attempt perilous enterprises. Assisted by his able Wizir, Redwân, he revised the laws and purified the administration of justice. He built a magnificent palace at Malaga, and the great aljama or mosque at Granada, of which no trace remains. Abandoning for once his settled policy, he joined the Africans in a war against Castile. He was badly beaten, and was glad to negotiate a truce of ten years. At the end of that time, Alfonso of Castile died, and the Sultan of Granada was stabbed to death by a madman, while at his prayers in the mosque, in the year 1354.

Mohammed V. was as virtuous and as unfortunate as his father. He had reigned but four{10} years when he was attacked in his own palace by the partisans of his half-brother, Ismail. Narrowly escaping death, he fled to his harem, and in the disguise of a slave eluded his pursuers and made his way to Guadix. Ismail II. ran a brief and inglorious career, and was dethroned and slain (1360) by the “Red King,” Abu Saïd. Meantime, Pedro I. of Castile espoused the cause of the lawful sultan and invaded the territory of Granada. But the magnanimous Moor would not consent to remount the throne at the cost of his people’s blood. Pedro accordingly withdrew, but freed Mohammed from his enemies by murdering Abu Saïd when the latter incautiously paid a visit to Seville. Mohammed was reinstated on his throne, and mindful of the services rendered him by Pedro, advanced to his support with a Grenadine army against Enrique de Trastamara. The tragedy of Montiel made a continuance of the struggle useless, and the Moorish sultan devoted the remainder of his reign to improving the condition of his subjects. He founded charitable institutions and asylums, and raised Granada to a high pitch of prosperity. The city, according to the contemporary writer, El Khattib, became the metropolis of the Mediterranean, the emporium of commerce, and the common fatherland of all nations. Under Mohammed V., the kingdom may be considered{11} to have reached its zenith. Thence to its nadir we count but a century of years.

Yusuf II., who succeeded his father in 1391, was so averse to war that his subjects suspected him of Christian sympathies. His son rose against him, and the pacific monarch was disposed to abdicate rather than draw the sword. The exhortations of the Moroccan ambassador induced him to take a manlier course, and putting himself at the head of the army lately arrayed against him, he ravaged Murcia with fire and sword. It was against this peace-loving sultan that Don Martin de la Barbuda, the Quixotic Master of Calatrava, directed his wild expedition—defeated, of course, and emphatically disavowed by Enrique III. of Castile. Yusuf’s younger son and successor, Mohammed VII.,[A] was a prince of a very different stamp. Accompanied by only twenty-five horsemen, he penetrated to Toledo, and negotiated in the heart of Castile with Enrique III. The peace thus concluded was soon interrupted, and Mohammed was quickly waging war throughout the length and breadth of Andalusia. The war continued with varying fortunes, and was carried on, as was usual in those days, by a series of forays, neither side{12} making any determined effort to take the other’s capital or to secure his conquests. On feeling his end approaching, the warlike Sultan bethought him of his elder brother, Yusuf, whom he had confined in the castle of Salobreña. Fearing that the captive might now supplant his own son, Mohammed sent a messenger to command his execution. Yusuf was playing chess with the governor of the castle when the fatal mandate arrived. He asked leave of the emissary to finish the game, and before he had made the final move, the news arrived of the death of Mohammed and of his proclamation as Sultan of Granada. Yusuf showed himself as calm and unmoved at his accession to the throne as when he had stood upon the threshold of death.

As peaceably disposed as his father, Yusuf III. had to withstand some of the most determined assaults upon his doomed kingdom. In his reign took place the celebrated siege of Antequera by the Castilians, the survivors of which founded the suburb of Antequeruela adjacent to Granada. Yusuf ultimately found peace and a valuable ally as the outcome of a strange story of fraternal animosity. The people of Gibraltar revolted against Granada and proclaimed themselves the subjects of Fez. The Sultan of that realm sent his hated brother, Abu Saïd, to take possession of the town, and treating him as David{13} did Uriah, left him at the mercy of the enemy. Yusuf, however, treated the captured prince with generosity, and showed him a letter which he shortly after received from the Sultan of Fez, requesting that he might be poisoned. Thirsting for vengeance, Abu Saïd procured arms and soldiers at Granada, and, invading Morocco, drove his perfidious brother from the throne. Thereafter he was the sworn ally of the Sultan of Granada, whom Castile and Aragon no longer ventured to trouble. Yusuf III. passed away in 1417.

The history of Granada is henceforward one of almost continuous revolution and tumult. Mohammed VIII. was driven into exile by a namesake reckoned as the ninth of his name, and then restored by a counter-revolution. A Castilian army ravaged the Vega up to the walls of the capital. Granada itself would have fallen, had not Juan II. and the great Constable, Alvaro de Luna, been recalled to Castile by the disorders which resulted in the latter’s overthrow. An earthquake desolated the distracted kingdom; and we may suppose that Mohammed VIII. was not altogether sorry when he abandoned his throne to a pretender and fled to Malaga.

The new sultan, Yusuf IV., held his throne as a fief of Castile, the support of which he had to purchase with humiliating concessions. He{14} anticipated inevitable assassination by dying after sixteen months of authority; and for the third time, Mohammed VIII. was proclaimed at Granada (1432). Hostilities with Castile were at once renewed. This time the fortune of war was with the Moors, who routed their opponents at Illora, Archidona, and Castril. But Mohammed VIII.’s star was never long in the ascendant. He quarrelled with the powerful family of the Abencerrages; and, deprived of their support, was finally expelled from his kingdom, by his kinsman, Aben Osmin.[B] The usurper was victorious over the Christians and took several strongholds, but his army suffered at last a bloody defeat at Alporchones. This reverse seems to have maddened Osmin, who henceforward conducted himself as a tyrant of the old Roman type. Revolutions had now become as frequent in Granada as in some South American states. The usurper ran his brief career, and was then forced to make room for Mohammed VIII.’s cousin Saïd. Granada was all for peace. Tribute was paid to Enrique IV. of Castile, Christian captives released—all in vain. The intermittent warfare went on as before. Jaen, Archidona, Gibraltar, were lost, despite the desperate valour of the Prince, Muley Hassan, and of the Chieftain, Ibrahim, who, on being{15} vanquished, plunged on horseback into the depths of a ravine. At last, however, the distracted Ibn Ismail obtained peace for his wretched country by a personal interview with Enrique, outside the walls of Granada. He devoted the remainder of his reign to the encouragement of commerce, industry, and agriculture in his dominions—labour that did not benefit even those who were to succeed him; and died at Almeria in the year 1465. The knell of the Moorish Empire in Europe was sounded over his bier.

The reigns of Ali Abu-l-Hassan, Mohammed XI. (Boabdil), and Mohammed XII. (Az-Zaghal) covered the years 1465-1492, during which the downfall and extinction of the kingdom were accomplished. The history of these events has already filled many bulky tomes, and has been made familiar to English readers by the works of Prescott. Even our brief survey, however, cannot be concluded without a summary of the last chapter of the story of Granada.

The character of Muley Ali Abu-l-Hassan was the reverse of his predecessor’s. He was arrogant, impetuous, and warlike, a fanatical hater of the Christians, and a zealous Muslim. In the first years of his reign he gained some successes over the feeble Enrique IV., and proved himself strong enough to quell a revolt at Malaga. But he let slip the opportunity of attacking the new{16} sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabel, when they were engaged in war with the partisans of “La Beltraneja,” nor did he make any attempt to effect an alliance with their numerous enemies. State-craft does not appear to have been possessed to any great extent by the descendants of Al Ahmar. In 1476, Abu-l-Hassan condescended to sue for a renewal of the alliance with the Queen of Castile; but when Ferdinand of Aragon made the payment of the tribute stipulated by Ibn Ismail a condition of the treaty, the Moor’s proud nature revolted. “Return to your sovereigns,” he said to the Spanish ambassadors, “and tell them that the sultans who paid tribute to the Christians are dead; that here we manufacture only iron spear-heads for our enemies.” These words sealed the fate of the Moors in Spain, though the ruler who uttered them probably thought them merely the prelude to just such a frontier war as had raged intermittently for so many years.

The first act in the long-drawn-out drama was the capture of Zahara by the troops of Granada, in 1481—provoked by the predatory incursions of the Marquis of Cadiz. The Christian garrison was surprised during a furious tempest, and put to the sword. The rest of the inhabitants were carried off in captivity to Granada. Abu-l-Hassan, inflated with pride, returned to his{17} capital. There were popular rejoicings, but the wiser Moors shook their heads and predicted that the ruins of Zahara would fall upon their own city.

The fiery chivalry of Andalusia were not slow to retaliate. Two months after the capture of Zahara, the more important Grenadine stronghold of Alhama was taken by storm by the forces of the Marquis of Cadiz. The news produced the utmost consternation in Granada. Abu-l-Hassan at once set out with 53,000 men, and invested the place. Ferdinand the Catholic, who had now conceived the idea of reducing the whole kingdom of Granada, hurried to its relief; but he had only reached Lucena when tidings arrived of the raising of the siege by the Marquis’s hereditary foe, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. Abu-l-Hassan returned to the attack a few weeks later, and Ferdinand resumed his advance, before which the Moors retired. The Catholic sovereigns made their triumphal entry into Alhama on May 14, 1482.

Great preparations were made throughout Castile and Aragon for the prosecution of the war, but the army actually assembled before Loja on July 1—16,000 men—fell far short of Ferdinand’s requirements and expectations. The town was ably defended by one of the bravest Moorish chieftains, Ali Atar, who repulsed the{18} Christians with severe loss. The King of Aragon narrowly escaped with his life, and was compelled to beat a retreat. Abu-l-Hassan swept the country as far as the Rio Frio.

Such a success, if it had been followed up, might have turned the scale in favour of the Moors. But at Granada, treason always followed closely on the heels of victory. Years before, a beautiful Christian captive, Doña Isabel de Solis, daughter of the Governor of Martos, had been added to the Sultan’s harem. Under the name of Zoraya, in the course of time, she bore him a son, Abu Abdullah, and rose to the rank of favourite Sultana.[C] Now, jealous, it is said, of a Greek slave, or perhaps antagonised by the first Sultana, Ayesha, she fomented a conspiracy against her aged lord, and was imprisoned with her son in the Alhambra. Thence they contrived to escape, and, exciting the populace in their favour, obliged Abu-l-Hassan to seek refuge at Malaga. Abu Abdullah, better known as Boabdil, or el Chico (the little), reigned in his stead, but Baza, Guadix, and other eastern towns remained faithful to their old allegiance.

These dissensions among the Moors, though ultimately benefiting the Spaniards, contributed{19} indirectly to one of the most serious disasters that befell the latter during the campaign. For an expedition against Malaga, headed by the Marquis of Cadiz and the Grandmaster of Santiago, while threading its way through the passes of the Ajarquia, was attacked by the lieutenants of the old lion, Abu-l-Hassan, and cut to pieces. Eight hundred Spaniards were left dead on the field. Boabdil, emulous of the glory his father had acquired, marched out of Granada with 9700 men, and gave battle to the enemy under the Count of Cabra, near Lucena. The Moors were totally defeated, their bravest general, Ali Atar, was slain, and Boabdil himself captured by a private soldier, named Martin Hurtado.

