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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moorish Remains in Spain, by Albert F. Calvert
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Moorish Remains in Spain
+
+Author: Albert F. Calvert
+
+Release Date: June 18, 2019 [EBook #59776]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN
+
+ [Illustration: CORDOVA.
+
+ THE MOSQUE.
+
+ Vertical Section of the Dome and Cupola of the Mihrab.]
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ MOORISH
+ REMAINS
+ IN SPAIN
+
+ BEING A BRIEF RECORD OF
+ THE ARABIAN CONQUEST OF THE
+ PENINSULA WITH A PARTICULAR
+ ACCOUNT OF THE MOHAMMEDAN
+ ARCHITECTURE AND DECORATION
+ IN CORDOVA, SEVILLE & TOLEDO
+ BY ALBERT F. CALVERT
+
+ LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
+ NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY, MCMVI]
+
+
+ E. Goodman and Son, Phœnix Printing Works, Taunton.
+
+
+
+
+ DEDICATION
+
+ TO HIS MAJESTY KING ALFONSO XIII.
+
+
+ SIRE,
+
+The great interest Your Majesty has evinced in the Moorish Monuments
+which adorn Your Majesty’s loyal and noble country, and the gracious
+appreciation with which You were pleased to regard my work on The
+Alhambra, inspired me with the presumption to solicit the honour of Your
+Majesty’s August Patronage for this volume, which is humbly dedicated to
+Your Majesty agreeably to Your Majesty’s gracious permission, by
+
+ Your Majesty’s humble Servant,
+
+ ALBERT F. CALVERT.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The inception of my work on The Alhambra, to which this book is designed
+to be the companion and complementary volume, was due to the
+disappointing discovery that no such thing as an even moderately
+adequate souvenir of the Red Palace of Granada, “that glorious sanctuary
+of Spain,” was in existence. It was written at a time when I shared the
+very common delusion that the Alhambra was the only word in a vocabulary
+of relics which includes such Arabian superlatives as the Mosque at
+Cordova, the Gates and the Cristo de la Luz of Toledo, and the Alcazar
+at Seville. I had then to learn that while the Alhambra has rightly been
+accepted as the last word on Moorish Art in Spain, it must not be
+regarded as the solitary monument of the splendour and beauty with which
+the Arabs stamped their virile and artistic personality upon Andalus.
+
+In the course of frequent and protracted visits to Spain I came to
+realise that the Moors were not a one-city nation; they did not exhaust
+themselves in a single, isolated effort to achieve the sublimely
+beautiful. Before the Alhambra was conceived in the mind of Mohammed the
+First of Granada, Toledo had been adorned and lost; Cordova, which for
+centuries had commanded the admiration of Europe, had paled and waned
+beside the increasing splendour of Seville; and the “gem of Andalusia”
+itself had been wrested from the Moor by the victorious Ferdinand III.
+But each in turn had been redeemed from Gothic tyranny by the
+art-adoring influence of the Moslem. Their dominion, their politics, and
+their influence is a tale of a day that is dead, but it survives in the
+monuments of their Art, which exist to the glory of Spain and the wonder
+of the world. The Arabian sense of the beautiful sealed itself upon
+Cordova, and made the city its own; it blended with the joyous spirit
+of Seville; it forced its impress upon the frowning forehead of Toledo.
+To see the Alhambra is not to understand the wonders of the Alcazar; the
+study of Moorish wizardry in Toledo does not reveal, does not even
+prepare one, for the bewildering cunning of the Mosque in Cordova.
+
+In Cordova--this gay, vivacious overgrown village, which gleams serene
+in a setting of vineyards and orange groves--the spirit of the Moors
+still breathes. Rome wrested the city from Carthage; the Goths humbled
+it to the dust. But, under the Moors, Cordova became the centre of
+European civilisation, the rival of Baghdad and Damascus as a seat of
+learning, the Athens of the West, and second only in sanctity to the
+Kaaba of Mecca. Its Cathedral first came into being as a temple of
+Janus; it has been both a basilica and a mosque. But the magic art of
+the Mohammedan, which effaced the imprint of the Roman spear, has
+survived the torch of the Holy Inquisition, and to-day Cordova is the
+most exquisitely beautiful Moorish monument in Spain.
+
+In Seville, on the spot where Roman, Visigoth, and Moslem have each in
+turn practised their faith, the Cathedral bells now hang above the
+Arabian tower of the mosque, and the spire of the temple of the faithful
+has become the world-famous Giralda, which dominates the city. Moorish
+fountains and patios are found at Malaga, and Granada, and Toledo, but
+one comes to “La Tierra de Maria Santisima” to see them at their
+loveliest, while the Alcazar is perhaps the best preserved and most
+superbly-decorated specimen of the Moorish citadel-palace that Europe
+has to show.
+
+Menacing, majestic, and magnificent in its strength and splendid
+isolation, Toledo, guarded by its Moorish masonry, a rock built upon a
+rock, has been described by Padilla as “the crown of Spain, the light of
+the world, free from the time of the mighty Goths.” The light of the
+world has dwindled in the socket of modern progress, the Moor has left
+his scars upon the freedom of the Goth; but Toledo, which was old when
+Christianity was born, presents an epitome of the principal arts,
+religions, and races which have dominated the world for the last two
+thousand years.
+
+In the three cities of Cordova, Seville, and Toledo, in which the hand
+of the Moor touched nothing that it did not beautify, I have found the
+supplement to the art wonders that I attempted to describe in my book
+upon the Alhambra; and, encouraged by the cordiality of the welcome
+extended to that volume in Spain and America, as well as in this
+country, I have followed the course which I therein adopted, of making
+the letterpress subservient to the illustrations. While immersed in
+authorities, and tempted often by the beauties of the scenes to indulge
+the desire to emotionalise in words, I have never permitted myself to
+forget that my purpose has been to present a picture rather than to
+chronicle the romance of Spanish-Morisco art.
+
+For the historical data, and some of the descriptions contained in this
+book, I have levied tribute on a large number of authors. Don Pascual de
+Gayángos, the renowned translator of Al-Makkari; the _Handbook_ and the
+_Gatherings_ of Richard Ford; William Stirling-Maxwell’s _Don John of
+Austria_; _The History of the Conquest of Spain_, by Henry Coppeé;
+Washington Irving’s _Conquest of Granada_; Miss Charlotte Yonge’s
+_Christians and Moors in Spain_; Stanley Lane-Poole’s _The Moors in
+Spain_; the writings of Dr. R. Dozy, of Leipsic; Muhammed Hayat Khan’s
+_Rise and Fall of the Muslim Empire in Spain_; Hannah Lynch’s _Toledo_;
+Walter M. Gallichan’s _Seville_; _The Latin-Byzantine Monuments of
+Cordova_; _Monumentos Arquitectonicos de España_; Pedro de Madrazo’s
+_Sevilla_--these, and many less important writers on Spain, have been
+consulted.
+
+But with this wealth of literary material to hand, I have remembered
+that it is my collection of illustrations, rather than on the written
+word, that I must depend. From the nature of Arabian art, and the
+characteristic minuteness of the details of which Morisco decoration is
+composed, lengthy descriptions of architecture, unaccompanied by
+illustrations, become not only tedious but positively confusing to the
+reader, while, on the other hand, a sufficiency of illustrations renders
+exhaustive descriptions superfluous. I have striven to do justice to the
+subject in this direction, not without hope of achieving my purpose, but
+with a vast consciousness of the fact that, neither by camera, nor
+brush, nor by the pen, can one reflect, with any fidelity, the effects
+obtained by the Moorish masters of the Middle Ages. In their art we find
+a sense of the mysterious that appeals to one like the glint of
+moonlight on running water; an intangible spirit of joyousness that one
+catches from the dancing shadows of leaves upon a sun-swept lawn; and an
+elusive key to its beauty, which is lost in the bewildering maze of
+traceries and the inextricable network of designs. The form, but not the
+fantasy, of these fairy-like, fascinating decorations may be reproduced,
+and this I have endeavoured to do.
+
+A. F. C.
+
+
+“ROYSTON,” HAMPSTEAD, N. W.
+
+ 1905.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+CORDOVA
+ PAGE
+
+THE MOSQUE--PRINCIPAL NAVE OF THE MIHRAB 9
+
+THE MOSQUE--ENTRANCE TO THE MIHRAB 10
+
+GATES OF PARDON 11
+
+VIEW OF THE CITY AND BRIDGE SOUTH OF THE GUADALQUIVIR 12
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 12
+
+FAÇADE AND GATE OF THE ALMANZOR 13
+
+VIEW OF INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 961-967 14
+
+THE MOSQUE--PLAN IN THE TIME OF THE ARABS 786-796, 961-967, 988-1001,
+1523-1593 15
+
+THE MOSQUE--PLAN IN ITS PRESENT STATE, 786-796, 961-967, 988-1001,
+1523-1593 16
+
+ANCIENT ARAB TOWER, NOW THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS DE LA VILLA 25
+
+ORANGE COURT IN THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 957, BY SAID BEN
+AYOUT 26
+
+EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 27
+
+THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE MIHRAB 28
+
+THE MOSQUE--PORTAL ON THE NORTH SIDE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER
+HAKAM III., 988-1001 45
+
+EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE MOSQUE 47
+
+EXTERIOR ANGLE OF THE MOSQUE 49
+
+THE EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 51
+
+THE BRIDGE 55
+
+VIEW OF THE MOSQUE AND THE BRIDGE 57
+
+SECTION OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA ON THE LINE OF THE PLAN L. M. 59
+
+SECTION OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA ON THE LINE OF THE PLAN N. O. 59
+
+THE GATES OF PARDON 61
+
+A VIEW IN THE GARDEN BELONGING TO THE MOSQUE 65
+
+THE MOSQUE--LATERAL GATE 67
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, OR CATHEDRAL 69
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 961-967. UNDER HAKAM II. 71
+
+THE MOSQUE 75
+
+THE MOSQUE--INTERIOR VIEW 77
+
+INTERIOR VIEW OF THE MOSQUE 79
+
+THE MOSQUE--GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR 81
+
+THE CENTRAL NAVE OF THE MOSQUE--961-967 85
+
+THE MOSQUE--CHIEF ENTRANCE 87
+
+INTERIOR VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL 89
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE--LATERAL NAVE 91
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE--EAST SIDE 91
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE GATE 95
+
+THE MOSQUE--FAÇADE OF THE ALMANZOR 95
+
+VIEW IN THE MOSQUE--961-967 97
+
+THE MOSQUE--A GATE ON ONE OF THE LATERAL SIDES 99
+
+THE MOSQUE--SIDE OF THE CAPTIVE’S COLUMN 101
+
+MOSQUE, NORTH SIDE--EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF ST. PEDRO 105
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MASURA AND ST.
+FERDINAND 107
+
+DETAIL OF THE CHAPEL OF MASURA 109
+
+THE MOSQUE--ELEVATION OF THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY OF THE KORAN 111
+
+THE MOSQUE--GATE OF THE SANCTUARY OF THE KORAN 115
+
+THE MOSQUE--MOSAIC DECORATION OF THE SANCTUARY, 965-1001 117
+
+THE MOSQUE--RIGHT-HAND SIDE GATE WITHIN THE PRECINCTS OF THE
+MAKSURRAH 119
+
+THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB 121
+
+THE MOSQUE--DOME OF THE SANCTUARY 125
+
+THE MOSQUE--ROOF OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MASURA AND ST. FERDINAND 127
+
+VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL 129
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE HALL OF CHOCOLATE 131
+
+ENTRANCE TO THE VESTIBULE OF THE MIHRAB 135
+
+MIHRAB OR SANCTUARY OF THE MOSQUE 137
+
+THE MOSQUE--ARCH AND FRONT OF THE ABD-ER-RAHMAN AND MIHRAB CHAPELS 139
+
+ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB 141
+
+VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MIHRAB CHAPEL 145
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB 147
+
+THE MOSQUE--MARBLE SOCLE IN THE MIHRAB 149
+
+BASEMENT PANEL OF THE FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB 151
+
+THE MOSQUE--FRONT OF THE TRASTAMARA CHAPEL 155
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA 157
+
+NORTH ANGLE OF THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA 159
+
+VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL 161
+
+THE MOSQUE--CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA 165
+
+ARAB TRIBUNE, TO-DAY THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA, LEFT SIDE 167
+
+ANCIENT INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF KHALIFATE, FOUND IN AN EXCAVATION 169
+
+THE MOSQUE--CHAPEL OF TRASTAMARA, SOUTH SIDE 171
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE TRASTAMARA CHAPEL 171
+
+THE MOSQUE--INTERIOR OF THE MIHRAB 175
+
+THE MOSQUE--ARAB ARCADE ABOVE THE FIRST MIHRAB 175
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAILS, ARCHES OF THE MIHRAB 177
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE MIHRAB 177
+
+THE MOSQUE--EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB 179
+
+THE MOSQUE--GATE OF THE SULTAN 179
+
+PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE TO THE MOSQUE 181
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL NEAR THE MIHRAB 181
+
+THE GATES OF PARDON 185
+
+THE BISHOP’S GATE 185
+
+THE MOSQUE--PILASTERS AND ARABIAN BATHS 187
+
+INSCRIPTIONS AND ARABIAN CHAPTERS 191
+
+THE MOSQUE--A CUFIC INSCRIPTION IN THE PLACE APPROPRIATED TO THE
+PERFORMANCE OF ABLUTIONS 193
+
+ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS 195
+
+A CUFIC INSCRIPTION ON THE ADDITIONS MADE TO THE MOSQUE, BY ORDER OF
+THE KHALIF AL-HAKAM 197
+
+THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE GUADALQUIVIR, WITH A VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL
+(MEZQUITA). THE SCENE AS IT APPEARED IN 1780. FROM _Antigüedades
+Arabes de España_. MADRID, 1780, FOL. 201
+
+VIEW OF CORDOVA CATHEDRAL (MEZQUITA), AS IT APPEARED IN 1780. FROM
+_Antigüedades Arabes de España_. MADRID, 1780, FOL. 203
+
+WALL OF THE MOSQUE 205
+
+FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB 207
+
+THE MOSQUE--ARCH OF ONE OF THE GATES 211
+
+THE MOSQUE--LATTICE 213
+
+THE MOSQUE--ORNAMENTAL ARCHED WINDOW 217
+
+THE MOSQUE--CAPITALS OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH 219
+
+DETAILS OF THE FRIEZE 221
+
+PLAN 221
+
+KEYSTONE OF ORNAMENTAL ARCH 221
+
+DETAILS OF THE CORNICE 223
+
+CAPITAL OF ARCH 227
+
+SIDE VIEW OF THE CORNICE 227
+
+BASES 227
+
+EAST FAÇADE, WITHOUT THE PORTICO 229
+
+
+SEVILLE
+
+FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR 241
+
+ALCAZAR--GATES OF THE PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE 243
+
+FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR 247
+
+CHIEF ENTRANCE TO THE ALCAZAR, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER DON
+PEDRO I. THE CRUEL, 1369-1379 249
+
+ALCAZAR--PRINCIPAL FAÇADE 253
+
+INTERIOR COURT OF THE ALCAZAR 255
+
+ALCAZAR--ARCADE IN THE PRINCIPAL COURT 259
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE INTERIOR 261
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS 265
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369-1379 267
+
+ALCAZAR--THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 271
+
+ALCAZAR--RIGHT ANGLE OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 273
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS 277
+
+ALCAZAR--UPPER PART OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 279
+
+ALCAZAR--UPPER PORTIONS OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS 283
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS 285
+
+ALCAZAR--THE LITTLE COURT 289
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW IN THE LITTLE COURT 291
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS FROM THE LITTLE COURT 295
+
+ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS 297
+
+ALCAZAR--INTERIOR OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS 301
+
+ALCAZAR--THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS 303
+
+ALCAZAR--THRONE OF JUSTICE 307
+
+ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS 307
+
+ALCAZAR--FAÇADE OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS 309
+
+ALCAZAR--INTERIOR OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT
+1369-1379 313
+
+ALCAZAR--GENERAL VIEW OF THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS 315
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS 319
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE VIRGINS 321
+
+ALCAZAR--GALLERY IN THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS 325
+
+ALCAZAR--THE SULTANA’S APARTMENT AND COURT OF THE VIRGINS 327
+
+ALCAZAR--ENTRANCE TO THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS 331
+
+ALCAZAR--DORMITORY OF THE KINGS 333
+
+ALCAZAR--THE DORMITORY 337
+
+ALCAZAR--FRONT OF THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS 339
+
+ALCAZAR--SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS 339
+
+ALCAZAR--ROOM OF THE INFANTA 343
+
+ALCAZAR--COLUMNS WHERE DON FADRIQUE WAS MURDERED 345
+
+ALCAZAR--GATE OF THE HALL OF SAN FERNANDO 349
+
+ALCAZAR--GALLERY OF HALL OF SAN FERNANDO 349
+
+ALCAZAR--HALL IN WHICH KING SAN FERNANDO DIED 351
+
+ALCAZAR--ROOM OF THE PRINCE 355
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE GALLERY FROM THE SECOND FLOOR 357
+
+TOWER OF THE GIRALDA 361
+
+DETAILS OF THE GIRALDA TOWER 363
+
+COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 367
+
+COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 369
+
+HOUSE OF PILATOS--VIEW IN THE COURT BY THE DOOR OF THE CHAPEL 373
+
+HOUSE OF PILATOS--CHAPEL 375
+
+GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 376
+
+GALLERY OF THE COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS 381
+
+COURT OF THE PALACE OF MEDINA-CŒLI 385
+
+
+TOLEDO
+
+SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA--INTERIOR, 1100-1150 395
+
+THE GATE OF BLOOD 399
+
+INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA 405
+
+GATE OF THE SUN 409
+
+DOOR OF THE HALL OF MESA 413
+
+EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF CHRISTO DE LA VEGA 413
+
+ANCIENT GATE OF VISAGRA 419
+
+CASTLE OF ST. SERVANDO 419
+
+MOORISH SWORD 423
+
+ARAB FRAGMENT AT TARRAGONA 429
+
+ANCIENT ARABIAN BATHS AT PALMA, MAJORCA 435
+
+
+MOORISH DESIGNS AND ORNAMENTS
+
+DESIGNS AND ORNAMENTS 447-494
+
+DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES--HEXAGONAL FAMILY 495-586
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF COLOURED PLATES
+
+
+PLATE. DESCRIPTION.
+
+FRONTISPIECE--VERTICAL SECTION OF THE DOME AND CUPOLA OF THE
+MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
+
+I. SHELL-LIKE ORNAMENTS IN THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
+
+II. SHELL-LIKE ORNAMENTS IN THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
+
+III. SHELL-LIKE ORNAMENTS IN THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
+
+IV. PART OF THE ORNAMENTATION AND KEYSTONE OF ONE OF THE LOWER
+ARCHES, WHICH GIVES LIGHT TO THE DOME. CORDOVA.
+
+IV. RING OF THE CUPOLA.
+
+V. CURVILINEAL TRIANGLES, RESULTING FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE
+ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
+
+V. SETTING OF THE ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
+
+V. SETTING OF THE ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
+
+VI. ORNAMENT RUNNING BELOW THE CUPOLA. CORDOVA.
+
+VI. ORNAMENT RUNNING BELOW THE CUPOLA. CORDOVA.
+
+VI. SETTING OF ONE OF THE LOWER ARCHES, WHICH GIVES LIGHT TO THE
+DOME. CORDOVA.
+
+VII. CURVILINEAL TRIANGLES, RESULTING FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE
+ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME.
+
+VII. ARCHITRAVE OF ONE OF THE ARCHES SUSTAINING THE DOME. CORDOVA.
+
+VIII. DETAILS OF THE GATE OF THE MAKSURRAH. CORDOVA.
+
+IX. ARCHES OF THE PORTAL OF THE MIHRAB. CORDOVA.