Had this unlucky prince been left in the hands of his enemies, the war might have had a different result, but his mother and followers at once made proposals for his release. This was finally effected by a most dishonourable treaty. Boabdil was accorded a two years’ truce, covering all places that acknowledged his authority, and in return bound himself, not only to pay a tribute of twelve thousand golden ducats, but to assist with supplies the Spanish troops passing through his dominions to attack his own father. Having thus exchanged his honour for his liberty, the miserable Sultan returned to his capital, to find that the old King had possessed himself of the Alhambra.{20} A collision between the two factions deluged the streets of Granada with blood. The alfakis and ancients at length arranged an armistice, and Boabdil was suffered to retire to Almeria, which was assigned to him as capital and residence.

For the next four years, the Catholic sovereigns abstained from any important military demonstration, contenting themselves with ravaging the wretched country and harrying its frontiers with incessant forays and marauding expeditions. Meanwhile, a strong man appeared on the scene in the person of Abu-l-Hassan’s brother, Abdullah Az-Zaghal. Determined to put an end to the divisions which, more than the prowess of the Spaniards, were bringing about the ruin of his country, this prince swept down upon Almeria, slew the governor, took prisoner Zoraya, but failed, alas! to secure the person of Boabdil, who fled to Cordova and placed himself under Ferdinand’s protection. Not long after, Abu-l-Hassan, aged and worn out, abdicated in favour of his warlike brother, and died at Mondujar. This event strengthened Boabdil’s claims upon the tottering throne; and he entered into a compact with his uncle, whereby both were to reign in Granada, the one in the Albaicin, the other in the Alhambra. Anxious to redeem his reputation, the newly restored monarch attacked the Christians near Loja with vastly inferior forces. He{21} was soundly beaten and forced to take refuge in the Alcazar of Loja, whence he was only allowed to emerge on renewing the humiliating treaty he had concluded at Cordova. He was not, however, disposed to yield the crown to his rival, and returning to Granada, surprised and seized the Alcazaba. One of the most desperate conflicts recorded in the history of the city then occurred between the partisans of the rival sultans. Further bloodshed was at last averted by the intervention of ambassadors sent by Ferdinand. The old dual arrangement seems to have been temporarily resumed. Meanwhile, Ferdinand and Isabel once more took the field, and, in 1487, they invested and captured Velez-Malaga and the important city of Malaga, notwithstanding Az-Zaghal’s efforts to relieve both places. The brave Sultan now abandoned the capital to his nephew, and established his headquarters at Almeria. He succeeded throughout the year 1488, in repelling an invasion of his province; but in the following year, after the fall of the strong city of Baza, he bowed, as he himself expressed it, to the will of Allah, and surrendered all the places in his possession, including Almeria and Guadix, to the Catholic sovereigns. Mohammed XIII., as he is styled by Moorish historians, retired to Algeria, where he died, years afterwards, in indigence and obscurity.{22}

There remained now, of all the Moorish dominions in Europe, but the single city of Granada, of which Mohammed XII., Boabdil, was at last undisputed sovereign. He formed the manly resolution to sell his hard-won crown as dearly as possible. He sallied from Granada, took Alhendin and Marchena by assault, and laid waste the country in possession of the Christians. Summoned by Ferdinand and Isabel to surrender the city in accordance with an alleged treaty, he replied, and probably with truth, that his proud and exasperated subjects would not permit him to do so. The population of Granada was swollen by refugees from all parts of the kingdom to thrice its normal figure. The Spanish king perceived that the surest method to reduce it was by blockade. With 20,000 men, including some of the first chivalry of all Europe, he entered the Vega, and built the town of Santa Fé, almost at the gates of the threatened city. This permanent establishment of the Infidels on their native soil plunged the Moors into profound gloom. No ray of hope remained to the unfortunate Boabdil. The city endured the horrors of a famine. The Spanish fleet precluded all hope of supplies from Africa, towards which country the wretched people still turned in expectation of help. The negotiations for the capitulation which {23}the Sultan most reluctantly entered upon in October 1491, had to be conducted, through fear of the populace, with profound secrecy. Indeed, at the last moment, Boabdil, in danger of his life, besought Ferdinand to accelerate his entrance into the city. On January 2, 1492, accordingly, the Moorish king, attended by fifty horsemen, surrendered the keys to the Catholic sovereigns on the banks of the Genil, passing on to the domain allotted him by the conquerors in the rocky Alpujarras. The story of his stopping to gaze for the last time on his former kingdom, and of the rebuke administered to him by his mother, is well known. We are not told whether his eye caught the gleam of the great silver cross hoisted over the Alhambra by Cardinal Mendoza by way of signal to the Spanish host that the occupation of Granada was completed and that the dominion of Islam in Spain was for ever at an end.

It had endured seven hundred and eighty-one years—a period only sixty years short of that which has elapsed since the Norman Conquest of England. More remarkable still, the Sultanate of Granada had survived the virtual break-up of the Saracen empire by over two centuries. When we consider its limited area, its isolated position, the might and the inveterate hostility of the neighbouring states, and the attacks to which it was unceasingly subjected, we cannot{24} but feel the liveliest admiration for the valour and sagacity of its rulers and the stout-heartedness of its people. Had not the Court been too often the theatre of contending factions, had not those factions turned their swords against each other, the Sultanate of Granada might have outworn Spain’s military and national vigour, and have endured to our own day as a western Turkey. For the spirit of Tarik, of Abdurrahman, and of Almansûr was not altogether dead, even in the brave but ill-starred sovereign to whom alone historians ascribe the downfall of the kingdom, and whom they, strangely enough, accuse of effeminacy and weakness. The Moors of Granada knew how to fight a losing fight; in gambler’s parlance, when they had lost the tricks, they struggled to win the honours. They proved themselves worthy of their ancestors; and the finest, as it was also the latest, monument of the Mohammedan dominion in Spain is Granada the noble and the memorable.{25}

THE ALHAMBRA

The Alhambra, or Red Palace, the Acropolis of Granada, is the finest secular monument with which the Muslims have endowed Europe. It belongs to the last period of Spanish-Arabic art, when the seed of Mohammedan ideas and culture had long since taken deep root in the soil and produced a style which might more properly be called Andalusian than Moorish. If the Muslims left a deep impression upon Spanish thought and art, it must not be supposed that they altogether escaped the influence of their Christian neighbours. During the last two centuries of their occupation the rigid puritanism of their creed was greatly relaxed, especially as regarded art—always the reflection of the customs and spirit of a people. The wave of the Renaissance did not leave untouched the shrunken Moorish empire, and if Castilian kings did not hesitate to employ Muslim artisans in the construction of their cathedrals, the Sultans of Granada did not disdain the advice of Christian artists in the embellishment of their palaces. The Alhambra remains a thoroughly Moham{26}medan monument, but one which symbolises a phase of Mohammedan culture and institutions almost peculiar to one country and epoch. Nowhere else and never since has Islam reached such a pitch of refinement. The Alhambra stands as the high-water mark of its art and civilisation.

There will never be produced a new Alhambra, any more than a new Parthenon or new Pyramids; for these great buildings were the expressions of ideas and aspirations peculiar to societies which have long ago perished. Thus, the Red Palace of Granada is not interesting merely as a Mohammedan edifice left isolated in the far west of Europe, but as the monument of a people and a civilisation long dead and gone. A sadness, too, attaches to it, proceeding from the memory of the violent extinction of that people with a mission unfulfilled—fraught, as it seems to have been, with so much of light and beauty to the Christian and the Muslim worlds.

The Sierra Nevada thrusts forward a spur which overlooks Granada on the south-east, and is divided by two clefts or barrancos into three eminences. The easternmost of these is crowned by the Generalife, the westernmost by the ancient fortifications known as the Torres Bermejas or Vermilion Towers. The hill between the two—in shape aptly compared by Ford to a grand{27} piano—is that on which the various buildings, collectively styled the Alhambra, are reared. Here there existed a settlement in remote Celtiberian days; and the later city of Illiberis or Elvira stood here, and perhaps extended to the Torres Bermejas. When the Moors came they erected a fortress—the Alcazaba—on the point of the Alhambra hill, overlooking the Vermilion Towers. To this they gave the name of Alhamra, “the red,” as Riaño thinks, to distinguish it from the Alcazaba in the Albaicin quarter, or perhaps from some confusion of the new building with the old. The builder, according to Al Khattíb, was one Sawar Alcaysi, who lived in the second half of the ninth century; though Contreras says it was known as the Tower of Ibn Jaffir, and Ford names Habus Ibn Makesen as the founder. At all events, the structure dated from the earliest period of the Arabic domination, and Al Ahmar found here, on taking possession of Granada, a small town girdled with walls and defended by a citadel.

Al Khattíb refers to the Citadel of Granada in these terms: “The southern part of the city is commanded by the suburb of the Alhambra or Medina Alhamra, the court of the sultanate, crowning it with its turrets, its lofty towers, its strong bastions, its magnificent Alcazar, and other sumptuous edifices, which by their splendour{28} ravish the eye and the soul. There is, too, such an abundance of waters that, overflowing in torrents from the tanks and reservoirs, they form on the declivity streams and cascades, whose sonorous murmurs are heard afar on. At the foot of the walls are spacious gardens, the domain of the Sultan, and leafy groves, through the dense greenery of which the white battlements gleam like stars. There is, in short, around the circuit of the walls, no spot that is not planted with gardens and orchards.” The scene has not greatly changed since the Arab wrote. Gurgling brooks still run down the slopes of the Alhambra Hill, and nightingales sing in the thick woods of elm.

The Alcazaba, being the oldest part of the palace-fortress, should be studied first. It is entered by the Torre and Casa de las Armas, through a horseshoe arch in red brick, with fine azulejos or glazed tiles. To the left is the Torre de Homenage, with which war and time have not dealt too gently. It contains, it is interesting to note, a Roman votive altar, embedded by the Moorish builders in the masonry, and inscribed by “the grateful Valerius to his most indulgent wife, Cornelia.” At the opposite extremity of the Alcazaba is the Torre de la Vela, or Watch Tower. It is in two storeys, communicating by a dark and narrow staircase, with loopholes{29} in the wall.[D] In this tower is hung a famous bell, to be heard, it is said, at Loja, thirty miles away. It is rung on the anniversary of the Conquest of Granada, on which day it is the custom, according to local superstition, for damsels, desirous of husbands, to strike it with all their strength. On the summit of this tower the cross was first planted by el tercer rey, Cardinal Mendoza. The view from the platform, of city and snow-clad Sierra, luxuriant Vega, and white-walled towns and villages, is as extensive as it is beautiful. At the foot of the Torre de la Vela extends the place of arms, defended by two towers, now styled de los Hidalgos and de la Polvora, and formerly known as the Paniagua and Cristóbal del Salto—names suggesting legends now forgotten.