+
+X. DETAIL OF THE FRAMING OF THE SIDE GATE. CORDOVA.
+
+X. DETAIL OF THE WINDOW PLACED OVER THE SIDE DOOR. CORDOVA.
+
+X. DETAIL OF THE FRAMING OF THE ARCH OF THE MIHRAB.
+
+XI. WINDOWS IN AN ALCOVE.
+
+XII. ARAB VASE OF METALLIC LUSTRE.
+
+XIII. DETAILS OF THE ARCHES.
+
+XIV. CENTRE PAINTING ON A CEILING.
+
+XV. DIVAN.
+
+XVI. DETAIL OF AN ARCH.
+
+XVII. GATE OF THE MURADA.
+
+XVIII. DETAILS OF THE MIHRAB.
+
+XVIII. DETAIL OF ONE OF THE ARCHES OF THE CUPOLA.
+
+XVIII. MOSAIC KEYSTONES OF THE GREAT ARCH OF THE MIHRAB.
+
+XIX. DETAILS, VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL AND MIHRAB.
+
+XX. DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.
+
+XXI. DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.
+
+XXII. DETAILS OF MOORISH WORK.
+
+XXIII. DETAILS, VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL AND MIHRAB.
+
+XXIV. DETAILS OF MOORISH WORK.
+
+XXV. FRIEZE IN THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS. SEVILLE.
+
+XXV. STUCCO WORK IN THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS. SEVILLE.
+
+XXV. MOSAIC IN THE LARGE COURT. SEVILLE.
+
+XXV. MOSAIC IN THE LARGE COURT. SEVILLE.
+
+XXVI. HALL OF AMBASSADORS--DETAILS. SEVILLE.
+
+XXVII. HALL OF AMBASSADORS--DETAILS. SEVILLE.
+
+XXVIII. HALL OF AMBASSADORS--DETAILS. SEVILLE.
+
+XXIX. BLANK WINDOW.
+
+XXX. SOFFIT OF ARCH.
+
+XXXI. CORNICE AT SPRINGING OF ARCH OF DOORWAY AT ONE OF THE ENTRANCES.
+
+XXXII. BORDERS OF ARCHES.
+
+XXXIII. BORDERS OF ARCHES.
+
+XXXIV. BORDER OF ARCHES.
+
+XXXV. ORNAMENT IN PANELS ON THE WALL.
+
+XXXVI. BANDS, SIDE OF ARCHES.
+
+XXXVII. BANDS, SIDE OF ARCHES.
+
+XXXVIII. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS.
+
+XXXIX. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS.
+
+XL. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS.
+
+XLI. ORNAMENTS ON PANELS
+
+XLII. FRIEZE IN THE UPPER CHAMBER, HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.
+
+XLIII. CORNICE AT SPRINGING OF ARCHES IN A WINDOW.
+
+XLIV. PANELS ON WALLS.
+
+XLV. SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
+
+XLVI. SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
+
+XLVII. SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
+
+XLVIII. PLASTER ORNAMENTS, USED AS UPRIGHT AND HORIZONTAL BANDS
+ENCLOSING PANELS ON THE WALLS.
+
+XLIX. BLANK WINDOW.
+
+L. RAFTERS OF A ROOF OVER A DOORWAY, NOW DESTROYED, BENEATH THE
+TOCADOR DE LA REYNA.
+
+LI. BAND AT SPRINGING OF ARCH AT THE ENTRANCE TO ONE OF THE HALLS.
+
+LII. PANELLING OF A RECESS.
+
+LIII. BLANK WINDOW.
+
+LIV. ORNAMENTS ON THE WALLS, HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.
+
+LV. ORNAMENT IN PANELS ON THE WALLS.
+
+LVI. ORNAMENTS IN SPANDRILS OF ARCHES.
+
+LVII. MOSAIC DADO IN A WINDOW, &C.
+
+LVIII. MOSAIC DADOS ON PILLARS.
+
+LIX. MOSAIC DADOS ON PILLARS.
+
+LX. MOSAICS.
+
+LXI. MOSAIC DADO ROUND THE INTERNAL WALLS OF THE MOSQUE.
+
+LXII. PAINTED TILES.
+
+LXIII. MOSAICS.
+
+LXIV. MOSAICS.
+
+LXV. ORNAMENTS IN PANELS.
+
+LXVI. ORNAMENT OVER ARCHES AT ONE OF THE ENTRANCES.
+
+LXVII. ORNAMENT ON THE WALLS.
+
+LXVIII. ORNAMENT IN PANELS ON THE WALLS.
+
+LXIX. SMALL PANEL IN JAMB OF A WINDOW.
+
+LXX. SMALL PANEL IN JAMB OF A WINDOW.
+
+LXXI. PANEL IN THE UPPER CHAMBER OF THE HOUSE OF SANCHEZ.
+
+LXXII. SPANDRIL FROM NICHE OF DOORWAY AT ONE OF THE ENTRANCES.
+
+LXXIII. LINTEL OF A DOORWAY.
+
+LXXIV. CAPITAL OF COLUMNS.
+
+LXXV. CAPITAL OF COLUMNS.
+
+LXXVI. CAPITAL OF COLUMNS.
+
+LXXVII. SOCLE OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH TO THE ANTE-CHAPEL.
+
+LXXVIII. SOCLE OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH TO THE CHAPEL.
+
+LXXIX. DETAIL OF THE TILES OF THE ALTAR.
+
+LXXX. SOCLE IN THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL.
+
+LXXXI. SOCLE IN THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL.
+
+LXXXII. MOSAICS FROM VARIOUS HALLS.
+
+LXXXIII. MOSAICS FROM VARIOUS HALLS.
+
+LXXXIV. PART OF CEILING OF A PORTICO.
+
+
+
+
+MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+The conquest of Spain by the Moors, and the story comprised in the eight
+centuries during which they wielded sovereignty as a European power,
+forms a romance that is without parallel in the history of the world.
+Under Mohammedan rule Spain enjoyed the first and most protracted period
+of comparative peace and material prosperity she had ever known. She had
+been plundered by Carthage and Phœnicia, ground beneath the iron heel of
+Rome, devastated and enslaved by those Christianised but corrupt
+barbarians, the Visigoths. All the evils and demoralisation arising from
+successive waves of bloody conquest and decadent voluptuousness had been
+sown in the breast of Spain. The squandered might of Carthage had left
+the country a prey to the vigorous Roman; the degenerate Roman had been
+banished by the rugged, victorious Goth, who, after two centuries of
+security and sensual ease, was to be made subject to the warlike and
+enlightened Moor. Once more the land was to be overrun and the face of
+the country was to be scarred with fire and the sword; once more the
+people were to learn to serve new masters and conform to new laws. Of a
+truth the last state must have seemed worse than the first to the
+Romanised Spaniards. Carthage had brought chains, but it had also
+introduced artificers and a form of Government; the Roman eagles had
+been accompanied by Roman engineers and road-builders; the Goths erected
+upon the broken altars of mythology temples to the living God. But it
+now seemed that the whips of ancient foes were to be replaced by the
+scorpions of their new taskmasters; the Christianity which the East had
+sent them was to be uprooted by the Eastern infidels.
+
+Such must have been the prospect before Spain, and even before the rest
+of Europe, when Tarik returned in 710 to Ceuta, from a marauding
+expedition upon the coast of Andalusia, and reported to Musa, the son of
+Noseyr, the Arab Governor of North Africa, that the country was ripe for
+conquest and well worth the hazard of the cast. Twenty years later the
+Moslems had overrun Spain, captured Bordeaux by assault and advanced to
+the conquest of Gaul. It is passing strange to reflect that these
+far-reaching, epoch-making events had not been undertaken as the result
+of a deep-laid scheme of national expansion or religious enterprise.
+According to tradition the foundation of the Moslem supremacy in Spain
+was instigated by the hatred of a single traitor, Count Julian, the
+Governor of Ceuta, and his treachery was inspired by the dishonour of
+one young girl--Julian’s daughter, Florinda.
+
+At the beginning of the eighth century, when the Moors had extended
+their possessions up to the walls of Ceuta, which was held for Roderick,
+King of Spain, by Count Julian, the Count, in accordance with the custom
+among the Gothic nobility, had sent his daughter to the Court of
+Roderick, at Toledo, to be educated among the Queen’s gentlewomen in a
+manner befitting her rank and lineage. The rest is the old story of a
+beautiful, unprotected girl, a lascivious guardian, and a father
+thirsting for vengeance. So far Count Julian had defended Ceuta against
+the Moors with unbroken success, now he came to Toledo to relieve the
+king of the custody of his daughter, and repay the breach of trust which
+Roderick had committed by making a compact with the king’s enemies. On
+the eve of his departure from the capital, the king requested the Count
+to send him some hawks of a special variety that he desired for hunting
+purposes, and the vengeful noble pledged himself to supply his master
+with hawks, the like of which he had never seen.
+
+But Count Julian found the Saracenic hawks less keen for the hunting he
+had in view than he expected. That old bird of prey, Musa, listened to
+the alluring tales of the richness and beauty of Spain, but doubted the
+good faith of his long-time enemy, who proposed that the Moors should
+invade this promised land in Spanish ships, lent to them for the
+purpose. But the love of conquest and the lust of loot, which had
+inspired and sustained the Arab arms in all their territorial campaigns,
+overcame the natural hesitancy of the Moorish Governor, and in 710 Musa
+despatched Tarik with a small expedition to spy out the state of the
+Spanish coast. So successful was the mission, and so rich the plunder
+they brought back, that in the following year he adventured an army of
+7,000 men under Tarik for the spoliation of Andalusia. Tarik, who landed
+at the rock of Gibraltar--Gebal Tarik, which still bears his
+name--captured Carteya, and encountered the army of Roderick, who had
+hurried from the North of his dominions to repel the invaders, on the
+banks of the Guadalete.
+
+Washington Irving, in the _Conquest of Spain_, has related, in his
+brilliantly picturesque style, the old legend of the prophecy of
+Roderick’s overthrow and the mystery surrounding his death. The king was
+proof against the solemn warnings of the old warders of the tower of
+Hercules,--the tower of “jasper and marble, inlaid in subtle devices,
+which shone in the rays of the sun,”--wherein lay the secret of Spain’s
+future, sealed by a magic spell, and guarded by a massive iron gate, and
+secured by the locks affixed to it by every successive Spanish king
+since the days of Hercules. Roderick came not to set a new lock upon
+the gate, but to burst the bolts of the centuries and reveal the mystery
+that his predecessors had gone down into their graves without solving.
+All day long his courtiers urged him vainly against his own undoing, and
+the custodians laboured at the rusty locks, and at evening he entered
+the mighty, outer hall, rushed past the bronze warder, penetrated the
+inner chamber, and read the inscription attached to the casket, which
+Hercules had deposited in the gem-encrusted tower. “In this coffer is
+the mystery of the Tower. The hand of none but a King can open it; but
+let him beware, for wonderful things will be disclosed to him, which
+must happen before his death.” In a moment the lid is prized open, the
+parchment, folded between plates of copper, is brought into the light of
+day, and the king has read the motto inscribed upon the border: “Behold,
+rash man, those who shall hurl thee from thy throne and subdue thy
+Kingdom.”
+
+Beneath the motto is drawn a panorama of horsemen, fierce of
+countenance, armed with bows and scimitars. As the king gazes
+wonderingly upon the picture, the sound of warfare rushes on his ear,
+the chamber is filled with a cloud, and in the cloud the horsemen bend
+forward in their saddles and raise their arms to strike. Amazed and
+terrorised, Roderick and his courtiers drew back and “beheld before them
+a great field of battle, where Christians and Moors were engaged in
+deadly conflict. They heard the rush and tramp of steeds, the blast of
+trump and clarion, the clash of cymbal, and the stormy din of a thousand
+drums. There was the flash of swords and maces and battle axes, with the
+whistling of arrows and hurling of darts and lances. The Christian
+quailed before the foe. The infidels pressed upon them, and put them to
+utter rout; the standard of the Cross was cast down, the banner of Spain
+was trodden under foot, the air resounded with shouts of triumph, with
+yells of fury, and the groans of dying men. Amidst the flying squadrons,
+King Roderick beheld a crowned warrior, whose back was turned towards
+him, but whose armour and device were his own, and who was mounted on a
+white steed that resembled his own war horse, Orelia. In the confusion
+of the fight, the warrior was dismounted and was no longer to be seen,
+and Orelia galloped wildly through the field of battle without a rider.”
+
+The vision he had witnessed in the Tower of Hercules must have recurred
+to Roderick when he saw the Moorish army encamped against him by the
+waters of the Guadalete, but he must have noted its numbers with
+surprise, and contemplated his own host with complacency. For Tarik,
+even with his Berber reinforcements, only counted 12,000 men, and nearly
+four score thousand slept beneath the standard of Spain. If ever
+prophecy was calculated to be found at fault it must have seemed to be
+so that day, and Tarik published his estimate of the enormity of the
+odds that were against him when he cried to his army of fatalists, “Men,
+before you is the enemy, and the sea is at your backs. By Allah, there
+is no escape for you, save in valour and resolution.” But valour and
+resolution belonged to the Spaniards as well as to the Moors; and, but
+for the action of the kinsmen of the dethroned King Witiza, who deserted
+to the side of the Saracens in the midst of the seven day battle, the
+Moorish conquest would have been delayed, if not even entirely
+abandoned. But Witiza’s adherents turned the tide of battle against
+Roderick, the Spaniards broke and fled, and Orelia galloped riderless
+through the field. Tarik, in a single encounter, had won all Spain for
+the infidels.
+
+Without hesitation, and in defiance of the commands of Musa, who coveted
+the glory that his lieutenant had so unexpectedly won, Tarik proceeded
+to make good his mastery of the entire Peninsula. He despatched a force
+of seven hundred horsemen to capture Cordova; Archidona and Malaga
+capitulated without striking a blow; and Elvira was taken by storm. City
+after city surrendered to the victorious invaders, and the principles of
+true chivalry, which the Moors invariably observed, reconciled the
+vanquished Spaniards to their new conquerors. The common people welcomed
+the promise of a new era, while the nobles fled before the advancing
+armies, and abandoned the country to the enemy. With the surrender of
+Toledo, Tarik had added a new dominion to the crown of Damascus. Musa
+left Ceuta in 712 with 18,000 men to join Tarik at Toledo, taking
+Seville, Carmona, and Merida _en route_. The meeting of the Governor and
+his General at the capital revealed the first flash of that fire of
+personal jealousy and internecine conflict which kept Spain in a blaze
+throughout the eight centuries of the Moorish occupation.
+
+To the intrepid warriors, who were bred to war and trained to the
+business of conquest, the Pyrenees represented, not a bar to further
+progress, but a bulwark from which they were to advance to the
+subjugation of Europe. The total defeat of the Saracens under the walls
+of Toulouse by the Duke of Aquitana in 721 turned their course
+westwards; and after occupying Carcasonne and Narbonne, raiding Burgundy
+and carrying Bordeaux by assault, they suffered a decisive defeat at the
+hands of the Franks, under Charles Martel, at the Battle of Tours in
+733. The tide of Arabian aggression was arrested and rolled back; and
+although the Moors repulsed the Frankish invasion of Spain under
+Charlemagne, a bound had been put upon their empire-building ambitions,
+and they set themselves resolutely to accomplish the pacification of the
+kingdom they had already won. It is the boast of the Northern
+Spaniards, the hardy mountaineers of Galicia and Leon, of Castile and
+the Biscayan provinces, that they were never subject to Moslem rule.
+There is good warrant for their claim, and in truth the independence of
+the North was maintained, but the fact remains that the Moors had no
+desire for those bleak and unfruitful districts; and so long as the
+savage Basques did not disturb the security of Arabian tenure in the
+fertile South, they were left in the enjoyment of their dreary, frozen
+fastnesses, and their wind-swept, arid wastes.
+
+The Moors had made themselves secure in the smiling country that,
+roughly speaking, lies South of the Sierra de Guadarrama; and here, with
+a genius and success that was unprecedented, they organised the Kingdom
+of Cordova. “It must not be supposed,” writes Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole,
+“that the Moors, like the barbarian hordes who preceded them, brought
+desolation and tyranny in their wake. On the contrary, never was
+Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed as by the Arab
+conquerors. Where they got their talent for administration it is hard to
+say, for they came almost direct from their Arabian deserts, and their
+rapid tide of victories had left them little leisure to acquire the art
+of managing foreign nations. Some of their Counsellors were Greeks and
+Spaniards, but this does not explain the problem; for these same
+Counsellors were unable to produce similar results elsewhere; all the
+administrative talent of Spain had not sufficed to make the Gothic
+domination tolerable to its subjects. Under the Moors, on the other
+hand, the people were on the whole contented--as contented as any people
+can be whose rulers are of a separate race and creed--and far better
+pleased than they had been when their sovereigns belonged to the same
+religion as that which they nominally professed. Religion was, indeed,
+the smallest difficulty which the Moors had to contend with at the
+outset, though it had become troublesome afterwards. The Spaniards were
+as much pagan as Christian; the new creed promulgated by Constantine had
+made little impression among the general mass of the population, who
+were still predominantly Roman. What they wanted was--not a creed, but
+the power to live their lives in peace and prosperity. This their
+Moorish masters gave them.”
+
+The people were allowed to retain their own religion and their own laws
+and judges; and with the exception of the poll tax, which was levied
+only upon Christians and Jews, their imposts were no heavier than those
+paid by the Moors. The slaves were treated with a mildness which they
+had never known under the Romans or the Goths, and, moreover, they had
+only to make a declaration of Mohammedanism--to repeat the formula of
+belief, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet”--to gain
+their freedom. By the same simple process, men of position and wealth
+secured equal rights with their conquerers. But while the Moors thus
+practised the science of pacification, they were unable to conquer their
+own racial instincts, which found their vent in jealous blood feuds and
+ceaseless internal conflicts. In the field the Arabs were a united
+people; under stress of warfare their rivalries were forgotten; but the
+racial spirit of the conquerors reasserted itself when the stress of
+conquest gave place to “dimpling peace,” and government by murder
+created constant changes in the administration. The Arabs and the
+Berbers, though they may be regarded as one race in their domination of
+Spain, were two entirely distinct and fiercely hostile tribes. The
+Berbers of Tarik had accomplished the conquest of Spain, but the Arabs
+arrived in time to seize the lion’s share of the spoils of victory; and
+when the Berber insurrection in
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--PRINCIPAL NAVE OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--ENTRANCE TO THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+GATES OF PARDON]
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF THE CITY AND BRIDGE SOUTH OF THE GUADALQUIVIR]
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+FAÇADE AND GATE OF THE ALMANZOR.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VIEW OF INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE 961-967.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+I.
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+PLAN IN THE TIME OF THE ARABS 786-796, 961-967, 988-1001, 1523-1593.
+
+A--Gate of Pardon.
+B--Bell Tower.
+C--Orange Court.
+D--Principal Entrance.
+E--Mosque of the time 786-796.
+
+F--Tribunal where the Mufti prays.
+G--Portion of the time 961-967.
+H--Hall where the Koran is kept.
+I--Sanctuary.
+K--Portion added in 988-1001.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+II.
+
+THE MOSQUE--PLAN IN ITS PRESENT STATE.
+
+786-796, 961-967, 988-1001, 1523-1593.
+
+L--Principal Chapel.
+M--Choir.
+N--First Christian Church.
+O--Chapels.
+P--The Cardinal’s Chapel.]
+
+North Africa triumphed, their Berber brethren, who had been relegated to
+the least congenial districts of Estremadura, roused themselves to
+measures of retaliation, and carried their standards to the gates of
+Toledo and Cordova. In alarm, the Arab Governor of Andalusia sent for
+his compatriots of Ceuta to aid him, and he expiated his folly with his
+life. The African contingent routed the Berbers, murdered the Arab
+Governor, and set up their own chief in his place, until Abd-er-Rahman
+arrived from Damascus to unite all factions, for a while, under the
+standard of the Sultan of Cordova.