An ancient document at Simancas names among the towers connecting the Alcazaba with the rest of the fortress, the Torre del Adarguero, “the Tower in which dwelleth the servant of Doctor Ortiz,” the Torre de Alquiza, the Torre de Hontiveros (now the Torre de las Gallinas), and the Tower and Room of Machuca. Of these remains exist, but of another tower, referred to as the Torre de la Tahona, no trace remains.

The Alcazaba, according to the most recent researches, was separated from the site of the{30} palace by a ravine where, after the Conquest, cisterns were constructed by order of the Conde de Tendilla and over which the existing Plaza de los Algibes was formed. These works appear to have necessitated the demolition of a wall which ran across from the Torre de las Gallinas on the north to the beautiful Puerta del Vino on the south. This gateway is now quite isolated from the wall of circumvallation. Over the horseshoe arch is an inscription in stucco, of the usual Moorish character, invoking the Divine protection for the builder, Sultan Mohammed V. It appears to commemorate some striking victory. Over the arch again is a fine double window or ajimez. On the keystone is seen the key, so often figuring as a symbol in all parts of the Alhambra, with a G in Kufic characters—perhaps the initial letter of the city. The interior façade has a large horseshoe arch and the twin-windows above. The Puerta del Vino was probably the entrance to the courts and gardens of the palace.

Having crossed the Plaza de los Algibes, we leave behind us the early Moorish works, and approach the buildings which owe their foundation to the Nasrite or Grenadine dynasty. The story which credits Al Ahmar (Mohammed I.) with the creation of the Red Palace in the middle of the thirteenth century appears to{31} be well-founded, for when the Alhambra is referred to as existing in earlier times, it is undoubtedly the Alcazaba that is meant. To the same hands may be safely attributed the great outer wall of the Alhambra which girdles palace and fortress, following the inequalities of the hill’s contour. Al Ahmar has left his device, Wa ha ghalib ila Allah (There is no conqueror but God), in many parts of the building. These words were uttered by him in mournful deprecation of the acclamations of his subjects on his return from assisting the Christians in the Conquest of Seville. During the two and a half centuries of the Nasrite rule, the palace underwent many radical transformations and renovations, so that it is difficult to distinguish between the works of the various sultans. Ford infers, rightly as it seems to us, from the frequent repetition of their names upon the walls, that Yusuf I. and Mohammed V. had the largest share in the embellishment and restoration of the edifice. Since the Reconquest many changes and additions have been made—notably the Palace of Charles V., to which detailed reference will be made later.

The summit of the Alhambra hill was probably peopled in Al Ahmar’s time, and it continued to be so during the reigns of his successors. The population thus dwelling at the foot of the throne was mainly composed, in later times at least, of{32} hangers-on at the Court, ex-favourites and discarded sultanas, ulemas and doctors of the law, soldiers of fortune, and ambassadors, permanent and extraordinary. Such powerful tribes as the Beni Serraj, which exercised so much influence in the last stages of Nasrite rule, would also have had quarters for their leaders here. The little town—which seems to have had no parallel before or since—extended from the eastern extremity of the hill to within as near the doors of the palace as the temper of the monarch for the time being may have permitted.

The precise limits of the palace, even at the time of the Conquest of the Catholic sovereigns, have never been ascertained. Portions of it were undoubtedly demolished to make room for the palace of Charles V. On the other hand, it is recorded in the archives of the Alhambra that various private houses were acquired for the purpose of enlarging the older building. But making due allowance for demolitions, extensions, and restorations since the fifteenth century, we have before us in the Palace of the Alhambra a magnificent example of the last or third period of Hispano-Arabic architecture.

On the general plan of the edifice, the remarks of Contreras are worth quoting in extenso: “We penetrate into every Arabic monument through an outlying tower, or between two towers, except{33} in the dwelling-houses of the people, in which case the entrance is by a small, square opening, a portal useless among us, though seen with frequency in the ancient houses of Andalusia. A long, narrow hall cuts the axis perpendicularly, thus determining the distribution into two wings of the edifice. By the meeting of the two axes is found the entrance, before which we find those effects of perspective which are so fantastic in these buildings. Following the ingress we find a court with tanks and fountains, with light and graceful arcades. Behind the second gallery, following the same central axis, are oblong naves which cross each other at right angles to the extreme end of the building, where the cupolas or turrets of the innermost dwelling apartments rise majestically above the level of the edifice and are reflected in the waters of the basins. The halls of a house of this kind, according to its rank or grandeur, were arranged in little pavilions on the long sides of the courts, as various in their style of decoration as the tents of a Turkish camp, where the quarters of an Amir may be found beside those of the common soldiers. And if these rows of chambers are now found disposed according to the strict alignment of Mudejar eaves, it is an indication that the severe genius of the Christian conquerors has transformed them, not permitting those crests, cupolas, or{34} steeples which disturb the symmetry of the decoration.

“Outside this plan, absolutely classical, which we may compare to a cross with the transverse arm prolonged and cut at various distances by perpendicular arms parallel to each other, but of different length, the Spanish Arabs found no other easy method of building, so that, while diminishing or prolonging the arms of the axis as much as the dependencies of the largest palaces might require, they never departed from the system, wherever they might build.... This, then, is the true scheme of the Alhambra, and it is quite other than that conceived by the classicists of the eighteenth century, with its façades, angles, and squares.”

It must, however, be admitted that order is much more conspicuous in the decoration than in the ground plan of the palace. All Moorish ornamentation is based on a strictly geometrical scheme, and every design may be resolved into a symmetrical arrangement of lines and curves at regular distances. The intersection of lines at various angles is the secret of the system. All these lines flow from a parent stem, and no figure or ornament is introduced at random. Moslem ornamentation abhors irregularity and rejects symbolism. The law of Islam which forbade the delineation of living objects was not,{35} however, always observed in this palace of half-Europeanised Arabs.

Simplicity and a love of the elementary characterise also the colouring of the decorations. On the stucco work only the primary colours were used: blue, red, and yellow. The secondary colours occur only in the dados of mosaic. The green groundwork of much of the ornamentation as it is to-day was formerly blue, time having changed the tint of the metallic pigment employed. The decoration of the surfaces seems to have been planned with strict regard to the colouring they were to receive. Both as regards decoration and colour, allowance must always be made for innovations since the Alhambra passed into Christian hands.

“Let us look for a moment,” writes Mr. John Lomas, “at some points of detail—more especially of the ornamentation. Wherever the eye falls, it may rest upon some fine bit of arcading or peristyle, so delicate in the transparent tracery of its spandrils, in the rich work of its capitals, and its slenderness of pillar, that one marvels at first how such fairy-like construction could stand for even a single generation. ‘Lovers’ tears’ they call this lace-work, and they tell one to stand just within the dim hall or vestibule, and get a vision of the blue sky that appears beyond as a little cloud of sapphires. But it{36} is surely better—an insight into a piece of truer art—to stand outside the eastern kiosk of the Lion’s Court and looking through spandril, vestibule, and sala, catch the light glinting through the distant opposite windows. That is transparency of effect, indeed! One would like to meet with the architect who thought it out.

“Some of the irregularities which obtain here seem almost incredible. What could be more satisfactory than this range of exquisite arcading, its slender palm-like stems, its gracefully stilted arches, and the fairy filigree-work of the spandrils? There seems to be not one single point that can offend the justest eye, and yet there are nearly a dozen different archings, differing in form, or height, or width; the cloister varies in breadth at every turn; the upper galleries are uneven; the doorways are the personification of self-will; the columns are placed, sometimes singly, sometimes grouped, and the numbers of them on the respective sides in no way correspond.... And, nevertheless, there is an all-prevailing symmetry—and harmony. The whole is a triumph of accurately judged effect.”

In a foot-note Mr. Lomas adds: “As an instance of the careful way in which the architects of these olden days went to work, it may be mentioned that the exact relation between the irregular widths of cloistering on the long and{37} short sides of the court is that of the squares upon the sides of a right-angled triangle. This obtaining of beautiful symmetry through irregularity is a strangely lost art.”

The Patio de la Mezquita and adjacent Buildings.

Recent researches have shown that the ancient ingress to the Palace of the Alhambra was by a doorway leading into what is now the chapel. It is square in shape and has long been walled up. Above it may be deciphered the following inscription: “O place of the high kingdom and asylum of prodigious aspect! Thou hast achieved a great victory, and the merits of the work and of the artificer [are] the glory of the Imam Mohammed. The Shadow of the Most High [be] upon all!” This text is believed to refer to Mohammed III. (1302-1309).

The chapel, which had been established by Ferdinand and Isabel adjacent to the Patio de los Leones, was transferred to this part of the Palace of Philip IV. in 1621. At that time a fine chimney-piece in the Renaissance style was converted into an altar. The apartment contains but few remains of its Moorish builders. Without, is the Patio de la Mezquita, with an exquisite{38} façade, much disfigured by a modern gallery. The walls are adorned with the oft-recurring device, “God alone is Conqueror,” and with sentences extolling the sultans, in various sorts of arabesques. The inscription round the central window refers to Mohammed V. (1354-1391).

The grand Mosque of the Alhambra was built in 1308 by Mohammed III., and was in good preservation until the occupation of the French, who, according to Gayangos, entirely destroyed it. An account of it has been left to us by Ibn-ul-Khattíb, the Wizir of Yusuf I.: “It is ornamented with mosaic work and tracery of the most beautiful and intricate patterns intermixed with silver flowers and graceful arches, supported by innumerable pillars of polished marble; indeed, what with the solidity of the structure which the Sultan inspected in person, the elegance of the design, and the beauty of the proportions, the building has not its like in this country, and I have frequently heard our best architects say that they have never seen or heard of a building which can be compared with it.” Little more remains of this superb temple than the small oratory entered through a door in the wall opposite the altar of the chapel. Here the mihrab is still to be distinguished. Before it, Yusuf I., in the act of prayer, fell a victim to the poniard of an assassin in the year 1354.{39}

Adjacent to the mihrab is the ruined tower of Puñales, which presents many architectural points of difference from the rest of the palace, and has features which may have suggested these characteristics of the Mudejar style seen in other parts of Andalusia. The principal window of the tower was furnished with a wooden balcony with lattices similar to those seen in Constantinople and Cairo.