+
+Abd-er-Rahman, which signifies “Servant of the Merciful God,” was a
+member of the deposed family of the Omeyyads, which had given fourteen
+khalifs to the throne of Damascus. The usurping khalif, Es-Deffah, “The
+Butcher,” who founded the dynasty of the Abbasides, practically
+exterminated the Omeyyad family, but Abd-er-Rahman eluded his vigilance,
+and, after abandoning a project to make himself the Governor of North
+Africa, he determined to carry his princely pretensions to the
+newly-founded Spanish dominions. In Andalusia, the advent of the
+Omeyyads was hailed with enthusiasm. The army of the Governor deserted
+to the standard of the young pretender; Archidona and Seville were
+induced to throw open their gates to him by a piece of questionable
+strategy; he defeated the troops that opposed his march upon Cordova,
+and before the end of the year 756, or some fifteen months after setting
+foot in the country, all the Arab part of Spain had acknowledged the
+dynasty of the Omeyyads, which for three centuries was to endure in
+Cordova. Brave, unscrupulous, and instant in action, Abd-er-Rahman had
+recourse to every wile of diplomacy, of severity, and of valour to
+maintain his supremacy in Spain. He defeated and utterly annihilated an
+invading army sent against him by the Abbaside khalif, Mansur, and sent
+a sackful of the heads of his generals as a present to their master; he
+won over the people of Toledo by false promises, and crucified their
+leaders; he had the Yemenite chief assassinated while receiving him as
+an honoured guest; he crushed a revolt of the Berbers in the North, and
+of the Yemenites in the South; he saw the forces of Charlemagne waste
+away in the bloody fastnesses of the Pyrenees. By treachery and the
+sword, by false oaths and murder, he triumphed over every rival and
+enemy until all insurrection had been crushed by his relentless might,
+and the Khalif Mansur was fain to exclaim: “Thank God, there is a sea
+between that man and me.” In an eloquent tribute to his “daring, wisdom,
+and prudence,” his old-time enemy thus extolled the genius of the
+conqueror: “To enter the paths of destruction, throw himself into a
+distant land, hard to approach and well defended, there to profit by the
+jealousies of the rival parties to make them turn their arms against one
+another instead of against himself, to win the homage and obedience of
+his subjects, and having overcome every difficulty, to rule supreme lord
+of all! Of a truth, no man before him has done this!”
+
+But the tyrant of Spain was to pay a great and terrible price for his
+triumphs. He had established himself in a kingdom in which he was to
+stand alone. Long before his death he found himself forsaken by his
+kinsmen, deserted by his friends, abhorred by his enemies; on all sides
+detested and avoided, he immured himself in the fastnesses of his
+palace, or went abroad surrounded by a strong guard of hired
+mercenaries. His son and successor, Hisham, practised during the eight
+years of his reign an exemplary piety, and so encouraged and cherished
+the theological students and preceptors of Cordova, that they rebelled
+against the light-hearted, pleasure-loving Hakam, who succeeded him,
+and incited the people to open rebellion.
+
+But while the insurrectionists besieged the palace, the Sultan’s
+soldiers set fire to a suburb of the city; and when the people retired
+terror stricken to the rescue of their homes and families, they found
+themselves between the palace garrison and the loyal incendiaries. The
+revolt ended in a massacre, but the dynasty was saved, and the palace
+was preserved to become the nucleus of the gorgeous city which Hakam’s
+son, Abd-er-Rahman II., was to fashion after the style of
+Harun-er-Rashid at Baghdad. Under this æsthetic monarch, Cordova became
+one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its palaces and gardens,
+its mosques and bridges were the wonder of Europe; its courtiers made a
+profession of culture; its arbiter of fashion again asserted himself as
+the first man in the empire.
+
+In such a city, and at such an epoch, it was natural, even inevitable,
+that Christianity should assert itself as a protest against the fashion
+of the age. But so tolerant was the Mohammedan rule in religious
+matters, that the too exalted spirit of the Cordovan Christians was hard
+put to it to find some excuse for its manifestation of discontent. While
+the sultan and his nobles found their pleasure in music, poetry, and
+other æsthetic if less commendable indulgences, the prejudices of the
+devout were always respected. Prosecution for religious convictions was
+unheard of, and the only way that the Christians could achieve martyrdom
+for their faith was by blaspheming the creed of their Moslem rulers.
+These early fanatics, whose religious rites and beliefs had been treated
+with respect by the Mohammedans, and who knew that by Moslem law he who
+blasphemes the Prophet Mohammed or his religion must die, voluntarily
+transgressed the law for the purpose of achieving their object. In
+spite of warnings, of protests, and of earnest counsel, these suicidal
+devotees cursed the name of the Prophet, and expiated their wilful
+fanaticism with death. With the exception of this period of religious
+mania, which was bewailed by the general body of Christians, and
+regarded with unfeigned sorrow by the Mohammedan judges, the tolerance
+of the Moors to the Christians was as unvarying as it was remarkable.
+
+After the execution, in the year 859, of Eulogius, a fanatical priest,
+and the leader of these misguided martyrs, who was fruitlessly entreated
+by his judges to retract his maledictions against the Prophet and be
+restored to freedom, the mad movement flickered and died out. But the
+devotion displayed by the Cordovan Christians had made its effects felt
+in widespread rebellion in the provinces, and a series of incapable
+sovereigns had reduced the throne to the state of an island surrounded
+by a rivulet of foreign soldiers, in a country bristling with faction
+jealousies and discontent. Spain had fallen a prey to anarchy, and the
+end of Mohammedan rule appeared imminent. Petty kings and governors had
+thrown off their allegiance; Berbers, Arabs, Mohammedan Spaniards and
+Christians had each asserted their absolute independence; and the sultan
+at Cordova was “suffering all the ills of beleaguerment.” The last
+vestige of the power of the Omeyyads was falling away when Abd-er-Rahman
+III. came to the throne to reconquer Spain, and bring the rebel nobles
+to their knees. The new sultan was a lad of twenty-one, but he knew his
+countrymen, and he realised that after a century of lawlessness and
+wasting strife, the people were ripe for a strong and effectual
+government. The Cordovans were won by his handsome presence and gallant
+bearing. The boldness of his programme brought him adherents, and the
+weariness of internecine warfare, which had devastated the country,
+prepared the rebellious provinces for his coming. Seville opened her
+gates to receive him, the Prince of Algarve rendered tribute, the
+resistance of the Christians of Regio was overcome, and Murcia
+volunteered its allegiance. Toledo alone, that implacable revolutionist,
+rejected all Abd-er-Rahman’s overtures, and confidently awaited the
+issue of the siege. But the haughty Toledans had not reckoned upon the
+metal of which the new despot was made. Abd-er-Rahman had no stomach for
+the suicidal tactics of scaling impregnable precipices, but he was
+possessed of infinite patience. He calmly set himself to build a town on
+the mountain over against Toledo, and to wait until famine should compel
+the inhabitants to capitulate. With the fall of Toledo, the whole of
+Mohammedan Spain was once more restored to the sultans of Cordova. The
+power, once regained, was never relaxed in the lifetime of
+Abd-er-Rahman. The Christians of Galicia might push southward as far as
+the great Sierra, Ordono II. of Leon might bring his marauding hosts to
+within a few leagues of Cordova, and cause Abd-er-Rahman to exert all
+his personal and military influence to beat back the obstinate
+Northerners, but the stability of the throne was never again imperilled.
+During his fifty years of strenuous sovereignty, the great Abd-er-Rahman
+saved Spain from African invasion and Christian aggression; he
+established an absolute power in Cordova that brought ambassadors from
+every European monarch to his court; and he made the prosperity of
+Andalusia the envy of the civilised world. This wonderful transformation
+was effected by a man whom the Moorish historians describe as “the
+mildest and most enlightened sovereign that ever ruled a country. His
+meekness, his generosity, and his love of justice became proverbial.
+None of his ancestors ever surpassed him in courage in the field, and
+zeal for religion; he was fond of science, and the patron of the
+learned, with whom he loved to converse.”
+
+In 961, Abd-er-Rahman III., the last great Omeyyad Sultan of Cordova,
+died. His son Hakam II. employed the peace which he inherited from his
+illustrious father in the study of books and the formation of a library,
+which consisted of no fewer than four hundred thousand works. But in his
+reign, the note of absolute despotism which had re-established the
+Empire of Cordova, was less evident; and when at his death, his
+twelve-year-old son, Hisham II., ascended the throne, the government was
+ripe for the delegation of kingly power to favourites and ministers. The
+Sultana Aurora, the Queen Mother, had already abrogated that power, and
+was wielding an influence that Abd-er-Rahman III. would not have
+tolerated for an instant, and her favourite--an undistinguished student
+of Cordova, named Ibn-Aby-Amir--was waiting to turn her influence and
+favour to his own advantage. This youth, who is known to history as
+Almanzor, or “Victorious by the grace of God”--a title conceded to him
+by virtue of his many victories over the Christians--was possessed of
+pluck, genius, and ambition in almost equal proportions; and by the
+opportunity for their indulgence which the harem influence afforded, he
+made himself virtual master of Andalusia.
+
+In his capacity of professional letter-writer to the court servants,
+Almanzor won the patronage of the Grand Chamberlain, and his appointment
+to a minor office brought him into personal contact with Aurora--who
+fell in love with the engaging young courtier--and with the princesses,
+whose good graces he assiduously cultivated. His charm of manner and
+unfailing courtesy gained for him the countenance of many persons of
+rank, and his kindness and lavish generosity secured him the allegiance
+of his inferiors. By degrees he acquired a plurality of important and
+lucrative posts; he earned the gratitude of the Queen Mother by
+arranging the assassination of a rival claimant who opposed the
+accession of her son Hisham to the throne; and he volunteered to lead
+the sultan’s army against his insurrectionary subjects of Leon. Almanzor
+was without military training or experience, but he had no misgivings
+upon the score of his own ability, and his faith in himself was
+justified. His victories over the Leonese made him the idol of the army;
+and on the strength of his increased popularity he appointed himself
+Prefect of Cordova, and speedily rendered the city a model of
+orderliness and good government. By a politic impeachment of the Grand
+Chamberlain for financial irregularities, he presently succeeded his own
+patron in the first office in the State, and became supreme ruler of the
+kingdom.
+
+Almanzor had allowed no scruple or fear to thwart him in his struggle
+for the proud position he had attained, and he now permitted nothing to
+menace the power he had so hardly won. He met intrigue with intrigue,
+and discouraged treachery by timely assassination. He placated
+hectoring, orthodox Moslems; he curtailed the influence of his
+formidable rival, Ghalib, the adored head of the army; he conciliated
+the Cordovans by making splendid additions to the mosque; he terrorised
+the now jealous Aurora and the palace party into quiescence; and he kept
+the khalif himself in subjection by the magnetism of his own masterful
+personality. His African campaigns extended the dominion of Spain along
+the Barbary coast, and his periodical invasions of Leon and Castile kept
+the Northern provinces in subjection, and his army contented and rich
+with the spoils of war. The Christians had terrible reason to hate this
+invincible upstart, and it is not surprising to read in the Monkish
+annals, the record of his death transcribed in the following terms: “In
+1002 died Almanzor, and was buried in hell.” But if his death meant hell
+to Almanzor, as the Christians doubtless believed, it meant the
+recurrence of the hell of anarchy for the Kingdom of Spain.
+
+Within half a dozen years of the great Chamberlain’s death, the country
+which had been held together by the might of one man, was torn to pieces
+by jealous and tyrannical chiefs and rebellious tribal warriors. Hisham
+II. was dragged from his harem seclusion, and the reins of Government
+were thrust into his incompetent hands. He failed, and was compelled to
+abdicate, and another khalif was set up in his place. For the next
+twenty years khalifs were enthroned and replaced in monotonous
+succession. Assassination followed coronation, and coronation
+assassination, until the princes of every party looked askance at the
+blood-stained throne, where monarchs and murderers played their several
+intimate parts. Outside the capital, anarchy and devastation was
+ravaging the country. Berbers and Slavs were carrying desolation into
+the South and East of the country, and in the North the Christians were
+uniting to throw off their dependence. Alfonso VI. was selling his aid
+to the rival chieftains in their battles amongst themselves, and storing
+up his subsidies against the day when he would undertake the re-conquest
+of Spain. The Cid had established his Castilian soldiers in Valencia,
+and the voluptuous, degenerate Mohammedan princes were panic-stricken by
+the growing disaffection and the instant danger which they were
+powerless to overcome.
+
+In their extremity they sent for assistance to Africa, where Yusuf, the
+king of a powerful set of fanatics whom the Spaniards named Almoravides,
+had made himself master of the country from Algiers to Senegal. Yusuf
+came with
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ANCIENT ARAB TOWER, NOW THE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS DE LA VILLA.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ORANGE COURT IN THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 957, BY SAID BEN
+AYOUT.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+his Berber hosts in 1086, defeated the Christians, under Alfonso, near
+Badajoz, and leaving three thousand of his men to stiffen the ranks of
+the Andalusians in maintaining the struggle, he returned to Africa. Four
+years later the Spanish Mohammedans again besought Yusuf to bring his
+legions against their Christian despoilers, offering him liberal terms
+for his assistance, and stipulating only that he should retire to his
+own dominions as soon as the work was completed. The Almoravide king
+subscribed the more readily to this condition, since his priestly
+counsellors absolved him from his oath, and had little difficulty in
+convincing him that his duty lay in the pacification of the unhappy
+Kingdom of Andalusia. Yusuf organised a force capable of contending with
+both the Christians of Castile and his Moorish allies. The capitulation
+of Granada provided him with the means of distributing vast treasure
+among his avaricious followers, and promises of even greater booty
+inspired them to further faithful service. Tarifa, Seville, and the rest
+of the important cities of Andalusia, fell before the treasure-hunting
+Berbers; and with the surrender of Valencia, on the death of the Cid,
+the re-conquest of Mohammedan Spain was practically completed. Order was
+temporarily restored, lives and property were once more respected, and a
+new era of peace and prosperity appeared to have begun. But the
+degenerating influence of wealth and luxurious ease, which in the course
+of generations had sapped the manhood of Spain’s successive conquerors,
+played swift havoc with the untutored Berbers. At the end of a score of
+years, the Castilians, led by Alfonso “the Battler,” had resumed the
+offensive, sacking and burning the smaller towns, and carrying their
+swords and torches to the gates of Seville and Cordova. The Almoravides
+were powerless to resist their vigorous forays. The people of Andalus,
+recognising the powerlessness of their protectors, declared their
+independence, and rallied to the ranks of the score of petty chiefs who
+raised their standards in every city and castle in Andalusia, and who
+fought with, or bribed their Christian adversaries for the maintenance
+of their vaunted power.
+
+At this crisis in the history of Spain, when the dominion of the
+enfeebled and dissolute Arab and Berber leaders was weakening before the
+resolute onslaughts of the rude, hard-living, and hard-fighting
+Christians of the North, a new force was created to turn the scale of
+Empire and prolong the rule of the Moslem in Europe. Before the
+Almoravides had been overthrown in Andalus, the Almoravides in Africa
+had been vanquished and dispersed by the mighty Almohades, who now
+regarded the annexation of Mohammedan Spain as the natural and necessary
+climax to the work of conquest. Andalusia had been a dependence of the
+Almoravide Empire; it was now to be a dependence of the Almoravides’s
+successors. Between 1145 and 1150 the transfer was completed; but
+although the Almohades had wrested the kingdom from the Almoravides,
+they had not subdued the Christian provinces. The new rulers,
+under-estimating the potentiality of this danger, left the country to be
+governed by viceroys--an error in statecraft, which ultimately lost
+Spain to the Mohammedan cause. In 1195 they sent from Morocco a huge
+force to check the Christian aggressive movement, and the Northern host
+was routed at Alarcos, near Badajoz. That success was the last notable
+victory that was to arrest the slow, but certain, recovery of all Spain
+to Catholic rule. In 1212, the Almohade army suffered a disastrous
+defeat at the battle of Las Navas; in 1235 they were driven out of the
+Peninsula; three years later, on the death of Ibn-Hud, the Moslem
+dominion in Spain was restricted to the Kingdom of Granada; and,
+although this Moorish stronghold was destined to endure for another two
+and a-half centuries, it existed only as a tributary to the throne of
+the Christian kings of Spain.
+
+For the purposes of this book, the history of Moorish Spain closes with
+the expulsion of the Mohammedans from Cordova, Toledo, and Seville. That
+more modern, and, in some ways more wonderful, Moorish monument--the Red
+Palace of Granada--I have dealt with in my book on “The Alhambra,” to
+which this work is intended to be the companion and complement.
+
+
+
+
+CORDOVA
+
+
+Of the four great cities of the Mohammedan domination in Spain, Cordova,
+as the seat of the Khalifate established by Abd-er-Rahman I., is rightly
+regarded as chief. The sun of the Moslem era shone with dazzling
+brilliance on Seville, and pierced the shadows of grim Toledo ere it set
+upon the decaying grandeur of Granada; but it had risen first on
+Cordova, and from “that abode of magnificence, superiority, and
+elegance” its glory had been reflected to the furthest corner of the
+civilised world. For Cordova, by reason of its climate, its situation,
+and its surroundings has, since the beginning of time, been one of the
+garden spots of Europe. The Carthaginians had aptly styled it “the Gem
+of the South,” and the Romans had founded a city there in 152 B.C.,
+which they called Corduba. But Corduba had sided with Pompey against
+Cæsar in the struggle for the mastership of the Roman Empire, and the
+mighty Julius visited this act of hostility with the destruction of more
+than half the city, and the massacre of 28,000 of its inhabitants. When
+the Goths made themselves rulers of Spain in the sixth century, they
+selected Toledo to be their capital, and Cordova sank into political
+insignificance. In 711, when Tarik had defeated Roderick near the banks
+of the Guadalete, he despatched Mughith with 700 horse to seize Cordova.
+Taking advantage of a fortuitous storm of hail, which deadened the
+clatter of the horses’ hoofs, and assisted by the treachery of a
+Christian shepherd, the followers of the Prophet obtained an unopposed
+entry, and the city fell without a blow being struck. Forty-four years
+later Abd-er-Rahman I. established the dynasty of the Omeyyads of
+Cordova, and for three centuries the capital of Mohammedan Spain was to
+be, in the language of the old chronicler, Ash-Shakand, “the repository
+of science, the minaret of piety and devotion, unrivalled even by the
+splendours of Baghdad or Damascus.”
+
+Science has long since deserted Cordova; piety is not obtrusive there;
+its material magnificence has passed away. To-day the once famous city
+is a sleepy, smiling, overgrown village; a congregation of empty
+squares, and silent, winding, uneven streets, which have a more
+thoroughly African appearance than those of any other town in Spain.
+Theophile Gautier has described its “interminable white-washed walls,
+their scanty windows guarded by heavy iron bars,” and its pebbly,
+straw-littered pavement, and the sensitive spirit of De Amicis was
+caught by a vague melancholy in the midst of its white-washed,
+rose-scented streets. Here, he writes, there is “a marvellous variety of
+design, tints, light, and perfume; here the odour of roses, there of
+oranges, further on of pinks; and with this perfume a whiff of fresh
+air, and with the air a subdued sound of women’s voices, the rustling of
+leaves, and the singing of birds. It is a sweet and varied harmony that,
+without disturbing the silence of the streets, soothes the ear like the
+echo of distant music.” It has, as I have observed elsewhere, a charm
+that fills the heart with a sad pleasure; there is a mysterious spell in
+its air that one cannot resist. One may idle for hours in the sunshine
+that floods the deserted squares, and try to reconstitute in one’s mind,
+that Cordova, which was described as “the military camp of Andalus, the
+common rendezvous of
+
+[Illustration: PLATE I.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Shell-like Ornaments in the Cupola of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE II.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Shell-like Ornaments in the Cupola of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE III.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Shell-like Ornaments in the Cupola of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IV.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Part of the ornamentation and keystone of one of the lower arches which
+gives light to the dome.]
+
+[Illustration: Ring of the Cupola.]
+
+those splendid armies which, with the help of Allah, defeated at every
+encounter the worshippers of the Crucified.” This indolent, lotus-fed,
+listless Cordova was once, says El-Makkari, “the meeting place of the
+learned from all countries, and, owing to the power and splendour of the
+dynasty that ruled over it, it contained more excellencies than any
+other city on the face of the earth.” Another Mohammedan author,
+Al-hijari, Abu Mohammed, writing of the city in the twelfth century,
+said: “Cordova was, during the reign of the Beni-Merwan, the cupola of
+Islam, the convocation of scholars, the court of the sultans of the
+family of Omeyyah, and the residence of the most illustrious tribes of
+Yemen and Ma’d. Students from all parts of the world flocked thither at
+all times to learn the sciences of which Cordova was the most noble
+repository, and to derive knowledge from the mouths of the doctors and
+ulema who swarmed in it. Cordova is to Andalus what the head is to the
+body. Its river is one of the finest in the world, now gliding slowly
+through level lawns, or winding softly across emerald fields, sprinkled
+with flowers, and serving it for robes; now flowing through
+thickly-planted groves, where the song of birds resounds perpetually in
+the air, and now widening into a majestic stream to impart its waters to
+the numerous wheels constructed on its banks, communicating fresh vigour
+to the land.”
+
+The extent of ancient Cordova has been differently stated, owing, no
+doubt, to the rapid increase of its population and the expansion of the
+buildings under the sultans of the dynasty of Merwan on the one hand,
+and, on the other, to the calamities and disasters by which it was
+afflicted under the last sovereigns of that house. Cordova is, moreover,
+described by Mohammedan writers as a city which never ceased augmenting
+in size, and increasing in importance, from the time of its subjugation
+by the Moors until A.D. 1009-10, when, civil war breaking out within it,
+the capital fell from its ancient splendour, gradually decaying, and
+losing its former magnificence, until its final destruction in A.D.
+1236, when it passed into the hands of the Christians.
+
+From 711 until 755, when Abd-er-Rahman arrived in Spain to seize the new
+Moorish possession, which had fallen to the military skill and courage
+of Tarik’s Berbers, the conquerors had been too fully employed in
+capturing cities to devote much leisure to beautifying their prizes;
+now, with the foundation of the Omeyyad power, Cordova was to reap the
+first fruits of comparative peace. But the repulsion of the Abbaside
+invasion, the subjugation of Toledo, and the suppression of the Berber
+revolt in the Northern provinces, long delayed the commencement of the
+great mosque which the sultan projected as “a splendid seal upon the
+works pleasing to the Almighty, which he had accomplished.” By the
+building of the mosque, Abd-er-Rahman would secure a place for himself
+in Paradise, and would leave to his own honoured memory a Mecca of the
+West to which the followers of the Prophet could go in pilgrimage.
+
+The treasury of Abd-er-Rahman was at this time in a flourishing
+condition, despite the large sums spent in adding splendour to the
+growing khalifate, and there appeared to be no difficulty in carrying
+out his project. But Umeya Ibn Yezid, the favourite secretary of the
+sultan, who, in his capacity of Katib, was instructed to make overtures
+for the purchase of the church on whose site the khalif intended to
+build the new mosque, soon found that the negotiations were beset by
+serious difficulties. The Christians held firm to the conditions of
+capitulation granted them by the Saracen conquerors of Cordova, and were
+not at all inclined to sell to Abd-er-Rahman the temple upon which he
+had set his heart. This building is described by Pedro de Madrazo as a
+spacious basilica, which they shared with the followers of the Prophet,
+since the Mohammedans, according to the practice established amongst
+them by the advice of the Khalif Omar, shared the churches of the
+conquered cities with the Christians, and, after taking Cordova, had
+divided one of the principal basilicas in two parts, one of which they
+conceded to the Cordovans, reserving the other, which they at once
+turned into a mosque, for themselves. The Christians had religiously
+paid the tribute exacted from them that they might keep their churches,
+bishops, and priests, but this had not protected them from unjust
+exactions and plunderings at the hands of the governors and
+representatives of the Eastern khalifs. Knowing this, Abd-er-Rahman was
+anxious to acquire the desired site without violence, and, with his
+natural sagacity, he perceived that the religious zeal of the native
+Christians was much less fervent than that of his own people. Captivity
+and affliction had damped the old ardour of the natives of Cordova,
+which, in his day, was no longer the heroic colony, so anxious for
+martyrdom, and so prodigal of its blood, as it was at the time when the
+flock of Christ was guided by the great Osius under the persecutions of
+Diocletian and Maximilian. Neither was it the Cordova which had endured
+wars, hunger, and plague sooner than be contaminated with Arianism, and
+the khalif knew, too, that in spite of the education given to the
+Christian youth in the schools and colleges of the monasteries, where
+many young priests and secular scholars promised to be a future danger
+to the Mohammedans, the Church at Cordova was suffering grievous wounds
+from the new doctrines of Migencio and Elipando. He was, therefore, the
+more surprised to receive a stubborn refusal to his offer, but the
+estimation in which he held the vanquished people and their leaders,
+led him to believe that he could overcome their obstinacy by quiet
+persistence, and by trusting to time to undermine their scruples. His
+policy was justified by its eventual success.
+
+How did Abd-er-Rahman succeed in persuading the Christians to make so
+great a sacrifice? How came they to be induced to abandon their
+principal church to the infidels? Had not these walls been witnesses of
+the vows they had sworn at the most solemn epochs of their lives?
+Perhaps it was already a matter of indifference to them to see the
+ground, sanctified by the blood of their martyrs, defiled! “God Almighty
+alone knows” must be our only comment upon this unaccountable
+transaction, and we leave it thus in accordance with the practice
+adopted by the Arab historians, when they were at a loss for an
+explanation.
+
+It is certain that under the reign of Abd-er-Rahman the Christians were
+no longer persecuted on account of their religion. They paid tribute, it
+is true, as a conquered people, but their faith was respected; they had
+their churches and monasteries, where they worshipped publicly; and it
+is not recorded that any of their priests were molested by the first
+Moorish king of the West. On the other hand, when they compared their
+present lot with that of the past, they must have considered themselves
+greatly fortunate, as they escaped the tyranny under which their fathers
+had suffered during the years from the cruel Alahor to the time of the
+covetous Toaba. It is certain that a new empire was rising in Cordova,
+which was very threatening to the law of Christ; but at first its menace
+was not revealed, and for this reason it was more to be feared. Its
+intentions were not published, but they were vaguely felt. Those who
+were wisest and most far-seeing could perceive, though still far off,
+the dark cloud of a bloody persecution drawing around the Church of
+Andalusia; but for the generality of the Christians there seemed to be
+no reason why the present toleration was not to continue, and it is
+certain that fear was not the motive that made them yield to the wishes
+of the khalif.
+
+History is very reticent concerning this event; in fact, as Pedro de
+Madrazo admits, nothing definite has, up to the present, been discovered
+with regard to it. The probabilities are that the Bishop of Cordova,
+upon receiving the message of the Moorish king, called a council, and,
+after due discussion, resolved to part amicably with that which, despite
+the king’s moderation, would without any doubt be taken from them by
+force, should they persist in their refusal. In parting with their
+church, and transferring their place of worship, they hoped, too, to be
+released from the odious proximity of the infidels, whose presence under
+the roof of their basilica must always have been looked upon as a
+desecration of the sacred building. And, finally, the advantages to be
+gained by removing their holy relics to a more suitable sanctuary may
+have decided them to accept the khalif’s offer, under the condition that
+they should be allowed to re-build the basilica of the martyrs St.
+Faustus, St. Januaris, and St. Marcellus, which had been destroyed in
+recent years; and this being conceded to them by the khalif, the bishop
+authorised the transfer. The Arab ordered that the price agreed upon
+should be sent at once to the Christians, who were in turn to surrender
+their church forthwith, because Abd-er-Rahman, already advanced in
+years, was anxious that the edifice he was going to raise should be
+commenced without delay. No sooner had the Christians departed than
+Abd-er-Rahman left his villa in Razafa and took up his residence at the
+alcazar of the city, in order to superintend the projected work. The
+destruction of the old building was immediately proceeded with. Devoured
+with the desire to see the work completed, the indefatigable old man
+spent many hours each day on the scene, carefully examining the portions
+of the demolished buildings, which were to be utilised for the new
+mosque, and classifying them with rare skill. The whole city was filled
+with movement and commotion. There was not a trade amongst the people
+which did not receive fresh impetus from the new building. Whilst all
+were busy in the factories and workshop, in the woods, on the mountains,
+and on the roads from the hills to the city; whilst the furnaces and
+brick ovens were glowing; whilst the Syrian architect meditated on his
+plans and on those traced by the king’s own hands, and the Katib wrote
+to Asia and Africa inviting the co-operation of famous artists; the
+people, lazy and curious, swarmed around the spacious foundations, and
+the whole city presented a scene of animation and excitement not easy to
+describe.
+
+Abd-er-Rahman, who had a presentiment that he would not live to see the
+mosque finished, pushed on the work with all speed, that he might at
+least have the satisfaction of covering the arcades which formed its
+naves, and of inaugurating the cult of Islam with one of those eloquent
+harangues, which he was in the habit of addressing to his people on the
+days of “Juma,” or Rest. Barely two years after the foundations were
+laid the square fortress of Islam rose above the groves by the river,
+surpassing in height the severe Alcazar of Rodrigo. A few more moons,
+and the interior walls, the superb colonnades of bold and unusual
+form,--the mosque of Cordova is probably the first edifice in which
+superposed arches were introduced--the graceful rows of double arches,
+the ample porticos, the handsome façade of eleven entrances, the rich
+side doors, flanked by fretted windows, and finally the incomparable
+roof of incorruptible wood, carved and painted, would be finished.
+Still a few more moons, and the “hotba,” or harangue, for the health of
+Abd-er-Rahman was to be read to the people from the most beautiful
+“nimbar,” or pulpit in the West, and repeated by two thousand believers
+as with one voice, drowning in the vibrating surge of an immense and
+thundering contempt the shamed hymns of the vanquished Nazarenes.
+
+Not only was the mosque to be ready for the celebration of the public
+ceremonies on the first day of “Alchuma,” but already the sanctuary
+loomed at the extremity of the principal nave towards the South, covered
+with rich and dazzling Byzantine ornamentation, the venerated copy of
+the holy house of Mecca. The great aljama was not yet complete, it is
+true, but the diligent architects would find a way to satisfy the
+impatience of the sultan by covering the walls with rich hangings from
+Persia and Syria. A profusion of Corinthian columns in the principal
+naves, and of bold marble pillars from the Roman monuments, sent from
+the provinces as presents to the monarch from his walies, would be in
+their place. The columns taken from the old basilica of the Visigoths,
+would be found in the secondary naves, with others, as yet unchiselled.
+The floor was to be covered with flowers and fragrant herbs, and the
+sacred precincts would be inundated with light and perfume, diffused by
+hundreds of candelabra and thuribles. The fortunate Abd-er-Rahman would
+be able at least once before he died to direct the rites of the
+religion, for the propagation of which he had made so many sacrifices,
+in his capacity of “Imam” of the law.
+
+But it was not to be. That day the news spread through the city that the
+angel of death was seated by the bedside of the khalif; and soon after,
+the body of Abd-er-Rahman, the wise, the virtuous, and the victorious,
+lay in one of the chambers of his alcazar, wrapped in the white
+garments, distinctive of his great lineage. The sad event was announced
+to the people by Abd-er-Rahman Ibn Tarif, the superior of the Aljama of
+Cordova, from the very pulpit from which the dead monarch was to have
+addressed his subjects, and the crowds departed from the mosque
+exclaiming: “May the Amir rest in the sleep of peace, Allah will smile
+upon him on the day of reckoning.”
+
+The great glory of completing the mosque was reserved for Hisham, the
+favourite son of Abd-er-Rahman, to whom all the walies had sworn fealty
+as the rightful successor. This prince was at Merida when his father
+died, but he at once left that city for Cordova, where he made the
+mosque the object of his special solicitude.
+
+Soon after his accession, Hisham consulted a famous astrologer as to his
+future. The learned man, who was called Abh-dhobi, at first refused to
+gratify the sultan’s curiosity, but upon being pressed he said: “Thy
+reign, O Amir, will be glorious and happy, and marked by great
+victories; but, unless my calculations are wrong, it will only last some
+eight years.” Hisham remained some time in silence upon hearing these
+words, but presently his face cleared, and he spoke thus to the
+astrologer: “Thy prediction, O Abh-dhobi, does not discourage me, for if
+the days given me still to live by the Almighty are passed in adoring
+Him, I shall say when my hour comes, ‘Thy will be done.’”
+
+This monarch’s brief reign was rich in notable deeds. He repressed the
+rebellion of his two brothers Suleyman and Abdullah, carried the holy
+war as far as Sardinia, entered and sacked the town of Narbonne, and
+compelled the unhappy Christians to carry the clay of the demolished
+walls of their city upon their shoulders as far as Cordova, in order to
+build a mosque in his alcazar. Hisham made himself feared by the Franks,
+and he did much to establish the empire of Islam in Andalus, enlarging
+its capital, repairing
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+PORTAL ON THE NORTH SIDE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER HAKAM III.,
+988-1001.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+EXTERIOR ANGLE OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE V
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Curvelinear triangles resulting from the intersection of the arches
+sustaining the dome.
+
+Setting of the arches sustaining the dome.
+
+Setting of the arches sustaining the dome.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VI.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Ornament running below the Cupola.
+
+
+Ornament running below the Cupola.
+
+Setting of one of the lower arches which gives light to the dome.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VII.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Curvelinear triangles resulting from the intersection of the arches
+sustaining the dome.
+
+Architrave of one of the Arches sustaining the Dome.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VIII.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Details de las Portados de la Maksurah.
+
+Keystone of the arch of the Mihrab.
+
+Keystone of the arch of the right hand side gateway.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IX.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Arches of the Portal of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE X.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Detail of the Framing of the Side Gate.
+
+Detail of the Window placed over the Side Door.
+
+Detail of the Framing of the Arch of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XI.
+
+Windows in an Alcove.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XII.
+
+ ft. in.
+Height of Vase 4 6
+
+ ft. in.
+Diameter 2 11
+
+Arab Vase of Metallic Lustre.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIII.
+
+Details of the Arches.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIV.
+
+Centre Painting on a Ceiling.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XV.
+
+Divan.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XVI.
+
+Detail of an Arch.]
+
+its magnificent bridge, creating useful public institutions, and finally
+completing the grand mosque, which his father had commenced, founding
+and endowing in connection with it schools and colleges. Moreover, he
+did all this with the resources of the treasury, and with his lawful
+part of the spoils of conquest, without levying any extraordinary taxes.
+
+Tradition relates that there formerly was a bridge over the
+Guadelquivir, erected on the site of the present structure, about 200
+years before the arrival of the Moors in Spain: but, this edifice being
+greatly decayed, it was rebuilt by the Arabs during the Viceroyship of
+Assamh, A.D. 720 or 721. This noble structure is four hundred paces, or
+one thousand feet, in length, and its breadth is twenty-two feet eight
+inches within the parapets. The passage over the bridge is a straight
+line from one end to the other; the arches are sixteen in number, and
+the buttresses of the piers are much stronger and better adapted for
+similar purposes than the modern tri-lateral cut-waters. Nearly eleven
+centuries have these buttresses withstood the rapid floods of the
+Guadelquivir, without sustaining any material injury. Although Hisham
+practically rebuilt the bridge, the labour did not contribute to his
+personal convenience. His great love of hunting caused the malcontents
+among his subjects to whisper that he had repaired the bridge to
+facilitate the outgoings and incomings of his hunting parties. The
+rumour reached the king, who vowed that he would never cross the bridge
+again--a vow he faithfully observed.
+
+The great Aljama was completed in the year A.D. 793. The Emir Hisham
+took as great a personal interest in its progress as did his father, the
+walies of the provinces contributed to its decoration with the spoils
+from ancient monuments, the artificers with their genius, victors with
+their booty, the city with its workmen, the mountains of Cordova and
+Cabra by yielding the treasures of their quarries, Africa with the
+trunks of its imperishable larch-pines, and Asia by inoculating the
+growing Arabic-Spanish art with its genius of ornament, its aspirations
+and its poetry.
+
+The superb mosque was finished, the workmen rested from their labours,
+and Hisham was confident that he had secured a place in the garden of
+everlasting joys. Let us look at this new house of prayer, majestically
+situated at the southern boundary of the great city, close to the green
+banks of the wide river of Andalus, occupying an area of 460 feet from
+north to south, and 280 from east to west, surrounded by high, thick
+battlemented walls, flanked by stout buttresses of watch towers, and
+surmounted by a lofty minaret. It is entered by the faithful by nine
+rich and spacious outer gates, and by eleven interior doors, four in the
+east and west sides, and a principal one to the north; the eleven in the
+inner façade communicating with an equal number of naves in the temple.
+The interior arrangement of this wonderful monument is most beautiful.
+There is a great courtyard, or atrium, with wide gates in the north,
+west, and east sides, having fountains for the ablutions and the
+purifications, and orange and palm groves. Then comes the immense body
+of the house of prayer, divided into eleven principal naves, running
+from north to south, and crossed at right angles by twenty-one smaller
+naves, which run from east to west. The elegant combination of the
+arcades, in which the pilasters are superposed on the columns, and the
+arches on other arches, leaving a passage for the light between the
+upper and lower columniation, is quite ideal. Finally, the mysterious
+hidden sanctuary, within which the Koran is kept, in whose precincts
+Oriental art has exhausted all the riches of its fascinating resources.
+
+The eleven great doors leading from the courtyard to the
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE BRIDGE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VIEW OF THE MOSQUE AND THE BRIDGE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+SECTION OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA ON THE LINE OF THE PLAN L. M.
+
+SECTION OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA ON THE LINE OF THE PLAN N. O.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE GATES OF PARDON.]
+
+mosque are superb double arches all in a row, sustained by beautiful
+marble columns, which, four by four, encircle the stout supporting
+pillars of stone in which they are consolidated. From the courtyard the
+interior of the mosque is seen through these eleven doors glittering
+with golden fires, and from the temple the courtyard, seen through these
+same doors, appears to be a glimpse of the longed-for Garden of
+Delights. The Mohammedan poet, Mohammed Ibn Mohammed Al-baluni, sings as
+follows of the holy House of Prayer, which surpasses in richness of
+colour, beauty of design, and boldness of ornamentation the most famous
+mosques of Arabia, Syria, and Africa:
+
+ “Abd-er-Rahman, for the love of God, and in honour of his religion,
+ spent eighty thousand dinars of silver and gold.”
+
+ “He laid them out in constructing a temple for the use of his pious
+ nation, and for the better observance of the religion of Mahomet.”
+
+ “Here the gold lavished on the panelled ceilings shines with the
+ same brilliancy as the lightning, which pierces the clouds.”
+
+The design, as completed by the Sultan Hisham I. in the years 794-95,
+received considerable improvements at the hands of his successors.
+Indeed, it can be safely said that none of the sultans of the
+illustrious family of Omeyyad who reigned in Cordova failed to make some
+estimable addition, or contributed in some way to the decoration of the
+sumptuous building. Hakam’s son, Abd-er-Rahman II., A.D. 822-852,
+ordered much “Gilt-work”--_Zak-hrafah_--to be made, but died before the
+work was completed. Mohammed, his son and successor--A.D.
+852-886--continued the work undertaken by his father, and brought it to
+a close. Mohammed’s son, Abdallah--A.D. 886-888--is also recorded as
+having made improvements in the building.