Retracing our steps across the Patio de la Mezquita, we reach the spacious Court of the Myrtles or of the Fish-pond (Patio de los Arrayanes, or de la Alberca). This is the court first entered by the visitor through the modern entrance. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the palace, and gives a foretaste of the glories that lie beyond. One feels immediately transported to the East. “The originality of the architecture [says Don Francisco Pi Margall], the airy galleries, its rich alhamis or alcoves, the splendid apartments of which glimpses are obtained through its arches, the fountains and foliage, the reflection of its stuccoed walls in the waters of the pond, the murmur of the breezes that agitate the dense myrtles, the transparency of the sky, the silence that reigns all about—all oppress the soul at the same time, and leave us for some moments submerged in a sea of sensations which reveal to us little more than the harmony of the whole{40} scene.” The court forms an oblong, bounded at the north and south by two galleries supported on eight columns of white marble, and to the east and west by walls pierced with doors and twin-windows covered with arabesques, but differing in degree of ornamentation. At each angle we find an alhami or alcove, where the Moors were accustomed to laze away the day, extended on rich carpets and divans. The walls of these little places are encrusted with reliefs in stucco, their roofs are of the stalactite pattern. Along the middle of the court extends the alberca or fish-pond, its margins hidden by orange trees and myrtles. The clear water gushes up into two round basins at either end. To the north, the prospect is closed by the battlemented Tower of Comares, to the south by the walls of the Palace of Charles V. Through one of the entrances can be seen the fountain in the Patio de los Leones. The court is redolent of the languor, voluptuousness, and splendour of the East.

Each arcade is composed of seven semicircular arches, the central one reaching up to the cornice, while the others, much lower, are closed with perforated woodwork or lattices. The roof of the southern gallery is of artesonado or troughed form, and bears seven small cupolas; over the central arch of the northern gallery is a single cupola painted with little gold stars on a blue ground.{41}

In this court there are numerous inscriptions, of which the following are the most important.

“Go and tell true believers that Divine help and ready victory are reserved for them.”

“I am like the nuptial array of a bride, endowed with every beauty and perfection.”

“May he continue in the noontide of his glory even unto the period of his decline.”

In the Patio de la Alberca is an arch differing altogether from all others in the Palace. Only one surface is decorated, and that with a principal or guiding figure made out by colours. The ornaments approximate more closely than is usual in Moorish architecture to natural forms, and the arch has very much of a Persian character.

This court is believed to have constituted the division between the male apartments, frequented by the general public, which we have already described, and the Harem, or private quarters, including the Patio de los Leones, &c.

We pass through a beautiful arch decorated with tasteful floral designs, into the Sala de la Barca, or ante-room of the Hall of Ambassadors. This fine apartment, formerly radiant with colours, was seriously damaged in the fire of 1890. The ceiling of this hall, says Owen Jones, “is a wagon-headed dome of wood of the most elaborate{42} patterns, receiving its support from pendentives of mathematical construction so curious that they may be rendered susceptible of combinations as various as the melodies which may be produced from the seven notes of the musical scale; attesting the wonderful power and effect obtained by the repetition of the most simple elements.”

Beyond this hall rises the Tower of Comares, appearing to rest on the slenderest pillars and almost to be balanced in the air. The real supports have been purposely kept out of sight. The view from the summit of the massive battlemented tower is magnificent. From this platform, Washington Irving remarks, the proud monarchs of Granada and their queens have watched the approach of Christian armies, or gazed on the battles in the Vega. The walls of the tower are of surprising thickness.

The interior, which is a square of 37 ft. by 75 ft. high up to the centre of the dome, is occupied by the Sala de Embajadores, the reception-room of the Sultans. It is the largest and perhaps the most imposing of the halls of the Alhambra. Lifting our eyes, we behold a glorious, airy dome, of artesonado work, with stars and painted angles. Owen Jones is of opinion that the present ceiling replaced an earlier one, which was supported by an arch of brick. The hall lacks its former pavement of marble, its central{43} fountain, and the lattices that filled in its twin-windows. But it is still adorned by a beautiful mosaic dado (known as sofeisfa) reaching to the wooden cornice. Numerous are the Kufic and African inscriptions introduced into the decoration, the motto of Al Ahmar being frequently repeated. Opening on to the hall are nine alcoves, each with twin-windows, which have replaced balconies. The alcove opposite the entrance was the site of the Sultan’s throne, as the long poetical inscriptions testify. What gorgeous assemblies must have filled this saloon in bygone years—and what tumultuous scenes and fateful decisions must have been here enacted!

The Patio de los Leones and adjacent Apartments.

The Patio de los Leones (Court of the Lions) occupies, with the chambers opening on to it, the south-eastern quarter of the Palace. “There is no part of the edifice that gives us a more complete idea of its original beauty and magnificence than this,” says Washington Irving, “for none has suffered so little from the ravages of time. In the centre stands the fountain famous in song and story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops; and the twelve lions, which support them, cast forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The archi{44}tecture, like that of all other parts of the palace, is characterised by elegance rather than grandeur; bespeaking a delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one looks upon the fairy tracery of the peristyles, and the apparently fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much has survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes, the violence of war, and the quiet, though no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful traveller: it is almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition, that the whole is protected by a magic charm.”

The court is an oblong measuring 116 ft. by 66 ft. On each side is a peristyle or portico, and at either end a graceful pavilion with a fine dome. The supporting marble columns are 124 in number and 11 ft. high. They are placed irregularly, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs—an arrangement which does nothing to mar the general impression of harmony. The arches exhibit a similar variety of curve, and spring from capitals decorated with rich foliage of various designs. The space above the arches is filled in with the usual arabesque work, and adorned with verses from the Koran. The ceilings of the porticos are enriched with delicate stucco work, and the walls are covered to a height of five feet with a dado of blue and yellow azulejos, bordered with{45} blue and gold enamelled escutcheons bearing an Arabic motto on a bend.

In the centre of the court is the fountain from which it derives its name. This is composed of two basins (in Moorish times there was but one) supported by twelve marble lions. These Arabian sculptures, remarks Ford, are rudely but heraldically carved, and closely resemble those to be seen supporting Norman-Saracenic tombs in Apulia and Calabria. “Their faces are barbecued, and their manes cut like the scales of a griffin, and their legs like bedposts, while a water pipe stuck in their mouths does not add to their dignity.” Indeed, the consolatory reminder contained in the tremendously long inscription round the basin, that there is nothing to be feared from these creatures, for “life is wanting to enable them to show their fury,” seems ludicrously unnecessary. As specimens of Arabian sculpture they are in all probability unique; the builders of the Alhambra were evidently not over-strict in the observance of their religion. The inscription referred to has been versified by Valera, and runs into forty-four lines of Castilian.

On the south side of the Patio de los Leones is the Sala de los Abencerrages (Hall of the Beni Serraj), so called because it is believed to be the scene of the massacre of thirty-six chiefs of that tribe by order of Boabdil. A reddish vein in{46} the marble flooring is pointed out as the victims’ indelible bloodstains. The story has only the slenderest historical foundation, and was first circulated by a writer of the name of Ginés Perez de Hita, who lived in the sixteenth century. According to some, the usurper Aben Osmin (1446) was beheaded here by order of the prince Muley Hassan; but others, writing of that confused period of Granadine history, say the tyrant fled to the mountains. This chamber, perhaps the most elegant in the Alhambra, does not seem a likely place for deeds of blood. It is entered through a wonderfully graceful arch, growing out of, rather than springing from, marble shafts. The chamber is a square, prolonged on the east and west by two alhamis or alcoves, which are entered through exquisitely-curved arches. But the glory of the Sala de los Abencerrages is its roof—its plan like that of a star, with pendants or stalactites, and sixteen windows in its vaultings.

“Its thousand stalactites,” writes Don Francisco Pi Margall, “its colours, its innumerable archings, its crowns of stars, its complicated depressions and projections, its cones, its polygons, its accidents of light, the effects of chiaroscuro, present it at first sight as something confused, indefinable, indecipherable, resplendent, and vague, like that broad band, the Milky Way, which crosses the pavilion of the heavens. Yet{47} in reality it is most regular, although irregular in appearance; the compass of the geometrician had more to do in planning it than the genius of the artist; but its lines are so many, and their combinations change so rapidly, that the scheme is only to be comprehended after a long and patient study.”

The azulejos which face the walls date from the time of Charles V. In the centre of the hall is the marble basin beside which the Beni Serraj are fabled to have been slain.

Opposite this hall, on the north side of the Lions’ Court, is the Sala de las Dos Hermanas (or, of the Two Sisters), so called after two twin slabs of marble let into the pavement. An exquisite arch gives admittance from the court to a narrow corridor, which communicates on the right with the upper storey, and with the mirador or latticed balcony, from which the ladies of the Harem would gaze into the patio below. The hall is as rich, as graceful, as suggestive of Eastern luxury and repose as that which we have just left. In each wall is an arched opening, two being entrances, the others admitting to alcoves somewhat more shut off than in other parts of the Alhambra. Above each arch is a window corresponding to the apartments in the upper storey, now vanished. The roof exhibits the same marvellous combinations of geometrical forms,{48} the same confused symmetry, as are seen in the Sala de los Abencerrages. Indeed, this hall is generally (but not universally) considered the more admirable of the two. The surface of the walls is hidden beneath costly reliefs of stucco and azulejos. Inscriptions on the sixteen medallions and cartouches have been deciphered into a long poem by Ibn Zamrek, composed in honour of Mohammed V., and translated into eleven verses of Spanish by Valera. One verse exhorts us “to look attentively at my elegance and reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration; here are columns ornamented with every perfection, the beauty of which has become proverbial.”

In this magnificent apartment formerly stood the famous vase (el jarron), which tradition says was discovered in one of the subterranean chambers of the Palace, full of gold. It is now in the little Alhambra Museum. The vase, which dates from the fourteenth century, and is beautifully enamelled in white, blue, and gold, is described by Baron Davillier in his work on Spanish Pottery.

Beyond the Hall of the Two Sisters is a long, narrow apartment called the Sala de los Ajimeces (Hall of the Twin Windows). Its ceiling and decorations are little inferior to those of the larger hall. On the north side opens the exquisite Mirador de Lindaraja, or prospect-chamber, affording a delightful view of the garden beyond.{49} In wealth of detail and ornamentation, this little bower of fifteen by ten feet surpasses all other parts of the Palace. In Moorish days the Sultanas could look from behind the lattices of the three windows across the town and the plain of the Vega. When their eyes wearied of the prospect they could scan the numerous poetical effusions traced upon the walls.

Returning to the Patio de los Leones, we enter, at its eastern extremity, the Sala del Tribunal, or de la Justicia. This hall consists of seven chambers opening on to a common vestibule. The four small rooms are square, and are separated by three larger oblong apartments. The same gorgeous colouring, the same profusion of geometrical ornamentation, here as elsewhere in the Alhambra! The arch over the central small chamber, or divan, is perhaps the finest in the whole Palace. But what renders this hall the most remarkable in the edifice is that it contains what are probably the only existing specimens of mediæval Muslim figure painting. The ceiling of the central alcove or alhami is adorned by a painting representing ten personages, who were formerly supposed to be judges, whence the name given to the hall. They were intended, more probably, to represent the first ten sultans of the Nasrite dynasty. The painting, like those in the other alcoves, is done in bright colours (gold,{50} green, red, &c.) on leather prepared with gypsum. The designs appear to have been sketched in brown. The paintings in the other alhamis are of an even more interesting character. In the first, a castle with square towers and battlements is seen; outside it is a lion led in chains by a maiden, whose hands are rudely grasped by a savage with shaggy hair and beard. A rescuer hurries to her assistance in the person of a Christian knight, armed cap-à-pie. On the other side of the picture, the same knight is shown attacked by a Moorish cavalier, who plunges a lance into his breast. The Moor is evidently out hunting, for beneath the combatants’ horses his dogs are chasing the wild boar and fox. From the towers of the castle two fair ladies observe, with evident pleasure, the Christian’s overthrow. In another part of the picture both knights are shown, following the chase; and a page is seen, leaning against a tree, with sword and shield, presumably awaiting his master’s return.