+
+In the time of the Great Khalif, Abd-er-Rahman III., called An-nasir in
+order to distinguish him from the other monarchs of that name, the old
+minaret was pulled down by the advice of a wise architect, and a new one
+built on its site, whose vastness surpassed all other minarets in the
+world. Forty-three days were spent in sinking its foundations, which
+penetrated into the ground till water was struck, and three months
+sufficed for its construction. The superb tower is built of freestone
+and mortar in such a curious manner that, though it contains two
+staircases in its interior, each flight containing 107 steps, people can
+ascend to the top and go down again without seeing one another. This
+elaborate tower measures fifty-four cubits from its foundations to the
+upper part of the open dome, to which the priest, who calls to prayers,
+turns his back, as he perambulates the projecting balcony, whose elegant
+balustrade surrounds the four walls like a graceful ring. From this
+balcony up to the top the tower rises eighty-three cubits more, being
+crowned with three beautiful apples, two of gold and one of silver, each
+three palms and a half in diameter, from which spring two lilies of six
+petals, supporting a pomegranate of purest gold. It has fourteen windows
+in its four faces. In two of these faces there are three intervals, and
+in the other two, two intervals, formed between columns of white and red
+jasper, and over the windows there is a crowning of solid arches
+sustained by small columns of the same jasper. These windows break up
+the mass of the walls in an admirable manner. The minaret is covered,
+both inside and out, with beautiful tracery in relief.
+
+Abd-er-Rahman also rebuilt the wall which enclosed the mezquita to the
+north, looking towards the Orange Court, and he had the entire floor of
+the mosque levelled.
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+A VIEW IN THE GARDEN BELONGING TO THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--LATERAL GATE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, OR CATHEDRAL.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 961-967, UNDER HAKAM II.]
+
+In 961 A.D., Abd-er-Rahman III., the last great Omeyyad Sultan of
+Cordova died, and among his papers was discovered a diary, in his own
+handwriting, in which he had carefully noted down the days which he had
+spent in happiness and without any cause of sorrow. They numbered
+exactly fourteen. “O, man of understanding!” says the Arabian
+philosopher, “wonder and observe the small portion of real happiness the
+world affords even in the most enviable position! The Khalif An-nasir,
+whose prosperity in mundane affairs, and whose widely-spread empire
+became proverbial, had only fourteen days of undisturbed enjoyment
+during a reign of fifty years, seven months, and three days. Praise be
+given to Him, the Lord of eternal glory and everlasting empire.”
+
+The Sultan Hakam, as soon as he succeeded to the Khalifate, determined
+to enlarge the mosque, which was too small to accommodate the numbers of
+those who went there to perform the “azalas.” He called together the
+architects and geometricians, who decided that the addition should
+extend from the “kiblah”--the point looking towards Mecca--of the mosque
+to the extreme end of the atrium, thus running the entire length of the
+eleven naves. The addition measured ninety-five cubits from north to
+south, and as much from east to west as the width of the whole mosque.
+The passage to the alcazar, used by the khalif when he came to the
+“azalas,” was intersected near the “nimbar,” or pulpit, inside the
+“maksurrah.” In the year 354 of the Hegirah the cupola, which crowned
+the “mihrab,” or sanctuary, containing the Koran, in the addition to the
+mosque made by Hakam, was completed. In the same year the “sofeysafa,”
+or enamelled mosaic work, was commenced in the mosque, and, by the order
+of Hakam, the four incomparable columns, which formerly had served as
+jambs for the doors of the old “mihrab,” were set up again in the new
+one. It is related that while the addition was being made, a lively
+dispute arose as to the exact spot of the “kiblah,” and it was finally
+decided to erect the sanctuary at the limit of the prolongation of the
+eleven naves, in the centre, looking directly to the south. Between the
+interior southern wall and the exterior, which was strengthened with
+round towers, a space of some fifteen feet remained. This was divided
+into eleven compartments, corresponding with the eleven naves of the
+mosque, that in the centre being destined for the sanctuary, and the
+others being reserved for the priests and other purposes. In this manner
+the “mihrab” was placed in the exact centre of the south side, with a
+wing on each side, of precise resemblance. In the west wing there was a
+secret passage leading from the mosque to the alcazar, which extended
+very near the west wall of the mezquita. The doors of this passage were
+arranged in a most intricate fashion, doubtless for the greater security
+of the palace, and they gave entrance to the interior of the
+“maksurrah,” a sumptuous reserved space, communicating on the north,
+east, and west with the great naves, and on the south forming part of
+the interior wall of the mosque. This “maksurrah” was a privileged spot,
+enclosed by a sort of wooden grating, elegantly worked on both faces,
+and surmounted by turrets, the object of which was to cut off all
+communication with the sultan. This screen, measuring twenty-two cubits
+to its summit, gives its name to that part of the edifice which it
+occupies. Its ornamentation, as well as that of the new part of the
+central nave, extending from the old to the new “mihrab,” is magnificent
+in the highest degree. The plan of the “maksurrah,” properly speaking,
+was a large rectangle, divided into three parts, almost square, from
+which rose three Byzantine domes of rare beauty.
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--INTERIOR VIEW.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+INTERIOR VIEW OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR.]
+
+That in the centre served as a vestibule to the sanctuary, and was the
+most remarkable for its proportions, its outlines, and its decorations.
+This part of the mosque has been preserved in its principal features to
+the present day. The edifice has lasted nine centuries, and there is no
+indication that it will not endure for nine centuries more.
+
+Over the festooned arches, which intersect each other, rise seven light
+and graceful horse-shoe arches, which disappear into the south wall,
+thus closing the picture and terminating the lower body of the sumptuous
+vestibule. Above these double arches runs an impost, beautifully worked
+and very graceful, embracing and crowning the four façades, and dividing
+the cupola into two zones--an upper and a lower. On this impost rest
+beautiful columns in pairs, oversetting great bold semi-circular arches,
+arranged with such art that they seem to imitate the curves of the
+interlaced garlands of a choir of beautiful odalisques, as the arches do
+not go from each column to the corresponding one of the next couple, but
+leave the intervening pair open. In this way, as there are two pairs of
+columns supporting the impost in each façade, eight principal arches are
+formed in the space in two great quadrilaterals placed opposite each
+other, their springing stones crossing and forming eight points of a
+star. There is an octagonal ring in the centre with eight graceful
+pendants, as an embellishment to the capitals of the eight pairs of
+columns. A horseshoe arch from point to point, to which a tablet of
+alabaster is fitted, leaves an uncertain prospect of the vault of
+heaven, which shines upon the cupola and the profusion of rich mosaic
+work with which it is adorned.
+
+Between the elegant arches, which appear rather to hang from the cupola
+than to support it, the marvellous façade of the “mihrab” appears in the
+background, which glistens in the rays of the setting sun like a piece
+of brocade loaded with jewels, and which must have been dazzling as a
+fairy palace when, in the month of Ramadhan, the fourteen hundred and
+fifty-four lights of the great lamp shone under this enamelled
+“half-orange.” This façade, in spite of its marvellous richness, does
+not show the smallest confusion in its ornamentation, each line is
+traced with the idea of giving greater beauty to the arch which forms
+the entrance to the sanctuary. It is composed of the arch with its
+spacious architrave and its smooth jambs with small columns, together
+with its “arraba” surrounded by Grecian frets, and a light series of
+arches without vacuums, upon which rest the imposts which divide the
+upper and lower bodies of the dome. But such is the profusion and
+splendour of the ornamentation of each of these parts that it is
+impossible to describe them. The keystones, the architrave, the circle
+drawn in squares, the panels, the trefoil arches and the tympana are
+incomparable, and the combination of Grecian frets with Persian and
+Byzantine ornaments and geometrical figures is as beautiful as it is
+bewildering. These last, moreover, do not preponderate as was the case
+later in the degenerate Mussulman ornamentation proper. Here the Grecian
+frets are the most important, being combined in a thousand different
+ways, the stems and leaves tracing the most graceful curves, and all
+uniting to form an elegant border, of the most capricious tracery. The
+whole of this ornamentation is of marble, delicately carved, now smooth
+and white, now covered with minute mosaic of various colours, and loaded
+with crystal and gold. The inscriptions seen here are also in gold, on a
+ground of crimson, or ultra-marine, alternating with the shining
+“sofeysafa.”
+
+“Sofeysafa” is an obscure word, which Don Pascual de Gayangos believes
+to be a transposition of the Arabic
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE CENTRAL NAVE OF THE MOSQUE--961-967.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--CHIEF ENTRANCE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+INTERIOR VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE--LATERAL NAVE.]
+
+[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE--EAST SIDE.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XVII.
+
+CORDOVA.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Detail of one of the niches of the Cupola.
+
+Mosaic keystones of the great arch of the Mihrab.
+
+Details of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIX.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Cufic inscription, over the arch of the Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XX.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+Pieces of Wood used in the ancient covering of the Mosque.
+
+Details of the Interior of the Mosque.]
+
+word Foseyfasa,[A] signifying enamel work of exceptional brilliancy,
+laid down by Greek workmen whom Abd-er-Rahman had brought to Cordova for
+the task.
+
+[A] _Foseyfasa._ Gayangos tells us that the word is not in the
+Dictionaries, but that, according to an old Arabian writer, it is a
+substance of glass and small pebbles, crushed and baked together,
+uniting, with great variety of colour, great brilliancy, and beauty;
+it is sometimes mixed with silver and gold. One of the conditions of
+peace granted to the Emperor of Constantinople by the Khalif, Al-waléd,
+was that the Emperor should provide a certain quantity of _foseyfasa_,
+or enamelled work, for the great mosque at Damascus. Idrisi, in his
+description of the mosque of Cordova, says that the enamel which
+covered the walls of the “mihrab,” came from Constantinople.
+
+Two columns are built into the jamb of the entrance arch to the
+sanctuary--one of black marble, the other of jasper, with lavishly
+carved capitals. If his blind enthusiasm did not deceive El-Makkari, the
+four columns were of green jasper and lapis-lazuli, two of each. An
+impost rests upon them as a cornice, and from this the arch springs; and
+on the impost an inscription in golden characters upon a crimson ground
+is written, which has the following meaning:
+
+“In the name of God, clement and merciful, let us give praise to Him,
+who directed us to this, for we could not have directed ourselves if we
+had not been directed by God, for which purpose the deputies of our Lord
+came with the truth. The priest Al-mostaner Billah Abdallah Al-Hakam,
+Prince of the Faithful--may God be faithful to him--ordered the
+president and prefect of his court, Giafar ben Abd-er-Rahman--may God be
+pleased with him--to add these two columns, since he laid the
+foundations in the holy fear of God, and with His good pleasure. This
+work was concluded in the month of Dhilhagia of the year 354 of the
+Hegirah.”
+
+From this inscription it would seem that two of the columns supporting
+the arch of “sofeysafa” were placed there by order of Hakam II., and
+that the others belonged to the old “mihrab,” which had been demolished
+in order to lengthen the mosque; but no one is capable of saying to-day
+whether the black marble columns, or the jasper, were those added by
+the order of the magnificent khalif; and whether the inestimable gift
+which was deemed worthy of being commemorated in letters of gold was of
+lapis-lazuli or not. “God alone knows!”
+
+The sanctuary is a small heptagonal space, with a pavement of white
+marble, a socle formed by seven great slabs of the same, and a dome,
+also of marble, shaped like a shell and made of a single piece, edged
+with an elegant moulding. The seven sides of the heptagon are decorated
+with exquisite trefoiled arches, supported by marble columns, with gilt
+capitals of delicate workmanship; the columns resting on a cornice,
+below whose modules runs a fascia, or fillet, of gilded characters
+carved in the marble of the slabs, which form the socle, or
+sub-basement.
+
+Within this sanctuary was kept the famous “nimbar” of Hakam II., which
+was a sort of pulpit, according to the Arab historian, unequalled in the
+world, either for its materials or its workmanship. It was of ivory and
+precious woods--ebony, red and yellow sandal, Indian aloe, &c.--and the
+cost of it was 35,705 dineros and three adirmames. It had ten steps, and
+was said to consist of 37,000 pieces of wood joined by gold and silver
+nails, and incrusted with precious stones. It took nine years to build,
+eight artificers working at it each day. This pulpit, which must have
+been of mosaic of wood, jewels and metals of price, was reserved for the
+khalif, and in it was deposited also the chief object of veneration of
+all the Mohammedans of Andalusia, a copy of the Koran, supposed to have
+been written by Othman, and still stained with his blood. This copy was
+kept in a box of golden tissue studded with pearls and rubies, and
+covered with a case of richest crimson silk, and was placed on a desk or
+lectern, of aloe wood with golden nails. Its weight was so
+extraordinary, that two men could scarcely
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE GATE.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSQUE--FAÇADE OF THE ALMANZOR.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VIEW IN THE MOSQUE--961-967.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--A GATE ON ONE OF THE LATERAL SIDES.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--SIDE OF THE CAPTIVE’S COLUMN.]
+
+carry it. It was placed in the pulpit in order that the Imam might read
+in it during the “azala;” and when the ceremony was concluded, it was
+carried to another place, where it remained, carefully guarded, with the
+gold and silver vases destined for the great celebration of Ramadhan.
+
+The chronicler, Ambrosio de Morales, says that the “nimbar” was a sort
+of chariot on four wheels, and that it had but seven steps. It was to be
+seen in the cathedral of Cordova as late as the middle of the sixteenth
+century, when it was dismembered, and its materials employed in the
+construction of a Christian altar.
+
+The place, which from the slight indications of Edrisi appears to have
+served as treasure-room, was a sort of chapel, which is situated to-day
+not far from the site of the ancient “mihrab,” to the north of the
+present “maksurrah.” In this way it can easily be supposed that the
+noblest apartment of the mosque was completely closed to the people on
+the north and south sides; and, being occupied by the principal
+personages of the court, it would have been difficult for any
+irreverence to have been shown to the Imam or to the venerated
+“Mushaf”--Koran. The two “maksurrahs” remained, the one facing the
+other, both occupying exactly the same space; that is, at least, from
+east to west, supposing that they cut the three centre naves of the
+eleven which are in the mosque. Both these “maksurrahs,” or screens,
+have disappeared; and at the present time we cannot form the slightest
+idea as to their design. Almost the only thing which has remained intact
+of that time is the sumptuous space of the three chapels occupied by the
+“maksurrah” of Hakam; and of the spaces occupied by the old
+“maksurrahs,” only two disfigured chapels exist--that of the chief nave,
+and that of the next nave to the east. The latter is divided into two
+parts by a platform some feet above the floor of the mosque. In the
+upper portion the “Alicama” or preliminary for the prayer was made; and
+in the lower part, which still has the form of an underground chapel,
+the treasure was kept. The centre chapel, the present Chapel of
+Villaviciosa, was reserved for the khalif when he did not act as Imam;
+and in the west chapel, which exists no longer, was the seat of the Cadi
+of the Aljama. No trace of the original interior decoration of these
+chapels remains at the present day, and externally, only the arches
+facing the “mihrab,” and which are similar to those of the façade of the
+vestibule, are left.
+
+When everything had been completed internally to the satisfaction of
+Hakam, it occurred to him that the fountains in the Court of Ablutions
+did not harmonise with the grandeur of the mosque; he therefore
+commanded that they should be replaced by four splendid founts, or
+troughs, each cut out of a single piece of marble--two for the women in
+the eastern part, and two for the men in the west. It was his wish that
+these basins should be of magnificent proportions, and made from the
+same quarry. The work took much time, engaged many people, and
+necessitated the expenditure of a great deal of money; but it was
+happily executed, and the troughs were brought to their destination by a
+sloping way, specially constructed for the purpose, on great carts, each
+drawn by seventy stout oxen. The water, which was brought by the
+aqueducts of Abd-er-Rahman II., and was stored in a great reservoir
+covered with marble, flowed night and day; and after supplying the wants
+of the mosque, was carried off by three conduits to feed as many
+fountains for public use in the north, east, and west of the city.
+
+The great Vizier, Almanzor, considerably enlarged the mosque; many
+Christians, loaded with chains, being employed amongst the workmen. The
+eastern wall was thrown
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+MOSQUE, NORTH SIDE--EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF ST. PEDRO.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MASURA AND ST.
+FERDINAND.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+DETAIL OF THE CHAPEL OF MASURA.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--ELEVATION OF THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY OF THE KORAN.]
+
+down, and the foundations of a new wall were laid one hundred and eighty
+feet from the old one, throughout the entire length from north to south.
+In the covered part of the building eight great naves were added, all of
+equal size, and having the same number of arches as those already
+existing; so that the thirty-three minor naves, which cut the principal
+naves at right angles, were lengthened one hundred and eighty feet,
+running from east to west. The new part formed thirty-five transverse
+naves, where there had formerly been only thirty-three, because the
+wing, with the residences which fell to the east of the “mihrab” which
+was not lengthened, occupied the space of the two extra naves. The
+prolongation of the minor naves was not carried out with the slavish and
+monotonous uniformity of modern days. The Arab architects did not
+understand symmetry as we do to-day, and they satisfied themselves with
+producing unity by means of variety, without seeking a forced
+correspondence of similar parts. In the part added by Almanzor it was
+considered useless to give the same dimensions to the buttresses of the
+north wall as the primitive wall possessed, and consequently a space of
+six feet in length was gained from the principal naves at the north
+side. But as this extra width could not be given to the first of the
+lesser naves, as the height of the columns would not allow of it, the
+architect doubtless thought that instead of dividing up this small
+excess equally among the thirty-three arches in the length from north to
+south, it would be preferable and more effective to preserve the first
+three or four naves in line, adding a nave in the space gained by the
+diminution in the bulk of the buttresses, and by enlarging the
+succeeding naves wherever it seemed most convenient. As a result of
+this, the first transverse nave of the lengthened part, on account of
+the great narrowness of its intercolumniation, was not able to preserve
+the full span of its arches. It was necessary, therefore, to bring the
+latter nearer together and to break their curve, in order to keep the
+desired height, and thus probably for the first time, Pedro de Madrazo
+considers, was seen in the edifices of Arab Spain, the pointed arch
+which was destined to totally change the physiognomy of monumental art
+in the Middle Ages.
+
+The arch, broken in this manner at the culminating point of its curve,
+presently adopted in this small nave all the varieties of decoration to
+which it was susceptible. Here in effect, in this small space of barely
+seven feet wide and one hundred and eighty-five long, architecture
+exhausted at one time, and at the first attempt, all the shapes of
+arches, which were to be employed in the four following centuries; a
+circumstance which was quite fortuitous. It was not the intention to
+dissimulate the enlargement of which we are speaking; on the contrary,
+it was decided to signalise it in an unmistakable manner, for which
+purpose a row of stout pillars was raised, where the old east wall
+stood, and where at present is the dividing line between the eleventh
+and twelfth greater naves, the pillars of which were suitably united to
+each other by great arches, springing from beautiful columns in pairs,
+built into the pillars. The old classical art would never have confided
+such wide spaces to supports so delicate as are these columns, which in
+couples send the bold festooned arches, which serve as an opening to the
+edifice of Almanzor, across to the opposite pair. But the architects of
+the time of Abd-er-Rahman I. and of Hakam II. had already successfully
+attempted a similar feat in the grand arcade of the inner façade, which
+looks on the Court, and in the strengthening arcade which divides the
+primitive mosque from its prolongation to the south, so there was no
+reason to fear its repetition. To-day we pass, with a certain respect,
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--GATE OF THE SANCTUARY OF THE KORAN.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--MOSAIC DECORATION OF THE SANCTUARY, 965-1001.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--RIGHT-HAND SIDE GATE WITHIN THE PRECINCTS OF THE
+“MAKSURRAH.”]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--SECTION OF THE CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+under these bold arches of eight metres elevation, and six, seven, and
+even eight metres in width, when we consider that they rest on columns
+of some three metres high, including their capitals; and only the
+stoutness of the pillars into which these graceful pairs are built
+assures us that they will not fall to the ground, wearied with such a
+supernatural effort.