The second painting is entirely devoted to hunting scenes. Moors are seen chasing the wild boar, while the Christians occupy themselves with bears and lions. The huntsmen are also seen returning and offering the spoils of the chase to their ladies. The Moor greets his sultana with a benign and condescending air; the Christian warrior kneels to the lady and offers his prize.{51}

The most competent critics have now arrived at the conclusion that these paintings are of the fourteenth century, and therefore executed under the Muslim sovereigns, in defiance of the precepts of the Koran. Whether they were the work of a Mohammedan it is not so easy to say. Gayangos has pointed out remarkable similarities between these paintings and those in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and on the whole it is probable that they were executed by an Italian artist, whom the Muslims may not have scrupled to employ to do a thing for them unlawful. A parallel instance of casuistry is that of London Jews, who on certain feasts employ Christians to perform forbidden menial offices. It should also be said that in the opinion of some modern Muslim doctors the prohibition of sculpture and painting is not to be taken as absolute.

In the Sala de la Justicia was found a basin for ablutions, now in the Museum, on which are interesting reliefs of lions, deer, and eagles. According to the inscription, this was designed in 1305 for the service of the mosque, a fact which seems to support the view of the authorities just mentioned.

It was in this hall that Ferdinand and Isabel caused Mass to be celebrated after the Reconquest, and here that the cross was set up by Cardinal Mendoza. The devices of the Catholic sovereigns{52}—the Yoke and Sheaf of Arrows—have been introduced into the decoration of the alcoves.

The ruinous tower and apartment to the south of the Hall of Justice, called the Rauda, appears to have been the mausoleum of the Sultans. The niches in which the turbehs were placed may still be distinguished, and the long, narrow trough used for the purification of the corpse. In the Museum may be seen three tablets with the epitaphs of the Sultans Yusuf III. and Mohammed II. and of a prince Abu-l-Hejaj, probably the former’s son.

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{53} 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,{54} 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{55} 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{56} 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{57} 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{58} 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{59} 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,{60} 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.{61}

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{62} 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.

In the city of Granada itself the memorials of the Moorish domination are scanty and fast{63} 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,{64} 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.{65}

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{66} 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{67} 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 Renais{68}sance 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.{69}

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{70} 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){71} 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{72} and vastness, and may be described as dignified rather than beautiful.

The façade, said to have been designed by Alonso Cano, is flanked by towers (one unfinished) and divided by four huge stone columns which support a cornice. On this rest four pillars, sustaining three deep, gloomy vaultings. At the foot of these pillars, on the cornice, are statues of the Apostles. The principal door is adorned with a high relief of the Incarnation by Risueño, the side-doors with reliefs of the Annunciation and Assumption. The tower on the left rises seventy-five metres above the level of the present floor; its three stages are in the three styles of Grecian architecture respectively.

The walls of the Cathedral are, to a great extent, hidden, as is so often the case on the Continent, by adjoining buildings. The Puerta del Perdon, which, as we have said, officially belongs to the Chapel Royal, is Diego de Siloe’s masterpiece, and is elaborately sculptured. Over the arch two allegorical figures uphold a tablet on which is inscribed a dedication to the Catholic monarchs. The great flanking columns of the portal are decorated with huge escutcheons. The introduction of heraldic symbols into religious architecture is nowhere more conspicuous than at Granada.

The interior of the church, which is paved with{73} black and white marble, is composed of five naves with a cross-vaulting in the Gothic style, supported by five piers, each of which is composed of four Corinthian pillars. Above the high altar at the east end of the structure rises a noble dome, 220 ft. high, resting on eight pillars, and opening with a bold main arch, 190 ft. high. The expansion of the Capilla Mayor (principal chapel) at this point into the segment of a circle is a clever feat of architecture. Lafuente says, “The daring of the main arch is admirable, the way it is contrived creating a wonderful effect: looking at it from the elliptical arches it appears to be extended and on the point of falling away through having sunk below its level.”

The Capilla Mayor is a handsome, profusely ornamented fabric, supported on twenty-two Corinthian columns in two courses. Between the lower columns are the elliptical arches referred to, and on the upper course are the seven beautiful paintings of scenes from the Blessed Virgin’s life, by Alonso Cano. Between the courses are interesting paintings by Juan de Sevilla and Bocanegra. Much of the statuary is good, and the Flemish stained glass in the fourteen windows is beautifully rich in colour and well executed. The high altar itself, the work of José de Bada, is in a depraved style; but its{74} badness is redeemed by the two kneeling statues of Ferdinand and Isabella on either side by Mena and Madrano, and by the bold, great heads of Adam and Eve, above the pulpits, carved and painted by Alonso Cano.

In the centre of the middle nave, separated from the Capilla Mayor by the transept, is the choir, in that debased Churrigueresque style of which every one speaks ill. The only things notable within it are the fine organs, and the crucifix by Pablo de Rojas. Beneath the choir is entombed Alonso Cano (died 1667), one of the greatest of Andalusian painters, and a minor canon of the Cathedral.

One of his most characteristic pictures—the Virgén de la Soledad—is to be seen over the altar of the Capilla de San Miguel (the first chapel on the right on entering the church). It was stolen in 1873, and recovered in the city shortly after. The chapel is beautifully adorned with red marbles and serpentine. It was built by that high-minded, beneficent prelate, Archbishop Moscoso, in 1804. His tomb is by the sculptor Folch. In the chapel are placed—we do not know why—two elegant Chinese vases.

Between this and the next chapel is the entrance to the sacristy or old mosque, and to the left of it a small picture, before which that really saintly saint, St. John of God, was accustomed{75} to pray. The Capilla de la Trinidad has some good paintings, among them a Trinity by Cano, two miniatures on copper by the same artist, a Death of St. Joseph by Maratta, and copies of works by Raphael and Ribera. There are genuine Riberas (The Child Jesus, St. Laurence, and St. Mary Magdalene) and more works by Cano in the extravagant eighteenth-century chapel of Jesus Nazareno. After this comes the handsome Gothic door of the Chapel Royal, by Enrique Egas; and beyond that the Chapel of Santiago, with a fine equestrian statue of the Patron Saint of Spain, presented to the Cathedral by the City in 1640. The old painting of the Virgen del Perdon was given to Isabella the Catholic by Innocent VIII., and used to be carried about by the queen. It is publicly venerated (not worshipped or adored, please note) on the anniversary of the Reconquest, January 2.

Passing the Cathedral sacristy with its handsome door by Siloe, we pause before the Puerta del Colegio. Behind the sculptured Ecce Homo, it is said Maeda carved a Lucifer of extraordinary beauty. He applied to Siloe for permission to give a proof of his skill, and was told by the testy architect to sculpture the Devil himself if he wanted to. Maeda was wag enough to take him at his word.

The chapel of Santa Ana covers the vault intended for the archbishops, and contains a good sixteenth-century altar-piece, and a St. Jean de Matha (a Frenchman, not a Spaniard) by Bocanegra. The six chapels that follow present no features of interest. The fourth chapel on the left side of the Cathedral is named La Virgen de la Antigua, after a Gothic image greatly venerated by Ferdinand the Catholic, and regarded with great reverence by the devout of Granada. Here are two portraits by Juan de Sevilla of Ferdinand and Isabella at prayer; the king is clad in armour. The paintings are in the Venetian style. Of the retablo by Cornejo, the less said the better. Cano’s realistic heads of Saints John and Paul reflect the fondness of the pietists of his day for the morbid—they are in the Chapel of the Virgen del Carmen. The first chapel, or baptistry, was erected by Adam and Aguado, at the expense of Archbishop Galvan, who is buried here near another occupant of the episcopal throne, Don Bienvenido Monzón. The fine reliefs of Saints Jerome and Isidore are by Mora. We have now reached the entrance doors, on each side of which hangs a good painting. The three pictures over the doors represent mystic allegories.

The most interesting feature of the chapter room, or Sala Capitular, is the noble porch, with its figures of Justice and Prudence, which,{77} with the group of the Trinity, may be safely attributed to Maeda.

Before leaving the Cathedral, the sacristy should be visited. It contains Cano’s Assumption and two small statues by him; a Crucifix by Montañez; a Holy Family, by Juan de Sevilla; and a Mary Immaculate by Bocanegra. The treasury contains some wonderfully embroidered vestments, and good, but not extraordinary, examples of the silversmith’s craft. The signet ring of Sixtus III., and the monstrance presented by Isabella, have of course, an historical interest.

A casket is also shown to visitors, who are assured it is that in which were placed the jewels pawned by Isabella to provide funds for Columbus’s first voyage. If this is true, Pandora’s box was as nothing compared to this one! The Queen’s Missal, the work of Francisco Flores, is beautifully illuminated. It is placed on the high altar on the anniversary of the Reconquest. Those interested in arms will handle with curiosity the sword of Ferdinand the Catholic; the hilt has a spherical pommel and drooping quillons with branches towards the blade, which is grooved for about two-thirds of its length. Other relics of the Catholic sovereigns are their sceptre, Isabella’s crown, the royal standards used at the Reconquest, and a chasuble said to have been embroidered by the Queen.{78}

By the door next to the Capilla de San Miguel we pass into the Sagrario (sacristy) occupying the site of the old mosque, which it replaced in 1705. It was designed by Don Francisco Hurtado and Jose de Bada, and it is well that the responsibility for so meretricious a piece of architecture should be divided. It may be dismissed as Churrigueresque. It is not, fortunately, devoid of interest. In one of the chapels is buried “the magnificent cavalier, Fernando del Pulgar, Lord of El Salar,” as the inscription records. This valiant knight and true, during the last campaign against Granada, rode into the city with fifteen horsemen, and set a lighted taper on the floor of the mosque, and, as others say, nailed a paper bearing the Ave Maria on the door. This exploit earned for him and his descendants the extremely valuable privilege of wearing their hats in the Cathedral. De Pulgar’s bones have fared better than those of the good Archbishop de Talavera, which were scattered when the old mosque was demolished. The Sagrario possesses several good paintings, including a San José by Cano, of whose works the Cathedral buildings, as may have been noticed, contain a fine selection. By the door next to the Capilla de Pulgar, and a darkish passage, the Chapel Royal may be entered.