+
+For the greater solidity of the wide edifice, added by Almanzor, a line
+of great pillars and arches, which marked the southern limit of the
+original mosque, was lengthened as far as the eastern wall, crossing at
+right angles the strengthening arcade already mentioned stretching from
+north to south; so that the actual Aljama was divided into four unequal
+parts, separated from each other, probably, by wooden screens and
+partitions. The part added by Hakam II., at whose extremities rose the
+old and the new “maksurrah,” was called “The Noble Apartment,” and was
+reserved for the nobility and the personages of the Court, the portion
+close to the “mihrab” being occupied by the ulema, alkatibes, almocries,
+and other ministers of the temple, and the Imam. The three remaining
+parts were for the people, and most likely the sexes were divided, for
+it is certain, from the assurances of an historian cited by Ahmed
+El-Makkari, that there were two doors inside the naves leading to the
+women’s part.
+
+The art of the decorations of Almanzor’s prolongation is not
+particularly attractive, the arches seem to be copied from those of the
+old door, and the only circumstance worthy of mention is that all the
+capitals of the columns are equal, and of the same form, in contrast
+with the great variety and richness of the capitals in the primitive
+mosque, and in the additions of Hakam II. The delicate and uniform
+construction of the mighty “hagib” may be mentioned as a purely
+archæological item, and also that the names of the artificers who made
+them are frequently to be seen in the foundations and shafts of the
+columns: _e.g._, Mondair, Mostauz, Motobarack, Fayr, Masud, Tasvir,
+Nassar, Kabir, Amin, Jalem-al-Amery, Hachchi, Tsamil, Bekr, Casim.
+
+With the part added by Almanzor, the mosque is said to have formed a
+great rectangular quadrilateral 742 feet long from north to south, and
+472 feet wide from east to west, enclosed by four great battlemented
+walls, fortified with square watch-towers, varying in height. The south
+wall, which reached a formidable height on account of the declivity of
+the ground, was adorned with nineteen towers, including those flanking
+it at both angles, which were more spacious and common to the two walls
+of east and west. The western wall had fourteen towers, and the north
+five, including the majestic minaret over the principal door; and,
+finally, the eastern wall was fortified by ten towers, all corresponding
+to the part which had to bear the pressure of the naves, and the wall of
+the Court at that side had no towers at all. The greater number of these
+towers remain, and the wide old walls also exist.
+
+There were twelve outer gates to the mosque, ten leading into the
+edifice, and twenty-one interior doors, without counting those of the
+dependencies to the temple and that of the khalif’s private passage,
+nineteen in the façade of the courtyard, and two which led to the
+women’s part of the building. All the outer doors were for the most part
+rectangular, formed by arched lintels set into ornamented horseshoe
+arches, their keystones were either white, or of alternate colours, the
+white being richly decorated with stucco ornaments in relief, and the
+coloured with beautiful mosaic of red and yellow brick, cut into tiny
+pieces. The horseshoe arch is set in a beautiful frame,
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXI.
+
+CORDOVA.
+
+White marble pilaster of principal nave.
+
+Ornaments and arches in the Mihrab.
+
+keystones of chapel of the
+
+Capitals rough-hewn.
+
+Finished capital specimen of Arabian sculpture.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXII.
+
+CORDOVA
+
+Details of Moorish Work.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.
+
+Details, Villaviciosa Chapel and Mihrab.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.
+
+Details of Moorish Work.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--DOME OF THE SANCTUARY.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+ROOF OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MASURA AND ST. FERDINAND.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAIL OF THE HALL OF CHOCOLATE.]
+
+richly ornamented as are the tympana between the arch and the lintel,
+the facias and the little windows of perforated alabaster, which, now
+enclosed in arches resting on little marble pillars and grouped in
+graceful pairs, flank the door. Some of these have projecting cornices
+forming a parapet with small dentalated towers, which give the sacred
+building the appearance of a fortress, and recall the warlike origin of
+the Mohammedan religion. All the outer gates have inscriptions, with
+invocations and verses taken from the Koran.
+
+Hakam II. had an apartment constructed in the western part of the
+temple, which was to serve for the distribution of alms, and here any
+poor wanderer, who happened to be in the city without protection or
+means of subsistence, could obtain the wherewithal to continue his
+journey. For this purpose the khalif endowed the establishment in a
+splendid manner. It was not exactly a hostel, as its space was too
+limited; and, besides, Hakam had already established other places of
+lodging for poor travellers outside the mosque, one of these being quite
+near this “Dar-as-asdaca,” or “Alms Chamber.” Poor students, too, were
+looked after, and received a daily meal, and even small sums of money.
+The wise men received annual pensions from the treasury, according to
+their merit and personal circumstances.
+
+The Alms Chamber was, properly speaking, only intended for the
+distribution of alms to the poor. Its beautiful door, to-day blocked up,
+can still be seen, both inside and out, in the wall of the mosque, and,
+according to El-Makkari, it was the most beautiful of the western side.
+It is no longer possible to form an exact idea of the aspect of the
+chamber as it was when Hakam II. completed its decoration. He covered it
+with gilded and painted stucco work, which turned its walls into
+beautiful filigree, and to-day this apartment is half forgotten, after
+having served as a vestibule to the first Christian cathedral of
+Cordova. No one would think that this place, beyond St. Michael’s
+postern, and separated from the body of the building by a wretched
+partition and a door of pine-wood, is the ancient “Dar-as-asdaca.” For
+many years it was used as a Chapter Hall, and the archives of the
+extinct music-school, with its choir books, were kept here.
+
+The actual dimensions of the mosque varied at different periods, and are
+difficult to establish. One authority says, that in length from north to
+south the mosque measured six hundred and forty-two feet, in width four
+hundred and sixty-two feet. Mr. Waring, in his _Notes of an Architect in
+Spain_, describes the mosque as an oblong of three hundred and
+ninety-four feet by three hundred and sixty feet. The famous Orange
+Court is in length two hundred and twenty feet, and, being within the
+boundary walls of the mosque, it is probably included in the former
+measurement.
+
+It is also impossible to fix, with any degree of certainty, the number
+of columns contained in the mosque during the time of Mohammedan
+supremacy. Ambrosio de Morales, and the Infante Don Juan Manuel, both of
+whom described the mosque before the columns were reduced in number by
+the alterations to which the building has been subjected, estimate the
+figures at one thousand and twelve, but it is only too certain that when
+the mosque was converted into a Christian church very many were removed
+to make room for altars and chapels.
+
+No less than one hundred columns were comprised within the “maksurrah,”
+which was further provided with three doors of exquisite workmanship,
+one of which was
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ENTRANCE TO THE VESTIBULE OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+MIHRAB OR SANCTUARY OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--ARCH AND FRONT OF THE ABD-ER-RAHMAN AND MIHRAB CHAPELS.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+covered with plates of pure gold, as were the walls of the “mihrab.” The
+floor of the “maksurrah,” it is said, was paved with silver, and the
+pavements adjacent to it were covered with “sofeysafa.”
+
+The ceiling of the mosque was formerly covered with oval cartouches,
+bearing appropriate monitory inscriptions and pious sentences--such as,
+“Be not one of the negligent,” “Felicity,” “Blessing,” “There is no God
+but God, to whom all beings address themselves in their need”--thus
+inciting the minds of the faithful to contemplation and prayer. Some few
+of the cartouches are still remaining; but the inscriptions were, for
+the most part, carefully effaced when the mosque was transformed into a
+Christian temple. Those in the “mihrab,” and in the angles near the
+tower, may yet be seen.
+
+The number of brazen chandeliers of different sizes in the mosque is
+computed at upwards of two hundred, and the number of cups attached, and
+containing oil, at upwards of seven thousand. Some of the oil-reservoirs
+for the great lamps were Christian bells, deprived of their clappers;
+inverted, and suspended from the roof. It is known that in the many
+expeditions against the Christian, bells were frequently removed from
+the churches and brought to Cordova. Sometimes the metal of the bells
+was recast into forms more in accordance with the Moorish style of
+ornament.
+
+The following rites had to be observed in the service of the mosque: The
+ornaments were to consist only of brass, silver or glass lamps, which
+were lighted at night when the doors were opened for prayer. Some
+striking design was painted on the west wall, in order that the faithful
+should look in that direction. There was only one pulpit, which was on
+wheels, as the sermon was preached from any spot the Talvi wished.
+
+The courts of the mosque were paved with porcelain tiles, over which
+pure water could flow. Those who did not wash themselves at home were
+obliged to do so in the Court of Ablutions before entering the sacred
+precincts. All shoes had to be left at the door of the mosque, and no
+buildings, such as inns and hostelries, and disreputable houses, were
+allowed in the neighbourhood. No Jews were allowed to pass before it.
+Women were not permitted to enter some mosques, because they were not
+circumcised, the sultana alone having an oratory, where she prayed for
+all women.
+
+At midnight a mezzin mounted the minaret, and cried out: “God is great,
+to pray is better than to sleep”; at two o’clock in the morning he said
+the same; at four o’clock he placed a lantern at the end of a rod and
+said, “Day is breaking, let us praise God”; at the fourth prayer he
+hoisted a white flag, which was lowered at one o’clock, saying, “God is
+great.” Friday was their feast day, and a blue banner was hoisted at
+dawn, and left floating till half-past ten. The fifth prayer was at four
+o’clock in the afternoon, in winter at three; when the evening star
+appeared, the sixth prayer was called out; and at nine o’clock the last
+prayer of the day was said. Sand glasses were employed to mark the
+passage of the hours.
+
+The state of Cordova died with Almanzor; and the races, who alternately
+took possession of the throne, did not leave the least trace in the
+mosque. Finally, St. Ferdinand, King of Castile and Toledo, completely
+routed the Moors, and the mezquita was purified and dedicated to Our
+Lady of the Assumption. The following is an extract from the archives of
+the cathedral: “Let it be known that I, Ferdinand, by the grace of God,
+King of Castile, with the consent and approval of Dona Berenguele, my
+Mother, and
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE MIHRAB CHAPEL.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--DETAILS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--MARBLE SOCLE IN THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+BASEMENT PANEL OF THE FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+of Dona Juana, the Queen my wife, and of my children, Alfonso,
+Frederico, and Ferdinand, make a deed of gift to God of the Cathedral
+Church of Santa Maria of Cordova, and to you, Master Lope, my beloved
+chosen Bishop of the same, from now on, and to your successors, and the
+Chapter of Canons, &c. November 12th, 1238.” This pious monarch founded
+a chapel dedicated to St. Clement, which was erected against the south
+wall, embracing the space occupied by three naves from east to west, and
+by four transverse naves from north to south. This space was shut in
+with walls, leaving the two Arab arches inside intact, the altar
+dedicated to the saint being placed against the east wall. Many nobles
+followed the king’s example, and founded chapels, amongst them being
+that of St. Inez, erected by Piedro Diaz de Haro, in 1250, in the tenth
+principal nave, counting from the west wall, also against the south
+wall, and only occupying two transverse naves. St. Ferdinand endowed the
+cathedral so richly that on his death its benefices were very
+considerable. He was succeeded by his son, Alfonso X., who showed the
+same religious spirit as his father, giving large grants to the funds of
+the cathedral; and, in the year 1258, erecting the grand chapel,
+conceding many privileges to the work and the fabric. The donations made
+by other Christians up to this time had been of a very modest nature;
+and, as the Jews of Cordova were expending great sums on the erection of
+a synagogue, it seems as though the Christians were shamed into greater
+generosity to the cathedral, for at the same time the famous commander,
+Domingo Muñoz, erected the chapel of St. Bartholomew, and the chapter
+and the king decided to turn the mosque into a real Christian cathedral
+in developing Western architecture. The commander made his chapel in the
+angle formed by the inner south wall and the west side of the
+vestibule, or “maksurrah,” of Hakam II., taking the area of two
+principal and two transverse naves. As this chapel could not be lighted
+from outside on account of the west wing of the “mihrab,” and the
+khalif’s secret passage being behind, it was illuminated with light from
+the temple, a pointed door and four windows being made in the north
+wall.
+
+The chapter set about their work with more splendour. They selected the
+three first transverse naves of the noble apartment, beginning at the
+re-inforcing wall, which marks the prolongation of Hakam, giving to the
+single nave that they opened a length of one hundred feet from the inner
+door of the Alms Chamber to the central apartment of the three enclosed
+in the old “maksurrah.” They made the Alms Chamber into a vestibule,
+leaving the re-inforcing wall as it was without touching the bold
+ultra-semi-circular arches resting on pairs of columns; they pulled down
+the cadi’s apartment in order to make way for the transept, and also the
+three transverse naves it had occupied. The three columns in front of
+the Arab pillars, which stood in the length from east to west, were
+pulled down too, and three handsomer pillars were erected in their
+place, fortified at right angles by walls in the manner of buttresses,
+which intercepted the entire width of one transverse nave. Great pointed
+arches sprang from pillar to pillar, corresponding with the horse-shoe
+arches in front; a light and graceful dome stretched from one side to
+the other, divided into four compartments by three great arches, of
+which that nearest to the sanctuary rested on high columns, and the
+other two on well-carved brackets, with open-work borders suspended at a
+regular height above the spaces. Finally, they took the central
+apartment of the ancient “maksurrah,” where we presume the khalif sat,
+and erected there the Grand Chapel.
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--FRONT OF THE TRASTAMARA CHAPEL.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+NORTH ANGLE OF THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VILLAVICIOSA CHAPEL.]
+
+This chapel was built at the king’s expense, for which the grateful
+chapter resolved to celebrate the anniversary of his death, a practice
+which has been faithfully observed to the present day.
+
+The arrangement of this space was perfectly adapted for the purpose of a
+Grand Chapel; the other room adjoining to the east being converted into
+a sacristy. It was doubtless in the same condition as when finished by
+the architects of Hakam II. At the north side it had a horse-shoe arch
+corresponding with the re-inforcing wall of the same khalif, and on the
+east side it had a great arched window and two little doors at the
+sides, which communicated with the tribune of the “Alicama,” at the
+south side, giving a splendid example of the rich Byzantine style of
+the time of Hakam, and forming a combination of segment arches
+crossing in space and forming crosses of undulating ribbons in the
+intercolumniations, the whole being similar to the decoration displayed
+in front of the vestibule of the “mihrab.” We do not know how the west
+side was decorated, where this space was united with the apartment of
+the cadi, which had been pulled down. In order to convert this into a
+Grand Chapel it was not necessary to disfigure it completely; it was
+sufficient to fill up the great northern arch, which in the time of the
+khalifs was closed by the first “maksurrah,” and also to block up the
+great window at the east, communicating with the tribune of the
+“Alicama;” to leave the two little side doors open for communication
+with the sacristy, and to enlarge the sanctuary as much as necessary, to
+shut it in at the south side with glass windows, and to place the
+customary chancel at its opening. Perhaps no more than this was done;
+but who is capable to-day of saying how much respect the king’s
+architects had for Arab-Byzantine work?
+
+In the year 1260 Don Gonzalo Yanez, first gentleman of Aguilar, founded
+the Chapel of St. John the Baptist. Five years later the Bishop Fernando
+de Mesa built the Chapel of Santiago, in the south-east corner, near the
+Chapel of St. Clement. This chapel was wide and commodious, and the Arab
+arches in its area were not disturbed. In 1263 King Alfonso X. had the
+ancient aqueducts repaired, and in 1275 Prince Ferdinand gave an order
+for four Moors, who should be free from taxation, to be kept at work in
+the building operations of the cathedral. Two of these were to be
+carpenters, and two masons. This privilege was confirmed several times
+in succeeding years, and a charter exists, dated Cordova, 25th October,
+1282, which orders that all the Moors living in the city, whether they
+were artificers or not, shall work for two days of the year in the
+cathedral. It was thought that these workmen would understand the
+repairing of Moorish work better than Christians, but the task was also
+meant as a humiliation. As time went on, these workmen, more or less,
+lost the traditions of their faith and their architecture, so that they
+were really of little service in preserving the original character of
+the edifice.
+
+In 1278 the first statue of St. Raphael the Archangel was placed on the
+top of the minaret. At that time Cordova was visited by the plague,
+which worked terrible destruction amongst the inhabitants. It is related
+that St. Raphael appeared to Friar Simon de Sousa, of the Convent of Our
+Lady of Mercy, and told him that God was moved with compassion, and that
+He would take away the visitation if a statue of St. Raphael himself
+were placed on the tower of the Cathedral, and if his Feast were
+celebrated properly every year. This was done, and the plague
+immediately ceased. A new chapel to St. Bartholomew was erected in 1280
+by Martin Muñoz, nephew of the famous commander Domingo Muñoz; and after
+this, the Chapel of St. Paul,
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ARAB TRIBUNE, TO-DAY THE CHAPEL OF VILLAVICIOSA, LEFT SIDE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ANCIENT INSCRIPTION OF THE TIME OF KHALIFATE, FOUND IN AN EXCAVATION.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+DETAIL OF THE TRASTAMARA CHAPEL.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSQUE.
+
+CHAPEL OF TRASTAMARA, SOUTH SIDE.]
+
+which belonged to the family of the Godois. Then followed the foundation
+of the Chapel of St. Nicholas, by a pious Archdeacon; and of the Chapels
+of St. Benedict, St. Vincent, and St. Giles, and that of Our Lady of the
+Snow.
+
+It was not thought wise to make any great efforts to introduce the art
+of the West into a city which could not as yet be considered sure of not
+falling again into the hands of the infidels. In the year 1369 Don
+Enrique, the Fraticide, came to the throne of Castile. He desired to
+carry out the wishes of his father, and to give him a place of sepulchre
+worthy of his high renown. For this purpose he ordered a Royal Chapel to
+be erected in the cathedral at the back of the Grand Chapel in the Arab
+Tribune, which served as a sacristy. He decided to bury here his
+grandfather, Don Fernando X., whose body had been laid under the grand
+chapel by order of his Queen, Constanza. This fabric must have taken
+some considerable time, for the stucco, wood and tile work are really
+wonderful. Mohammedan art had undergone a complete transformation; the
+grandiose Arab-Byzantine style had been succeeded by the effeminate
+Moorish school, first practised by the Almoravides, and after by the
+Almohades; and the Moorish architects and decorators of Cordova could
+not remain uninfluenced by the taste which had become general through
+the artificers who had renovated the Alcazar at Seville, and who had
+embellished the Alhambra at Granada. Nothing was more unlike the
+architecture of the days of Hakam II. than that employed now in the
+construction of the Royal Chapel. Two parts are noticed--an upper and a
+lower. The Moorish architect who directed the work had windows with
+ornamented arches in the new style opened in the east and west sides,
+which were longer than the others. He ordered, too, that Saracen art,
+emancipated from the Byzantine traditions, should be stamped on the
+ornamentation of the four walls, and on the cupola that crowned them.
+These arches were given festoons with lobules, which boldly, though
+corruptly, hid the true object of the curves. They were also set in
+square compartments, forming many edges beautifully worked with hammer
+and chisel. The framings were crowned with beautiful little cornices of
+small interlaced and open-worked arches, and above them ran round all
+the four sides a wide facia of little pine-shaped domes, which imitated
+stalactites of crystallised gold, having a most surprising effect, and
+of a sort until then unknown in the most famous mosque of the West.