The oldest purely Christian building in Granada is the convent and chapel of San Jeronimo, a{79} foundation transferred here from Santa Fé immediately after the Reconquest. The convent is now a cavalry barracks, and is not to be inspected by the curious. The church, built by Diego de Siloe, is in the form of a Latin cross—stern, plain, dignified. The walls are adorned with frescoes representing scenes from the Passion, portraits of the Fathers of the Church, and angels playing on the harp and singing. They were executed in 1723 by an obscure painter called Juan de Medina. Eight chapels open on the aisles and nave, one containing a fine retablo, with the Entombment as subject. The principal chapel exhibits Siloe’s skill at its best. He is said to have realised in its construction “his lofty ideal of effecting a truly Spanish Renaissance; an ideal which bore little fruit, since some of his followers confined themselves to the strictest classicism, others to the development of the plateresque.” Very much in the spirit of the Renaissance is the decoration of the chapel with the statues of the worthies of the classic world, Cæsar, Pompey, Hannibal, Homer, and others, side by side with Old Testament characters. Strange, this admiration for a pagan civilisation co-existent with violent religious fanaticism against all contemporary non-Catholics!

The whole church was practically dedicated to the memory of Spain’s greatest soldier, the Great{80} Captain, Gonzalo de Cordova, who was buried here, but whose ashes have been transferred to Madrid. The hero and his duchess are shown, sculptured, kneeling in prayer on either side of the high altar, over which rises a magnificent retablo, divided into several compartments filled with reliefs and statues. The horizontal sections are in the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and composite Orders respectively. The lowest central compartment is occupied by the Tabernacle, the subjects of the three compartments immediately above being the Immaculate Conception, St. Jerome, and the Crucifixion. Over all is shown the figure of the Eternal Father. This splendid work, the best of its kind in Spain, seems to have been executed by a variety of artists, among them Juan de Aragon, Pedro de Orea, and Pedro de Raxis. The beautiful shell-like vaulting above is adorned with figures of the Apostles, of Saints Barbara, Katharine, Magdalen, and Lucy, and the warrior-saints, George, Eustace, Martin, Sebastian, and Francis. The sword given by the Pope to the Great Captain, formerly one of the treasures of the chapel, was carried off by Sebastiani during the Peninsular War.

There are a great many beautiful things in this old church which seem to escape the ordinary traveller’s notice. The seats in the choir were designed by Siloe. The frescoes, representing the{81} Triumph of the Church, of the Virgin, and of the Eucharist, the Assumption, &c., are very well done. The restoration of the fabric has often been denounced, but it is difficult to see how it could have been better carried out.

In the neighbourhood of the Great Captain’s chapel is a monument to a hero and a great Spaniard of a very different type. Juan de Robles devoted himself to the sick and the suffering with a zeal which earned for him confinement in a madman’s cage. His virtues were recognised after his death, and procured him canonisation as St. John of God in 1669. A tribute to his memory which he would have no doubt appreciated better is the large hospital founded two years after his death, that is, in 1552. The saint’s ashes, in a silver coffin, repose in the hospital chapel, a gorgeous structure, characterised by costliness and bad taste. The trail of the serpent of Spanish architecture—Churriguera—is over all. All that is interesting in it is the portrait of the saint, a copy of one in Madrid.

The name of the Great Captain is associated with the Cartuja, or suppressed Carthusian monastery, the site of which was his gift. The monastery, begun in 1516, was pulled down in 1842. A small portion of the buildings, however, remains, together with the church. The single nave is disfigured by over-elaborate ornamentation{82} in the plateresque style. The doors of the choir are richly and tastefully inlaid with ebony and mother of pearl, cedar and tortoise-shell, and were the work of a friar, Manuel Vazquez, who died in 1765. The sanctuary, in the baroque style, is enriched with precious marbles, some richly veined with agates. On some of the slabs the hand of Nature has traced the semblances of human and animal forms. In the adjoining sacristy, various marbles have been combined so as to produce an effect dazzling and gorgeous in the extreme. The hall is certainly one of the most remarkable in Spain. Scarcely less marvellous are the exquisitely inlaid doors and presses. The generally bad style of the church is also redeemed by a statue of St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order, ascribed to Alonso Cano, and some pictures by Bocanegra, Giaquinto, and Cotán. The last named, a friar, was responsible for the pictures in the cloister, representing the martyrdom of Carthusian monks in London by the tyrant Henry VIII. and the brigands who acted as his officers.

The Cartuja was formerly much richer in works of art, but, like San Jeronimo, it was ransacked by the French under Sebastiani, who exhibited, as on all occasions, the discrimination of a dilettante coupled with the rapacity of a bandit.{83}

In front of the church of Santos Pedro y Pablo is a very handsome mansion built in 1539 for Hernando de Zafra, secretary of the Catholic sovereigns. The portal is in three stages: the first contains the entrance, a square doorway, between Doric columns; the second bears the escutcheons of the family, above them being sculptured griffins and lions; the third, a balcony between pilasters, carved in delicate relief. In a line with this is another balcony, bearing the curious inscription, Esperandola del Cielo—“Looking for it from Heaven.” These words are explained by a tragic legend. De Zafra is said to have suspected his daughter of a clandestine attachment. To satisfy his doubts, he burst into her room one day, and found her page assisting the lover to escape by the window. Baulked of his prey, the father turned, with death in his face, upon the boy. “Mercy!” shrieked the page. “Look for it in Heaven!” answered the Don, as he hurled his daughter’s accomplice from the balcony into the street below. So runs the legend. De Zafra does not appear, according to the records, to have left any children; but his daughter may not have survived the terrible consequences of her amour. “After all,” remarks Valladar, “nothing was easier in the sixteenth century than to throw a page out of the{84} window without attracting the attention of the police or magistrates.”

Granada is by no means as rich in ancient churches and houses as Seville. The house of the Great Captain now forms part of the convent of Carmelite nuns. On the façade a tablet sets forth that “In this house lived, and on December 2, 1515, died, the Great Captain Don Gonzalo Fernandez de Aguilar y de Cordoba, Duke of Sessa, Terranova, and Santangelo, the Christian hero, and conqueror of the Moors, French, and Turks.”

The early sixteenth-century Casa de los Tiros—the property, like the Generalife, of the Marques de Campotejar—seems to occupy the site, if it did not actually form part, of a Moorish fortified dwelling. Some think it was an advanced work of the fortifications known as the Torres Bermejas. The interior certainly shows Arabic influence. The staircase was probably built by Moors, and there are rich azulejos and a splendid artesanado hall. This is adorned with busts of various Spanish celebrities, with the graven heads of Moors and Christians, and with reliefs of Lucretia, Judith, Semiramis, and Penthesilea.

In this house is preserved an Arabic sword with a magnificent hilt and scabbard, said to have belonged to Boabdil. The scabbard, at all events, is unquestionably of workmanship{85} posterior to the Reconquest; and it is well to be a little on one’s guard in the matter of the numerous relics ascribed to the last Moorish king.

Of old Granada, in truth, not much more remains than the buildings we have already named. We may glance at the tower of San Juan de los Reyes, so badly restored that its peculiar Moorish architecture, more markedly Eastern than that of any other Grenadine monument, has been almost entirely effaced. And in the old Casa de Ayuntamiento there are some historical curiosities, notably the original draft of the charter granted to Granada by the Catholic sovereigns, and the handsome official shield of the city. Many sites, such as the Plaza de Bibarrambla, commemorated in the songs and stories of old Spain, have been completely modernised. But there is a monument—a simple column surmounted by an iron cross—more deeply interesting than any reared by the Moors. The inscription on the pedestal records that on this spot, on May 26, 1831, Doña Mariana Pineda was publicly garroted at the age of thirty-two years. She died a martyr for liberty and a victim of the strange absolutist frenzy which did much to ruin Spain in Ferdinand VII.’s reign. Doña Mariana’s house had been a centre for liberal gatherings, and when raided by the police{86} was found to contain a tricolour flag. She met her death with a courage worthy of her cause. Five years later, when the nation had recovered its sanity, her ashes were carried in state to the Ayuntamiento. The magistrate who had condemned her was in his turn executed. On the same site many Spanish patriots were shot by the French—their labour and their lives being given to replace Ferdinand VII. on the throne. The square, formerly called the Campillo, is now named after Mariana Pineda. You may see there her statue in marble, sculptured by Marna and Morales.

The hill called the Sacro Monte is a curious memorial of human credulity. In 1594 one Francisco Hernandez reported to the Archbishop Don Pedro Vaca de Castro that he had discovered the relics of several local martyrs in the caves here. A church of no architectural merit was raised on the spot, and became a place of pilgrimage—the evidence that the martyrs referred to had ever existed being meanwhile wanting. Within the church are preserved some leaden books, inscribed in Arabic characters, and supposed to contain the acts, of the saints. These works were the subject of a furious controversy in the seventeenth century. The caves are interesting on account of their natural peculiarities, and were quite probably catacombs used by{87} the early Christians of Illiberis. Some rocks may be noticed, in parts worn away by the repeated kisses of devotees. There is a superstition that the person who kisses the stone the first time will marry within the year, and that a second kiss will ensure to those already married an early dissolution of the conjugal tie.

On the opposite side of the city, also in the outskirts, is a little Mohammedan oratory, now disfigured and restored beyond recognition. It is called the Ermita de San Sebastian, and was the place where Boabdil gave up the keys of Granada to Ferdinand and Isabel.

When we walk through the streets of the modern Granada, with its tawdry churches and commonplace private houses, it does not seem that the city has gained much by its change of masters. But its decline was not at least very marked till many years after the Reconquest. The French invasion, and still more the ruin of the silk industry, completely undermined the prosperity of the place. During the last century it lost its rank as the seat of a Captain General. But a new day is dawning for the proudest city of the Moor, as for all Spain. Granada is content no longer to brood over its splendid past; indeed, its citizens seem to prize but lightly the monuments of those days. There is a general appearance of wealth and elegance about the promenaders{88} on the broad, well-lighted paseos; and, thanks to the newly introduced manufacturing industry of beetroot sugar, the Vega has already resumed the flourishing smiling aspect it wore when a Mohammedan amir called it his and the cry of the muezzin was heard from a hundred minarets.{89}

PLAN OF GRANADA

A new and important series of volumes, dealing with Spain in its various aspects, its history, its cities and monuments. Each volume will be complete in itself in a uniform binding, and the number and excellence of the reproductions from pictures will justify the claim that these books comprise the most copiously illustrated series that has yet been issued, some volumes having over 300 pages of reproductions of pictures, etc.

A BIOGRAPHY AND APPRECIATION. ILLUSTRATED BY OVER 165 REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF HIS MOST CELEBRATED PICTURES

WHILE the names of Murillo and Velazquez are inseparably linked in the history of Art as Spain’s immortal contribution to the small band of world-painters, the great Court-Painter to Philip IV. has ever received the lion’s share of public attention. Many learned and critical works have been written about Murillo, but whereas Velazquez has been familiarised to the general reader by the aid of small, popular biographies, the niche is still empty which it is hoped that this book will fill.

In this volume the attempt has been made to show the painter’s art in its relation to the religious feeling of the age in which he lived, and his own feeling towards his art. Murillo was the product of his religious era, and of his native province, Andalusia. To Europe in his lifetime he signified little or nothing. He painted to the order of the religious houses in his immediate vicinity; his works were immured in local monasteries and cathedrals, and, passing immediately out of circulation, were forgotten or never known.