+
+In the east and west walls, which were the longest of the rectangle, the
+arches with lobules, which could not be opened, were in relief; and
+resting on the light cornice were two tablets with lions. There were
+four of these lions--two on the western and two on the eastern facia,
+equi-distant from one another; and from each lion to that which faced
+him sprang a great arch, whose facing projected some feet over the lower
+zone, and from each lion to that by his side sprang another great arch,
+which did not project beyond the facing of the lower wall. These four
+upper arches, each one with twenty-one trefoil lobules, formed a perfect
+square, their four supports being at an equal distance, thanks to the
+ingenious method of cutting the longer sides, putting the lions
+perpendicularly over the great lower arches. Once this difficulty was
+overcome it was doubtless an easy matter to raise the cupola, which was
+to crown the fabric. The ancient dome must have been similar to that
+which has been discovered in the Chapel of Villaviciosa, but it must
+have seemed poor in the eyes of King Henry II., so accustomed to seeing
+the Moorish cupolas with stalactites; so they placed a cornice on the
+arches described above, and on this
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+INTERIOR OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSQUE.
+
+ARAB ARCADE ABOVE THE FIRST MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+DETAILS, ARCHES OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSQUE.
+
+DETAIL OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE.
+
+EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSQUE.
+
+GATE OF THE SULTAN.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE TO THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSQUE.
+
+DETAIL NEAR THE MIHRAB.]
+
+rested the segments of the circle, which form the elegant and strange
+African cupola.
+
+The following distribution is seen in the lower portion: Towards the
+middle of the east side there is an arch formed of little domes with
+stalactites, slightly pointed, sufficiently deep, enclosed in a sort of
+framing of gilded stucco, forming beautifully interlaced branches. The
+square compartment finishes at the lower end in a wide facia, which runs
+on both sides on a high socle of minute and beautiful tiling, and
+between the complicated ornaments in relief circles are formed,
+enclosing the arms of Castile and Leon. To the right side, on this same
+facia, is an ornamental arch of eleven lobules enclosed in another
+framing, entirely covered with tracery in relief, sustained by two very
+slight columns, built into the wall. Joined to this is another arch,
+much lower, with seven lobules, also ornamented, and sustained by
+columns of the same style as those just described, bearing a shield with
+the same arms. The left side has the same ornamentation, with the
+difference that both the arches have seven lobules, because the wall has
+more frontage on this side: and another difference was that in the
+north-east corner it had an ornamentation of minute open-work instead of
+a shield. The wall opposite had the same distribution with a deep
+central arch and small arches at the side, with little columns in the
+Gothic style, which show already that the style is no longer purely
+Moorish, but a sort of base mixture of the decorative art of the East
+and the West. Perhaps we may consider this the true concession of the
+Moorish artificers to the art preferred by the Court, and as their final
+abandonment of the pure style, which had been traditional with them.
+
+In 1521 the Bishop Don Alonso Manrique obtained permission from the
+Emperor Charles V. to erect the Gothic cathedral, which is in existence
+to-day. Three years later, when he visited the buildings, the Emperor
+repented having given his permission. Indeed the Christian work appears
+cold and pallid by the side of that of the Arabs.
+
+As Amados de los Rios, a great Spanish antiquary and Orientalist, sings
+in his mournful requiem over the departed glories of the mosque:
+“Neither the sumptuous Christian fabric that to-day rises in the midst
+of those countless columns, nor all the treasures of art lavished upon
+it by the celebrated artists of the sixteenth century who erected it,
+nor that interminable series of chapels of every epoch which, resting
+against the walls of the mosque disfigure it; nor the clumsy angels that
+seem to suspend their flight to shed glory over the Divine service, nor
+the words of the Evangelist sounding from the seat of the Holy Spirit,
+can dispel or banish, in the slightest degree, the majesty of those
+wandering shades that in vain seek in the sanctuary the sacred volume
+whose leaves, according to tradition, were enamelled with the blood of
+the Khalif Othman, martyr to the faith. A world of souvenirs here
+enthrals the mind of the traveller as he gazes with a feeling of sorrow
+upon these profanations--works dedicated by the intolerant, yet sincere,
+faith of our ancestors; impelled by the desire of banishing for ever
+from that spot, consecrated to the law of Jesus, the spirit of Mohammed
+and the ghosts of his slaves that haunt it, and will for ever haunt it
+while it exists. For, in spite of the mutilations it has endured, and of
+the changes it has undergone, there is impressed upon it, by a superior
+ineradicable law, the seal of the art that inspired it, and the
+character of the people by whom it was planned and erected.”
+
+Don Amados is not alone in his eloquent, if unavailing, protest. When
+Charles V. observed St. Peter’s Chapel rising out of the very centre of
+the mosque, he rebuked the Bishop,
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE GATES OF PARDON.]
+
+[Illustration: THE BISHOP’S GATE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--PILASTERS AND ARABIAN BATHS.]
+
+Alonso Manriquez, who had erected the incongruous edifice, in no
+measured terms. “You have built here,” said the king, “what you or
+anyone might have built elsewhere; but you have spoilt what was unique
+in the world.” Alas! the monarch had forgotten, or did not choose to
+remember, that the reprimand came with a very bad grace from one who,
+for his never-completed palace at Granada, had torn down whole courts
+and halls of the Alhambra.
+
+The mosque of Cordova is still to-day, by universal consent, the most
+beautiful Mussulman temple, and one of the most wonderful architectural
+monuments in the world. The susceptible Italian author, Edmondo de
+Amicis, has given us a vividly picturesque description of his first
+impression of the interior of the building. “Imagine a forest,” he says,
+“fancy yourself in the thickest portion of it, and that you can see
+nothing but the trunks of trees. So, in this mosque, on whatever side
+you look, the eye loses itself among the columns. It is a forest of
+marble, whose confines one cannot discover. You follow with your eye,
+one by one, the very long rows of columns that interlace at every step
+with numberless other rows, and you reach a semi-obscure background, in
+which other columns seem to be gleaming. There are nineteen aisles,
+which extend from north to south, traversed by thirty-three others,
+supported (among them all) by more than nine hundred columns of
+porphyry, jasper, breccia, and marbles of every colour. Each column
+upholds a small pilaster, and between them runs an arch, and a second
+one extends from pilaster to pilaster, the latter placed above the
+former, and both of them in the form of a horseshoe; so that in
+imagining the columns to be the trunks of so many trees, the arches
+represent the branches, and the similitude of the mosque to a forest is
+complete. The middle aisle, much broader than the others, ends in front
+of the “maksurrah,” which is the most sacred part of the temple, where
+the Koran was worshipped. Here, from the windows in the ceiling, falls a
+pale ray of light that illuminates a row of columns; there is a dark
+spot; farther on falls a second ray, which lights another aisle. It is
+impossible to express the feeling of mysterious surprise which that
+spectacle arouses in your soul. It is like the sudden revelation of an
+unknown religion, nature, and life, which bears away your imagination to
+the delight of that paradise, full of love and voluptuousness, where the
+blessed, seated under the shade of leafy palm trees and thornless rose
+bushes, drink from crystal vases the wine, sparkling like pearls, mixed
+by immortal children, and take their repose in the arms of charming
+black-eyed virgins! All the pictures of eternal pleasure, which the
+Koran promises to the faithful, present themselves to your bright mind,
+gleaming and vivid, at the first sight of the mosque, and cause you a
+sweet momentary intoxication, which leaves in your heart an
+indescribable sort of melancholy! A brief tumult of the mind, and a
+spark of fire rushes through your brain--such is the first sensation one
+experiences upon entering the cathedral of Cordova.”
+
+Listen again to the musings of this same impressionable writer, as he
+gazes at the ceiling and walls of the principal chapel, the only part of
+the mosque that is quite intact. “It is,” he says, “a dazzling gleam of
+crystals of a thousand colours, a network of arabesques, which puzzles
+the mind, and a complication of bas-reliefs, gildings, ornaments,
+minutiæ of design and colouring, of a delicacy, grace and perfection
+sufficient to drive the most patient painter distracted. It is
+impossible to retain any of the pretentious work in the mind. You might
+turn a hundred times to look at it, and it would only seem to you, in
+thinking it over, a
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+INSCRIPTIONS AND ARABIAN CHAPTERS.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--A CUFIC INSCRIPTION IN THE PLACE APPROPRIATED TO THE
+PERFORMANCE OF ABLUTIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+A CUFIC INSCRIPTION ON THE ADDITIONS MADE TO THE MOSQUE, BY ORDER OF THE
+KHALIF AL-HAKAM.]
+
+mingling of blue, red, green, gilded, and luminous points, or a very
+intricate embroidery, changing continually, with the greatest rapidity,
+both design and colouring. Only from the fiery and indefatigable
+imagination of the Arabs could such a perfect miracle of art emanate.”
+
+But if the mere shell of this majestic edifice, this voiceless testimony
+to the glory of a world-power that has gone the way of all temporal
+empires is still eloquent in decay, and still a force to stir the
+imagination, what must it have been when the spirit of Moslemism filled
+its courts, and the temple resounded with praise and devotion? We can
+get some idea of the impressiveness of a Mohammedan service in the pages
+of Frederick Schack’s _Poetry and Art of the Arabs in Spain and Sicily_.
+The following vivid passage is a description of the mosque of Cordova on
+a solemn fête day: “On both sides of the pulpit wave two standards to
+signify that Islam has triumphed over Judaism and Christianity, and that
+the Koran has conquered the Old and New Testaments. The ‘Almnedian’
+climb upon the gallery of the high minaret and intone the ‘salam’ or
+salutation to the Prophet. Then the nave of the mosque fills with
+believers, who, clothed in white and wearing a festive aspect, gather
+for the oration. In a few moments, throughout the edifice nothing is to
+be seen but kneeling people. By the secret way which joins the temple to
+the alcazar, comes the khalif, who seats himself in his elevated place.
+A reader of the Koran reads a Sura on the reading-desk of the Tribune.
+The voice of the Muezzin sounds again, inviting people to the noon-day
+prayers. All the faithful rise and murmur their prayers, making
+obeisances. A servant of the mosque opens the doors of the pulpit and
+seizes a sword, with which, turning towards Mecca, he admonishes all to
+praise Mohammed, while the Prophet’s name is being celebrated from the
+Tribune by the singing of the ‘mubaliges.’ After this the preacher
+ascends the pulpit, taking from the hand of the servant the sword, which
+recalls and symbolises the subjection of Spain to the power of Islam. It
+is the day on which ‘Djihad,’ or the holy war, is to be proclaimed, the
+call for all able-bodied men to descend into the battle-field against
+the Christians. The multitude listen with silent devotion to the
+discourse (woven from the head of the Koran) which begins like this:
+
+“‘Praised be God, who has increased the glory of Islam, thanks to the
+sword of the champion of the Faith, and who, in his Holy Book, has
+promised aid and victory to the believer.
+
+“‘Allah scatters his benefits over the world.
+
+“‘If he did not impel men to dash armed against each other, the earth
+would be lost.
+
+“‘Allah has ordered that the people be fought against until they know
+there is but one God.
+
+“‘The flame of war will not be extinguished until the end of the world.
+
+“‘The Divine benediction will fall upon the mane of the war-horse until
+the Day of Judgment.
+
+“‘Be you armed from head to foot, or only lightly armed, rise, and take
+your departure.
+
+“‘O, believers! what will become of you if, when you are called to
+battle, you remain with your face turned toward the ground?
+
+“‘Do you prefer the life of this world to that of the future?
+
+“‘Believe me: the gates of paradise stand in the shadow of the sword.
+
+“‘He who dies in battle for the cause of God, washes with the blood he
+sheds all the stains of his sins.
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE GUADELQUIVIR, WITH A VIEW OF THE CATHEDRAL
+(MEZQUITA). THE SCENE AS IT APPEARED IN 1780.
+
+From _Antigüedades Arabes de España_. Madrid, 1780, fol.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+VIEW OF CORDOVA CATHEDRAL (MEZQUITA), AS IT APPEARED IN 1780.
+
+From _Antigüedades Arabes de España_. Madrid, 1780. fol.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+WALL OF THE MOSQUE.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB.]
+
+“‘His body will not be washed like the other bodies, because in the Day
+of Judgment his wounds will send out a fragrance like musk.
+
+“‘When the warriors shall present themselves at the Gates of Paradise, a
+voice from within will ask: “What have you done during your life?”
+
+“‘And they will reply: “We have brandished the sword in the struggle for
+the cause of God.”
+
+“‘Then the eternal Gates will open, and the warriors will enter forty
+years before the others.
+
+“‘Up, then, O believers! Abandon women, children, brothers, and worldly
+possessions, and go forth to the holy war!
+
+“‘And thou, O God, Lord of the present and future world, fight for the
+armies of those who recognise thy Unity! Destroy the incredulous,
+idolaters, and enemies of thy holy faith! Overthrow their standards, and
+give them, with all they possess, as booty to the Mussulmans!’”
+
+The preacher, when he has finished his discourse, exclaims, turning
+towards the congregation: “Ask of God!” and prays in silence. All the
+faithful, touching the ground with their foreheads, follow his example.
+The “mubaliges” sing: “Amen! Amen, O Lord of all beings!” Like the
+intense heat which precedes the tempest, the enthusiasm of the multitude
+(restrained, up to this time, in a marvellous silence) breaks out in
+loud murmurs, which, rising like the waves of the sea, and inundating
+the temple, finally make the echo of a thousand united voices resound
+through the naves, chapels, and vaults in one single shout: “There is no
+God but Allah!”
+
+Abd-er-Rahman I. was old when he commenced the building of the Mosque,
+and experienced in every description of architecture. His passion for
+building was as eager as that of his predecessors of the house of
+Omeyyad, who had made Damascus the envy of the world; and, during the
+frequent periods of peace, he had turned all his thoughts to the
+adornment of his capital by works which he had himself superintended.
+One of his first undertakings was to supply Cordova with water by means
+of an aqueduct, which came from the distant hills, and the vestiges of
+which are visible to this day. The water thus brought from the mountains
+was conveyed to the palace, and thence carried to every quarter of the
+city by means of conduits, from which it flowed into basins, as well as
+into lakes, enormous tanks, reservoirs and fountains. The sultan then
+planted a most delightful garden, to which he gave the name of
+Munyat-Arrissafah, in remembrance of a country seat near Damascus, which
+his grandfather, the Khalif Hisham, had built, and where he himself had
+spent the earliest years of his life. Finding the spot a very charming
+one, he erected in the middle of it a magnificent palace; and, moreover,
+made it his residence in preference to the old palace, inhabited by the
+former governors of Andalus. Having an ardent love of horticulture, he
+commissioned a botanist to procure for him in the East fruits and plants
+that could be easily naturalised in Andalus; and, in this manner, it is
+said, Abd-er-Rahman introduced the peach, and the particular kind of
+pomegranate, called “Safari,” into Spain. It is believed that this best
+species of pomegranate obtained its name from having been sent to
+Abd-er-Rahman by his sister, then residing in the East, and was called
+“Safari,” or “the Traveller,” from this circumstance. Other derivations
+of the name are given, all plausible enough. One thing is certain, the
+fruit is called to this day in Spain, “Granada Zafari,” and is
+considered the best of its kind in point of flavour, smallness of seed,
+and abundance of juice.
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--ARCH OF ONE OF THE GATES.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--LATTICE.]
+
+Abd-er-Rahman II. carried on the work of beautifying Cordova with
+gardens, palaces, and bridges, but it was the third sovereign of his
+name, the Great Khalif, Abd-er-Rahman III., who restored the Moslem
+supremacy in Spain, and won for himself the title of En-Nasir
+li-dini-llah (“The Defender of the Faith of God”), who placed the crown
+on Cordova’s beauty and splendour. Byzantium, perhaps, compared with it
+in the loveliness of her buildings, and the luxury and refinement of her
+life, but no other city of Europe could approach the “Bride of
+Andalusia.” “To her,” sang the old Arab writer, “belong all the beauty
+and the ornament that delight the eye and dazzle the sight. Her long
+line of Sultans form her crown of glory; her necklace is strung with the
+pearls which her poets have gathered from the ocean of language; her
+dress is of the canvas of learning well knit together by her men of
+science; and the masters of every art and industry are the hem of her
+garments.”
+
+“The inhabitants of Cordova,” says Ahmed-El-Makkari, the great Arab
+historian, “are famous for their courteous and polished manners, their
+superior intelligence, their exquisite taste and magnificence in their
+meals, dress, and horses. There thou wouldst see doctors, shining with
+all sorts of learning; lords, distinguished by their virtue and
+generosity; warriors, renowned for their expeditions into the country of
+the infidels; and officers, experienced in all kinds of warfare. To
+Cordova came from all parts of the world students eager to cultivate
+poetry, to study the sciences, or to be instructed in divinity or law;
+so that it became the meeting-place of the eminent in all matters, the
+abode of the learned, and the place of resort for the studious; its
+interior was always filled with the eminent and the noble of all
+countries, its literary men and soldiers were continually vying with
+each other to gain renown, and its precincts never ceased to be the
+arena of the distinguished, the retreat of scholars, the halting place
+of the noble, and the repository of the true and virtuous. Cordova was
+to Andalus what the head is to the body, or what the breast is to the
+lion.”
+
+To-day there is nothing left in Cordova but the mosque, the bridge, and
+the ruins of the alcazar to mark the spot where, in the time of
+Abd-er-Rahman III., a city, ten miles in length, lined the banks of the
+Guadelquivir with mosques and gardens and marble palaces. The royal
+palaces of the Great Khalif included the Palace of Lovers, the Palace of
+Flowers, the Palace of Contentment, the Palace of the Diadem, and the
+palace which the Sultan named Damascus, of which the Moorish poet sang,
+“All palaces in the world are nothing compared to Damascus, for not only
+has it gardens with the most delicious fruits and sweet-smelling
+flowers, beautiful prospects, and limpid running waters, clouds pregnant
+with aromatic dew, and lofty buildings; but its night is always
+perfumed, for morning pours on it her gray amber, and night her black
+musk.” The city contained over fifty thousand palaces of the nobles, and
+twice that number of houses of the common people, while seven hundred
+mosques and nine hundred public baths had close companionship among a
+community who made cleanliness co-ordinate with godliness.
+
+But perhaps the greatest monument of Moorish architecture that was ever
+created in Spain, the most wonderful city and palace that has ever been
+constructed, is to-day a name and a memory of which not a trace is in
+existence. That marvellous suburb of Cordova, called Ez-Zahra, “the
+Fairest,” which was built at the suggestion of the favourite mistress of
+Abd-er-Rahman III., and was
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--ORNAMENTAL ARCHED WINDOW.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+THE MOSQUE--CAPITALS OF THE ENTRANCE ARCH.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+DETAILS OF THE FRIEZE.]
+
+[Illustration: PLAN.]
+
+[Illustration: KEYSTONE OF ORNAMENTAL ARCH.]
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+DETAIL OF THE CORNICE.]
+
+[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE CORNICE.]
+
+forty years in the making, has been entirely obliterated. At the foot of
+the “Hill of the Bridge,” at a distance of three miles from Cordova, the
+foundation of the city was laid in A.D. 936. A third of the royal income
+was expended every year in the prosecution of the work. Ten thousand
+labourers and three thousand beasts of burden were employed continually,
+and six thousand blocks of stone were cut and polished each day for
+building purposes. Many of its four thousand columns came from Rome,
+Constantinople, and Carthage; its fifteen thousand doors were coated
+with iron and polished brass; the walls and roof in the Hall of the
+Khalif were constructed of marble and gold. A marble statue of Ez-Zahra,
+“the Fairest,” was erected over the principal gateway.
+
+Arabian chroniclers have exhausted their eloquence in attempting to do
+justice to the wonders of Medinat-Ez-Zahra, and the result is so
+monotonous a surfeit of superlatives that even the beauty that inspired
+them can scarcely reconcile us to the repetition. But the historians
+occasionally drop into prose in recounting the marvels of the palace,
+and then we learn that “the number of male servants employed by the
+khalif has been estimated at thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifty,
+to whom the daily allowance of flesh meat, exclusive of fowls and fish,
+was thirteen thousand pounds; the number of women of various kinds and
+classes, comprising the harem of the sultan or waiting upon them, is
+said to have amounted to six thousand three hundred and fourteen. The
+Slav pages and eunuchs were three thousand three hundred and fifty, to
+whom thirteen thousand pounds of flesh meat were distributed daily, some
+receiving ten pounds each, and some less, according to their rank and
+station, exclusive of fowls, partridges, and birds of other sorts, game,
+and fish. The daily allowance of bread for the fish in the pond of
+Ez-Zahra was twelve thousand loaves, besides six measures of black
+pulse, which were every day macerated in the waters.” It is small wonder
+that travellers from distant lands, men of all ranks and professions in
+life, following various religions--princes, ambassadors, merchants,
+pilgrims, theologians, and poets--all agreed that they had never seen in
+the course of their travels anything that could be compared to it.