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE ROYAL ARMOURY AT MADRID. ILLUSTRATED WITH 386 REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS. DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO H.M. QUEEN MARIA CRISTINA OF SPAIN

ALTHOUGH several valuable and voluminous catalogues of the Spanish Royal Armoury have, from time to time, been compiled, this “finest collection of armour in the world” has been subjected so often to the disturbing influences of fire, removal, and re-arrangement, that no hand catalogue of the Museum is available, and this book has been designed to serve both as a historical souvenir of the institution and a record of its treasures.

The various exhibits with which the writer illustrates his narrative are reproduced to the number of nearly 400 on art paper, and the selection of weapons and armour has been made with a view not only to render the series interesting to the general reader, but to present a useful text book for the guidance of artists, sculptors, antiquaries, costumiers, and all who are engaged in the reproduction or representation of European armoury.{555}

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE SPANISH ROYAL PALACE, MONASTERY AND MAUSOLEUM. ILLUSTRATED WITH PLANS AND 278 REPRODUCTIONS FROM PICTURES AND PHOTOGRAPHS

THE Royal Palace, Monastery, and Mausoleum of El Escorial, which rears its gaunt, grey walls in one of the bleakest but most imposing districts in the whole of Spain, was erected to commemorate a victory over the French in 1557. It was occupied and pillaged by the French two and a-half centuries later, and twice it has been greatly diminished by fire; but it remains to-day, not only the incarnate expression of the fanatic religious character and political genius of Philip II., but the greatest mass of wrought granite which exists on earth, the leviathan of architecture, the eighth wonder of the world.

In the text of this book the author has endeavoured to reconstitute the glories and tragedies of the living past of the Escorial, and to represent the wonders of the stupendous edifice by reproductions of over two hundred and seventy of the finest photographs and pictures obtainable. Both as a review and a pictorial record it is hoped that the work will make a wide appeal among all who are interested in the history, the architecture, and the art of Spain.

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE “CITY OF GENERATIONS,” WITH 510 ILLUSTRATIONS

THE origin of Imperial Toledo, “the crown of Spain, the light of the world, free from the time of the mighty Goths,” is lost in the impenetrable mists of antiquity. Mighty, unchangeable, invincible, the city has been described by Wörmann as “a gigantic open-air museum of the architectural history of early Spain, arranged upon a lofty and conspicuous table of rock.”

But while some writers have declared that Toledo is a theatre with the actors gone and only the scenery left, the author does not share the opinion. He believes that the power and virility upon which Spain built up her greatness is reasserting itself. The machinery of the theatre of Toledo is rusty, the pulleys are jammed from long disuse, but the curtain is rising steadily if slowly, and already can be heard the tuning-up of fiddles in its ancient orchestra.

In this belief the author of this volume has not only set forth the story of Toledo’s former greatness, but has endeavoured to place before his readers a panorama of the city as it appears to-day, and to show cause for his faith in the greatness of the Toledo of the future.{556}

SEVILLE, which has its place in mythology as the creation of Hercules, and was more probably founded by the Phœnicians, which became magnificent under the Roman rule, was made the capital of the Goths, became the centre of Moslem power and splendour, and fell before the military prowess of St. Ferdinand, is still the Queen of Andalusia, the foster-mother of Velazquez and Murillo, the city of poets and pageantry and love.

Seville is always gay, and responsive and fascinating to the receptive visitor, and all sorts of people go there with all sorts of motives. The artist repairs to the Andalusian city to fill his portfolio; the lover of art makes the pilgrimage to study Murillo in all his glory. The seasons of the Church attract thousands from reasons of devotion or curiosity. And of all these myriad visitors, who go with their minds full of preconceived notions, not one has yet confessed to being disappointed in Seville.

The author has here attempted to convey in the illustrations an impression of this laughing city where all is gaiety and mirth and ever-blossoming roses, where the people pursue pleasure as the serious business of life in an atmosphere of exhilarating enjoyment.

A GUIDE AND HANDBOOK TO THE ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY OF MADRID. ILLUSTRATED WITH 221 REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF OLD MASTERS. DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO H.R.H. PRINCESS HENRY OF BATTENBERG

THIS volume is an attempt to supplement the accurate but formal notes contained in the official catalogue of a picture gallery which is considered the finest in the world. It has been said that the day one enters the Prado for the first time is an important event like marriage, the birth of a child, or the coming into an inheritance; an experience of which one feels the effects to the day of one’s death.

The excellence of the Madrid gallery is the excellence of exclusion; it is a collection of magnificent gems. Here one becomes conscious of a fresh power in Murillo, and is amazed anew by the astonishing apparition of Velazquez; here is, in truth, a rivalry of miracles of art.

The task of selecting pictures for reproduction from what is perhaps the most splendid gallery of old masters in existence, was one of no little difficulty, but it is believed that the collection is representative, and that the letterpress will form a serviceable companion to the visitor to The Prado.{557}

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MOSLEM RULE IN SPAIN, TOGETHER WITH A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTRUCTION, THE ARCHITECTURE, AND THE DECORATION OF THE MOORISH PALACE, WITH 460 ILLUSTRATIONS. DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO H.I.M. THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE

THIS volume is the third and abridged edition of a work which the author was inspired to undertake by the surpassing loveliness of the Alhambra, and by his disappointment in the discovery that no such thing as an even moderately adequate illustrated souvenir of “this glorious sanctuary of Spain” was obtainable. Keenly conscious of the want himself, he essayed to supply it, and the result is a volume that has been acclaimed with enthusiasm alike by critics, artists, architects, and archæologists.

In his preface to the first edition, Mr. Calvert wrote: “The Alhambra may be likened to an exquisite opera which can only be appreciated to the full when one is under the spell of its magic influence. But as the witchery of an inspired score can be recalled by the sound of an air whistled in the street, so—it is my hope—the pale ghost of the Moorish fairy-land may live again in the memories of travellers through the medium of this pictorial epitome.”

A BIOGRAPHY AND APPRECIATION. ILLUSTRATED BY REPRODUCTIONS OF OVER 140 OF HIS PICTURES

IN a Series such as this, which aims at presenting every aspect of Spain’s eminence in art and in her artists, the work of Domenico Theotocópuli must be allotted a volume to itself. “El Greco,” as he is called, who reflects the impulse, and has been said to constitute the supreme glory of the Venetian era, was a Greek by repute, a Venetian by training, and a Toledan by adoption. His pictures in the Prado are still catalogued among those of the Italian School, but foreigner as he was, in his heart he was more Spanish than the Spaniards.

El Greco is typically, passionately, extravagantly Spanish, and with his advent, Spanish painting laid aside every trace of Provincialism, and stepped forth to compel the interest of the world. Neglected for many centuries, and still often misjudged, his place in art is an assured one. It is impossible to present him as a colourist in a work of this nature, but the author has got together reproductions of no fewer than 140 of his pictures—a greater number than has ever before been published of El Greco’s works.{558}

A BIOGRAPHY AND APPRECIATION. ILLUSTRATED WITH 142 REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF HIS MOST CELEBRATED PICTURES

DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y VELAZQUEZ—“our Velazquez,” as Palomino proudly styles him—has been made the subject of innumerable books in every European language, yet the Editor of this Spanish Series feels that it would not be complete without the inclusion of yet another contribution to the broad gallery of Velazquez literature.

The great Velazquez, the eagle in art—subtle, simple, incomparable—the supreme painter, is still a guiding influence of the art of to-day. This greatest of Spanish artists, a master not only in portrait painting, but in character and animal studies, in landscapes and historical subjects, impressed the grandeur of his superb personality upon all his work. Spain, it has been said, the country whose art was largely borrowed, produced Velazquez, and through him Spanish art became the light of a new artistic life.

The author cannot boast that he has new data to offer, but he has put forward his conclusions with modesty; he has reproduced a great deal that is most representative of the artist’s work; and he has endeavoured to keep always in view his object to present a concise, accurate, and readable life of Velazquez.

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE SEVEN PRINCIPAL PALACES OF THE SPANISH KINGS. PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED

SPAIN is beyond question the richest country in the world in the number of its Royal Residences, and while few are without artistic importance, all are rich in historical memories. Thus, from the Alcazar at Seville, which is principally associated with Pedro the Cruel, to the Retiro, built to divert the attention of Philip IV. from his country’s decay; from the Escorial, in which the gloomy mind of Philip II. is perpetuated in stone, to La Granja, which speaks of the anguish and humiliation of Christina before Sergeant Garcia and his rude soldiery; from Aranjuéz to Rio Frio, and from El Pardo, darkened by the agony of a good king, to Miramar, to which a widowed Queen retired to mourn: all the history of Spain, from the splendid days of Charles V. to the present time, is crystallised in the Palaces that constitute the patrimony of the Crown.

The Royal Palaces of Spain are open to visitors at stated times, and it is hoped that this volume, with its wealth of illustrations, will serve the visitor both as a guide and a souvenir.{559}

THE glory of Valladolid has departed, but the skeleton remains, and attached to its ancient stones are the memories that Philip II. was born here, that here Cervantes lived, and Christopher Columbus died. In this one-time capital of Spain, in the Plaza Mayor, the fires of the Great Inquisition were first lighted, and here Charles V. laid the foundation of the Royal Armoury, which was afterwards transferred to Madrid.

More than seven hundred years have passed since Oviedo was the proud capital of the Kingdoms of Las Asturias, Leon, and Castile. Segovia, though no longer great, has still all the appurtenances of greatness, and with her granite massiveness and austerity, she remains an aristocrat even among the aristocracy of Spanish cities. Zamora, which has a history dating from time almost without date, was the key of Leon and the centre of the endless wars between the Moors and the Christians, which raged round it from the eighth to the eleventh centuries.

In this volume the author has striven to re-create the ancient greatness of these six cities, and has preserved their memories in a wealth of excellent and interesting illustrations.

IN Leon, once the capital of the second kingdom in Spain; in Burgos, which boasts one of the most magnificent cathedrals in Spain, and the custodianship of the bones of the Cid; and in Salamanca, with its university, which is one of the oldest in Europe, the author has selected three of the most interesting relics of ancient grandeur in this country of departed greatness.

Leon to-day is nothing but a large agricultural village, torpid, silent, dilapidated; Burgos, which still retains traces of the Gotho-Castilian character, is a gloomy and depleting capital; and Salamanca is a city of magnificent buildings, a broken hulk, spent by the storms that from time to time have devastated her.

Yet apart from the historical interest possessed by these cities, they still make an irresistible appeal to the artist and the antiquary. They are content with their stories of old-time greatness and their cathedrals, and these ancient architectural splendours, undisturbed by the touch of a modernising and renovating spirit, continue to attract the visitor.{560}

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE SPANISH CAPITAL, WITH 450 ILLUSTRATIONS

MADRID is at once one of the most interesting and most maligned cities in Europe. It stands at an elevation of 2,500 feet above the sea level, in the centre of an arid, treeless, waterless, and wind-blown plain; but whatever may be thought of the wisdom of selecting a capital in such a situation, one cannot but admire the uniqueness of its position, and the magnificence of its buildings, and one is forced to admit that, having fairly entered the path of progress, Madrid bids fair to become one of the handsomest and most prosperous of European cities.

The splendid promenades, the handsome buildings, and the spacious theatres combine to make Madrid one of the first cities of the world, and the author has endeavoured with the aid of the camera, to place every feature and aspect of the Spanish metropolis before the reader. Some of the illustrations reproduced here have been made familiar to the English public by reason of the interesting and stirring events connected with the Spanish Royal Marriage, but the greater number were either taken by the author, or are the work of photographers specially employed to obtain new views for the purpose of this volume.

A BIOGRAPHY AND APPRECIATION. ILLUSTRATED BY REPRODUCTIONS OF 600 OF HIS PICTURES

THE last of the old masters and the first of the moderns, as he has been called, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is not so familiarised to English readers as his genius deserves. He was born at a time when the tradition of Velazquez was fading, and the condition of Spanish painting was debased almost beyond hope of salvation; he broke through the academic tradition of imitation; “he, next to Velazquez, is to be accounted as the man whom the Impressionists of our time have to thank for their most definite stimulus, their most immediate inspiration.”

The genius of Goya was a robust, imperious, and fulminating genius; his iron temperament was passionate, dramatic, and revolutionary; he painted a picture as he would have fought a battle. He was an athletic, warlike, and indefatigable painter; a naturalist like Velazquez; fantastic like Hogarth; eccentric like Rembrandt; the last flame-coloured flash of Spanish genius.

It is impossible to reproduce his colouring; but in the reproductions of his works the author has endeavoured to convey to the reader some idea of Goya’s boldness of style, his mastery of frightful shadows and mysterious lights, and his genius for expressing all terrible emotions.{561}

A HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT CITY WHICH THE CARTHAGINIANS STYLED THE “GEM OF THE SOUTH,” WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS

GAY-LOOKING, vivacious in its beauty, silent, ill-provided, depopulated, Cordova was once the pearl of the West, the city of cities, Cordova of the thirty suburbs and three thousand mosques; to-day she is no more than an overgrown village, but she still remains the most Oriental town in Spain.

Cordova, once the centre of European civilisation, under the Moors the Athens of the West, the successful rival of Baghdad and Damascus, the seat of learning and the repository of the arts, has shrunk to the proportions of a third-rate provincial town; but the artist, the antiquary and the lover of the beautiful, will still find in its streets and squares and patios a mysterious spell that cannot be resisted.

A NEW LIFE OF THE GREAT SPANISH AUTHOR TO COMMEMORATE THE TERCENTENARY OF THE PUBLICATION OF “DON QUIXOTE,” WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS AND REPRODUCTIONS FROM EARLY EDITIONS OF “DON QUIXOTE”

“A popular and accessible account of the career of Cervantes.”—Daily Chronicle.

“A very readable and pleasant account of one of the great writers of all time.”—Morning Leader.

“Mr. Calvert is entitled to the gratitude of book-lovers for his industrious devotion at one of our greatest literary shrines.”—Birmingham Post.

“It is made trebly interesting by the very complete set of Cervantes’ portraits it contains, and by the inclusion of a valuable bibliography.”—Black and White.

“We recommend the book to all those to whom Cervantes is more than a mere name.”—Westminster Gazette.

“A most interesting résumé of all facts up to the present time known.”—El Nervion de Bilbao, Spain.

“The most notable work dedicated to the immortal author of Don Quixote that has been published in England.”—El Graduador, Spain.

“Although the book is written in English no Spaniard could have written it with more conscientiousness and enthusiasm.{562}”—El Defensor de Granada, Spain.

OF GRANADA, BEING A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MOSLEM RULE IN SPAIN FROM THE REIGN OF MOHAMMED THE FIRST TO THE FINAL EXPULSION OF THE MOORS, TOGETHER WITH A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE CONSTRUCTION, THE ARCHITECTURE AND THE DECORATION OF THE MOORISH PALACE, WITH 80 COLOURED PLATES AND NEARLY 300 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS (NEW EDITION). DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO H.M. KING ALFONSO XIII.

“It is hardly too much to say that this is one of the most magnificent books ever issued from the English Press.”—Building World.

“One is really puzzled where to begin and when to stop in praising the illustrations.”—Bookseller.

“The most complete record of this wonder of architecture which has ever been contemplated, much less attempted.”—British Architect.

“It is the last word on the subject, no praise is too high.”—Nottingham Express.

“May be counted among the more important art books which have been published during recent years.”—The Globe.

“Has a pride of place that is all its own among the books of the month.”—Review of Reviews.

“Has in many respects surpassed any books on the Alhambra which up to the present have appeared in our own country or abroad.”—El Graduador, Spain.

“One of the most artistic productions of the year.”—Publishers’ Circular.

“A standard work, the compilation of which would credit a life’s labour.{563}”—Hull Daily Mail.

BEING A BRIEF RECORD OF THE ARABIAN CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION OF THE PENINSULA, WITH A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE AND DECORATION IN THE CITIES OF CORDOVA, SEVILLE AND TOLEDO, WITH MANY COLOURED PLATES, AND OVER 400 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS, DIAGRAMS, ETC., DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO H.M. KING ALFONSO XIII.

“The making of this book must surely have been a veritable labour of love; and love’s labour has certainly not been lost.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

“The best age of Moorish architecture in Spain is shown with remarkable vividness and vitality.”—The Scotsman.

“A most gorgeous book.... We cheerfully admit Mr. Calvert into the ranks of those whom posterity will applaud for delightful yet unprofitable work.”—Outlook.

“The illustrations are simply marvels of reproduction.”—Dundee Advertiser.

“One of the books to which a simple literary review cannot pretend to do justice.”—Spectator.

“A special feature of a work of peculiar interest and value are the illustrations.”—Newcastle Chronicle.

“The illustrations are given with a minuteness and faithfulness of detail, and colour, which will be particularly appreciated and acknowledged by those who are most acquainted with the subject themselves.”—Liverpool Post.

“It is impossible to praise too highly the care with which the illustrations have been prepared.”—Birmingham Daily Post.

“It is illustrated with so lavish a richness of colour that to turn its pages gives one at first almost the same impression of splendour as one receives in wandering from hall to hall of the Alcazar of Seville; and this is probably the highest compliment we could pay to the book or its author.”—Academy.

“The occasional delicacy of design and harmony of colour can scarcely be surpassed ... a valuable and profusely illustrated volume.”—Guardian.

“Mr. Calvert has given a very complete account of the evolution of Moresco art.”—The Connoisseur.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] He is reckoned as Mohammed VI. by the writers who deny the title of Sultan to the usurper of Mohammed V.’s throne.

[B] Known as Mohammed X.

[C] I adopt Mr. U. R. Burke’s statement of the relationship between Abu-l-Hassan, Zoraya, and Boabdil. (Burke, “History of Spain,” II. p. 98.)

[D] Here was lodged the cavalry of the Moorish Sultans.

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1.	Hospital of San Lázaro.
2.	Church of San Juan de Letran.
3.	Hermitage of Santo Cristo de Yedra.
4.	San Bruno and the Cartuja.
5.	The Sacro Monte.
6.	The Holy Tomb.
7.	Cavalry Barracks, and San Jerónimo.
8.	San Juan de Dios.
9.	San Juan de Dios (Street).
10.	Lunatic Asylum.
11.	Bull Ring. (Plaza de Toros.)
12.	San Ildefonso, and Avenue del Triunfo.
13.	Pay Office.
14.	Gate of Elvira.
15.	Gate of Monaita.
16.	San Andrés.
17.	Children’s Hospital.
18.	Office for Civil Affairs.
19.	Santos Justo and Pastor.
20.	Institute of Music.
21.	Botanical Garden and Nunnery of Piety.
22.	Square of Rull and Godines.
23.	Convent of the Incarnation.
24.	Santa Paula.
25.	Elvira (Street).
26.	San Jerónimo.
27.	Orlando’s Balcony.
28.	San Diego.
29.	San Gregorio.
30.	San Luis.
31.	Arab Ramparts.
32.	San Miguel the Greater.
33.	Gate of the Standards.
34.	El Salvador.
35.	San José.
36.	Convent of the Angel.
37.	Ecclesiastical College.
38.	The Cathedral.
39.	High School and Palace of the Province of Granada.
40.	School of Economics.
41.	Market Place, and Palace of the Archbishop.
42.	Court of First Instance (Plaza Rib-Rambla).
43.	Convent of Augustines and La Magdalena.
44.	House of Grace.
45.	Puentezuelas (Bridge).
46.	Square of Marshal Prim.
47.	Town Hall.
48.	Santa Teresa.
49.	Convent of the Holy Spirit.
50.	Military Office.
51.	Carmelite Convent.
52.	Hospital for Leprosy.
53.	Santa Ana.
54.	Santa Inés.
55.	Convent of the Conception.
56.	San Juan de los Reyes.
57.	Ex-Convent of The Victory.
58.	Watch-tower of the Alhambra (Torre de la Vela).
59.	The Alhambra.
60.	Gate of Las Granadas.
61.	Gate of Judiciary Astrology (Judiciária).
62.	The Generalife.
63.	Gate of Hierro.
64.	San Francisco (formerly Convent of St. Francis).
65.	The Chair of the Moor (Silla del Moro).
66.	The Tower of the Seven Storeys (Alhambra).
67.	The Fountain of Expiation.
68.	Gate of the Sun.
69.	Convent of Santa Catalina.
70.	Ecce Homo.
71.	San Cecilio, and Military Hospital.
73.	Santa Escolástica.
74.	Capuchin Convent and Santa Maria Egipciaca.
75.	San Anton.
76.	Gas Works.
77.	Public Shambles.
78.	San Sebastián and Avenue del Violón.
79.	Las Angustias.
80.	El Salon.
81.	Convent of Santiago.
82.	Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts.
83.	Monument of Mariana.
84.	Artillery Barracks.
85.	Principal Theatre (Plaza de Bailén).
86.	New Square.
87.	Zacatín.
88.	Fish Market.
89.	Church of Santiago.
90.	San Nicolás.
91.	Convent of Tomasas.
92.	Bermeja Towers.
93.	Palace of Charles V.
94.	Gate of the Mills.
95.	San Basil.
96.	Recreation Grounds.
97.	Cemetery.
98.	Convent of San Bernado and Church of San Pedro.
99.	San Bartolomé.
100.	Avenue of San Basil.
101.	San Cristóbal.
102.	Hospital of Corpus Christi.
103.	Santa Isabel la Real, and San Miguel the Less.
104.	Santa Maria (Ancient Mosque of the Alhambra).
105.	San Matías.
106.	Gate of Fajalanza.
107.	Méndez Nuñez (Street).