+
+“Indeed,” writes one Moorish chronicler, “had this palace possessed
+nothing more than the terrace of polished marble overhanging the
+matchless gardens, with the golden hall and the circular pavilion, and
+the works of art of every sort and description--had it nothing else to
+boast of but the masterly workmanship of the structure, the boldness of
+the design, the beauty of the proportions, the elegance of the
+ornaments, hangings, and decorations, whether of shining marble or
+glittering gold, the columns that seemed from their symmetry and
+smoothness as if they had been turned by lathes, the paintings that
+resembled the choicest landscapes, the artificial lake so solidly
+constructed, the cistern perpetually filled with clear and limpid water,
+and the amazing fountains, with figures of living beings--no
+imagination, however fertile, could have formed an idea of it.” So at
+least it struck the Moorish author, and the sight inspired him to
+ejaculate: “Praise be to God Most High for allowing His humble creatures
+to design and build such enchanting palaces as this, and who permitted
+them to inhabit them as a sort of recompense in this world; and in order
+that the faithful might be encouraged to follow the path of virtue, by
+the reflection that, delightful as were these pleasures, they were still
+far below those reserved for the true believer in the celestial
+Paradise!”
+
+The effect of all this massed splendour upon the mind,
+
+[Illustration: CORDOVA
+
+CAPITAL OF ARCH.]
+
+[Illustration: SIDE VIEW OF THE CORNICE.]
+
+[Illustration: BASES.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+EAST FAÇADE, WITHOUT THE PORTICO.]
+
+even of those whose position and duties made familiar with the treasures
+of Abd-er-Rahman’s palaces, is illustrated by one of the ambassadors of
+the Greek Emperor. The khalif received Constantine’s emissaries in the
+great hall of the palace of Ez-Zahra, which was specially arranged for
+the occasion. The richest carpets and rugs, and the most gorgeous silk
+awnings, covered the floor, and veiled the doors and arches, and in the
+midst of the apartment was set up the royal throne, overlaid with gold,
+and glittering with precious stones. On the right and left of the throne
+stood the khalif’s sons, beside them were the viziers, and behind them,
+in the order of their rank, were ranged the chamberlains, the nobles,
+and officers of the household. The ambassadors were awed and amazed by
+the magnificence of the scene, and the orator, charged with the office
+of delivering the speech of welcome, was literally struck dumb by the
+splendour of the spectacle. With wide, staring eyes and speechless lips
+he stood spellbound, caught in a maze of wonder. This man, who had grown
+accustomed to superb beauty, who had seen splendour piled upon splendour
+under the directing hand of his master, was paralysed by the effect it
+produced. His brain reeled, and, without uttering a word, he fell
+senseless to the ground. A second orator took the embossed scroll, and
+faced the august assemblage, but the witchery of the scene hypnotised
+his senses, and he, too, hesitated, faltered, and broke down.
+
+The mere outward and visible aspect of this “brightest splendour of the
+world,” as the nun Hroswitha described it, fired the imagination of man,
+and deprived the practised orators of speech. But the mind of Cordova at
+this period of its history was as beautiful as its frame. It was the
+fountain-head of learning, the well-spring of art, the scientific centre
+of Europe. Literature became the study of every class, poetry was the
+common language of the people. The potters, the silk weavers, the glass
+blowers, the jewellers, swordmakers, and brass workers of Cordova were
+renowned throughout Europe--in all that appertained to art she was
+acknowledged to stand pre-eminent. The greatest doctors, the most
+skilled surgeons, had their homes in Cordova; and astronomers,
+geographers, chemists, philosophers, and scientists of every kind
+resorted thither to study and prosecute their researches.
+
+Under Hakam II., the Royal library at Cordova became the largest and
+most celebrated collection of books in the world; and under Almanzor,
+the powerful minister who ruled Spain for the Khalif Hisham, the beauty
+of the Imperial city was jealously maintained. But the end of the
+Omeyyad dynasty was even then in sight, the sun of Cordova’s glory was
+already commencing to set. After the death of Almanzor
+
+ “Sultan after Sultan with his pomp
+ Abode his destin’d hour and went his way,”
+
+the puppet khalifs were enthroned and deposed at the will of successive
+prevailing factions. Anarchy had broken out again, the mob was Sultan,
+and the work of pillage and plunder was begun. The overthrow of the
+Almanzor order was followed by the wrecking of the Almanzor palace,
+which was ransacked and burned to the ground. For four days the work of
+riot, robbery, and massacre went on unchecked. Palace after palace was
+reduced to ruins, gardens were devastated, the public squares ran with
+blood. The brutal, savage Berbers captured the beautiful city of
+Ez-Zahra (A.D. 1010) by treachery, and put its garrisons to the sword,
+while the flying inhabitants were chased into the sacred precincts of
+the mosque and butchered without mercy.
+
+Ez-Zahra, “the city of the fairest,” was pillaged; its palaces and
+mosques were thrown down, and the walls were given to the flames. To-day
+its site alone remains, and its glories exist only in name.
+
+
+
+
+SEVILLE
+
+
+The beginning of the history of Seville is buried, with the date of its
+foundation, in oblivion. It has its place in mythology as the creation
+of Hercules; its origin being more reasonably credited to the
+Phœnicians, who colonised the mineral-yielding region of Andalusia,
+which is watered by the Guadalquivir, and called it Tartessii. Strabo
+states that they built the town of Tartessus; and some authorities
+favour the conclusion that Seville stands on the site of that Phœnician
+stronghold. In 237 B.C. Hamilcar Barca conquered Andalusia, and his
+son-in-law founded Carthagena, which was seized by Publius Cornelius
+Scipio, or Scipio Africanus, during the second Punic War. Scipio founded
+Italica, which was to serve as a sanatorium for his invalided soldiers,
+and for awhile its importance eclipsed that of the neighbouring city of
+Seville. Honoured by the gifts of three Roman emperors born within its
+walls, and adorned with the splendid edifices raised by Trajan, Adrian,
+and Theodosius, Italica was advanced to the first rank among the Roman
+cities of the Peninsula. Julius Cæsar restored the balance of power to
+Seville in 45 B.C., when he made it his capital, and changed its name to
+Julia Romula. The city was fortified and protected by walls, which have
+been variously described as from five to ten miles in length. To-day the
+remains of the great aqueduct, the two high granite columns in the
+Alameda de Hercules, and the beautiful fragments of capitals and statues
+in the Museo Arqælogico, are the only existing relics of the Roman sway
+in Seville, while on the opposite bank of the Guadalquivir a ruined,
+grass-grown amphitheatre is all that is left of the once mighty town of
+Italica. In 584 Leovigild repaired the walls of Italica when he was
+beseiging Seville, and less than two centuries later those walls were
+greatly injured by the Moors, who further fortified and enlarged Seville
+with the stones brought from Italica.
+
+In 711 Tarik captured Cordova, and in the following year Musa, the
+Governor of Africa, appeared before Seville with an army of 18,000
+warriors. In a few weeks the city had fallen, and for 536 years the
+“Pearl of Andalusia” remained in the possession of the Moors. The
+conquerors abandoned Italica to its fate, or, rather, they used the
+remains of the city as a quarry, while some of the sculpture of the
+deserted capital, which appealed to the Arabs by its surpassing beauty,
+was removed to Seville. Despite the injunctions contained in the Koran,
+the sculptures were not destroyed, and a statue of Venus was long
+preserved in one of the public baths of the city. El-Makkari, writing in
+the sixteenth century, and quoting from an early Moorish manuscript,
+records that “there was once found a marble statue of a woman with a
+boy, so admirably executed that both looked as if they were alive; such
+perfection human eyes never beheld. Indeed, some Sevillians were so much
+struck with its beauty as to become deeply enamoured of it.” An
+anonymous poet, a native of Seville, made a set of verses about it,
+which have been translated by Don Pascual de Gayangos as follows:
+
+ “Look at that marble statue, beautiful in its proportions,
+ surpassing everything in transparency and smoothness.
+
+ “She has with her a son, it is true, but who her husband
+ was I cannot tell, neither was she ever in labour.
+
+ “Thou knowest her to be but a stone, but yet thou canst
+ not look at her, for there is in her eyes something that
+ fascinates and confounds the beholder.”
+
+It has been said that the Sevillians pretend to regard Hercules as the
+builder of the city, and the _Puerta de la Carne_ is inscribed with the
+following distich:
+
+ “_Condidit Alcides--renovavit Julius urbem,
+ Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius heros._”
+
+This has been paraphrased in an inscription over the Puerta de Xerex:
+
+ “Hercules me edificó
+ Julio Cesar me cercó
+ De muros y torres altas;
+ Un Rey godo me perdió,
+ El Rey Santo me ganó,
+ Con Garci Perez de Vargas.”
+
+Hercules built me; Julius Cæsar encircled me with walls and lofty
+towers; a Gothic king (Roderick) lost me; a saint-like king (St.
+Ferdinand), assisted by Garci Perez de Vargas, regained me.
+
+The inscription might well have included the name of the brother of
+Garci Perez, Diego de Vargas, surnamed “El Machuca,” or “the Pounder,”
+who performed prodigies of valour at the breaking of the Moorish bridge
+of boats across the Guadalquivir, when the destruction of that
+gallantly-defended means of access to the city led to the capture of
+Seville by the Christians in 1248. These two brothers are the heroes of
+Spanish ballads, and were greatly distinguished by St. Ferdinand; the
+grateful monarch freely acknowledging their prowess by the bestowal of
+houses and lands wrested from the Moors. A curious “Repartimiento,” or
+Domesday Book of Seville, is still extant, and many families can trace
+their actual possessions back to this original partition.
+
+Musa appointed his son, Abdelasis, a brave soldier and a humane ruler,
+to be governor of Seville. That he was a successful general, that he
+married Egilona, the widow of the unfortunate King Roderick, and was
+murdered by the order of Suleyman, brother and heir of the Khalif of
+Damascus, is all that history records of him. A malignant rumour, that
+he was scheming to make himself sole ruler of the Berber dominion in
+Spain, reached Damascus. Suleyman immediately sent emissaries to Seville
+with secret instructions that Abdelasis should be put to death, adding
+as an incentive to swift compliance with his order, that whoever among
+them executed the deed, should be appointed his successor as Amir of
+Seville. The delegates were armed with friendly letters to Abdelasis,
+who received them cordially, and entertained them in accordance with his
+exalted position as an amir under the khalif. It appears, according to
+the tradition, that the scheme was revealed to ’Abdullah Ibn, “who was
+the most eminent and most conspicuous officer in the army.” ’Abdullah,
+however, would have no hand in the projected assassination, but, on the
+contrary, endeavoured to dissuade the conspirators from their purpose,
+saying to them: “You know the hand of Musa has conferred benefits on
+every one of you: if the Commander of the Faithful has been informed as
+you represent, he has been told a lie. Abdelasis has never raised his
+hand in disobedience to his master, nor dreamt of revolting against
+him.” Suleyman’s emissaries, however, disregarded his words, and decided
+on the murder. One morn they stood among the rest at the gates of the
+palace, waiting till the governor should go to the mosque, and, when he
+appeared, followed him to prayer. Scarcely had he entered the “kiblah,”
+and begun to read the Koran, than one of the conspirators rushed upon
+the governor and stabbed him. Abdelasis, leaving the “kiblah,” took
+refuge in the body of the mosque, whither he was followed and slain.
+When the news spread through the city, the inhabitants
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXV
+
+SEVILLE.
+
+Frieze in the Hall of Ambassadors.]
+
+[Illustration: Mosaic of the large Court, Alcazar.]
+
+[Illustration: Stucco work, Hall of Ambassadors.]
+
+[Illustration: Mosaic of the large Court.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--GATES OF THE PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE.]
+
+were roused to fury. The assassins produced the letters and commands of
+the khalif, but to no purpose; the people refused to abide by the
+sultan’s behests, and chose ’Abdullah to be his successor. ’Abdullah
+was, however, quickly displaced by Ayub, Suleyman’s nominee, and the
+conspirators then departed to make their report at Damascus, carrying
+with them the head of the unfortunate Abdelasis.
+
+The author of the tradition, Mohammed Ibn, says that when these
+emissaries arrived at Damascus and produced the head of Abdelasis before
+Suleyman, he sent immediately for Musa. Upon his appearance, Suleyman,
+pointing to the head, said: “Dost thou know whose head that is?” “Yes,”
+answered Musa, “it is the head of my son Commander of the Faithful, the
+head of Abdelasis (may Allah show him mercy) is before thee, but by the
+life of Allah there was never a Moslem who less deserved such unjust
+treatment; for he passed his days in fasting, and his nights in prayer;
+no man ever performed greater deeds to serve the cause of the Almighty,
+or His messenger Mohammed; no man was more firm in his obedience to
+thee. None of thy predecessors would have served him thus. Thou even
+wouldest never have done what thou hast to him, had there been justice
+in thee.” Suleyman retorted, “Thou liest, O Musa, thy son was not as
+thou hast represented him; he was impious and forgetful of our religion,
+he was the persecutor of the Moslems, and the sworn enemy of his
+sovereign, the Commander of the Faithful. Such was thy son, O doting,
+foolish, fond old man!” Musa replied, “By Allah! I am no dotard, nor
+would I deviate from truth, wert thou to answer my words with the blows
+of death. I speak as the honest slave should speak to his master, but I
+place my confidence in God, whose help I implore. Grant me his head, O
+Commander of the Faithful, that I may close his eyes.” And Suleyman
+said: “Thou mayest take it.” As Musa was leaving the Hall of Audience
+one who was present wished to interfere with him, but Suleyman said:
+“Let Musa alone, he has been sorely punished;” and added: “The old man’s
+spirit is still unbroken.” But the old man, whose name had once stood
+for the symbol of conquest, whose initiative had won Spain for the Moor,
+had received his death sentence. Grief, which could not bend his spirit,
+seized upon his frame. The old man fell sick of grief and shame, and in
+a little while he was dead.
+
+Suleyman’s treachery had its first result in the removal of the seat of
+Moorish rule in Spain to Cordova. Ayub, the successor of Abdelasis,
+recognising the insecurity of his tenure in Seville, forsook “the Pearl
+of Andalusia” with all speed, and when in 777, Abd-er-Rahman proclaimed
+himself sole ruler of Spain, it was from his palace at Cordova that the
+fiat was sent forth to the world. Seville, the first and the natural
+capital of the South, dropped into second place among the cities of the
+Peninsula, and it was not until 1078 that it re-established its claim as
+the Moorish metropolis. For three hundred and fifty years the Moslems
+were faithful to the sovereignty of Cordova; and although Seville came,
+by reason of its beautiful palaces, gardens, and baths, to be regarded
+as one of the fairest cities of earth; the alcazar and the lordly
+mosque, which now bear evidence of its former grandeur, are of a later
+Moorish period. And Seville grew in beauty under, and in spite of, the
+destructive influence of strife and conflict. While Abd-er-Rahman was
+cultivating the graces of Cordova, Seville was being desolated by many
+assaults. Yusuf, and, after his death, his three sons, made attacks upon
+Seville, and Hixem ben Adri el Fehri, who had stirred the Toledans to
+insurrection, was
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE.
+
+ALCAZAR.
+
+Hall of Ambassadors. Details.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+FAÇADE OF THE ALCAZAR.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+CHIEF ENTRANCE TO THE ALCAZAR, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT UNDER DON PEDRO I.
+THE CRUEL, 1369-1379.]
+
+subsequently defeated at the gates of Seville by the Governor,
+Abdelmelic. At a later date, Cassim, the son of Abdelmelic, fled with
+his army before the advance of the Wali of Mequinez, and was stabbed to
+death by his father for cowardice. Abdelmelic, who threw himself upon
+the invaders, was overcome and wounded in a night battle on the banks of
+the Guadalquivir; but, despite his hurt and his defeat, he rallied his
+soldiers, and drove the hitherto victorious Wali through the streets of
+Seville, and out again into the open country, where he was captured and
+killed.
+
+Under the shifty and opportunist rule of Abdallah, who had caused his
+brother Mundhir to be murdered to make his way to the throne of Cordova
+in 888, Andalusia was split up into a number of independent
+principalities. The turbulent Ibn-Hafsun had made himself virtual King
+of Granada, the governors of Lorca and Zaragoza rendered but nominal
+homage to the khalif, the walls of Toledo rattled with the crash of
+contending revolutionary factions, and in Seville Ibrahim Ibn-Hajjaj
+treated with the King of Cordova on equal terms. In the time of
+Ibn-Hajjaj Seville was the most orderly and best-governed city in the
+Peninsula. The poets of Cordova, the singers of Baghdad, and the lawyers
+of Medina were attracted to the court of Ibn-Hajjaj, of whom it was
+sung, “In all the West I find no right noble man save Ibrahim, but he is
+nobility itself. When one has known the delight of living with him, to
+dwell in any other land would be a misery.” Yet in 912-13, Ibrahim
+Ibn-Hajjaj, who kept his state like an Emperor, opened the gates of
+Seville to the masterful and gallant Abd-er-Rahman III., and the city
+became once more subject to the self-proclaimed Khalif of Cordova. It
+was Abd-er-Rahman who planted Seville with palm trees, beautified her
+gardens, increased the number of her palaces, and made the Guadalquivir
+navigable by narrowing the river’s channel. Ibrahim “the Magnificent”
+received the Great Khalif with the homage which a feudal lord offers to
+his king, and the independence of Seville was at an end.
+
+But Seville at this period was the rival of Cordova in intellectual
+eminence, and much of the Moorish thought and research which was
+destined to influence Spain in future ages was pondered, and practised,
+and published from the former city. Abu Omar Ahmed Ben Abdallah, called
+“El Begi,” “the Sage,” and unquestionably one of the most learned men of
+his time, was a native of Seville, and here he wrote his encyclopædia of
+the sciences. It was said that there was no man who could surpass him in
+knowledge of arts and sciences, and “even in his earliest youth,” says
+Condé, “the cadi very frequently consulted him in affairs of the highest
+importance.” Chemists, philosophers, astronomers, and men famous in
+every branch of science, resorted to “the Pearl of Andalusia;” while art
+was fostered in silk and leather manufactures, and the joy of life found
+expression in music, poetry, and the dance.
+
+The victorious expeditions of Alfonso VI. found the Moors demoralised
+from the massacres of Cordova and Ez-Zahra, and the whole of Andalusia
+in a state of ferment, anarchy, and military unpreparedness. In every
+town of importance in the South a new independent dynasty sprang into
+existence, and the Abbadites exercised kingly sway over the so-called
+republic of Seville. Some of these usurpers and pretenders, as Mr.
+Lane-Poole has pointed out, were good rulers; most of them were
+sanguinary tyrants, but (curiously) not the less polished gentlemen, who
+delighted to do honour to learning and letters, and made their courts
+the homes of poets and musicians. Mo’temid of Seville, for instance, was
+a patron of the arts, and a prince of many
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE.
+
+Details in Hall of Ambassadors.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--PRINCIPAL FAÇADE.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+INTERIOR COURT OF THE ALCAZAR.]
+
+attainments, yet he kept a garden of heads cut off his enemies’
+shoulders, which he regarded with great pride and delight. Yet Seville
+was secure and peaceful under these barbarous rulers until the menace of
+Alfonso’s inroads made Mo’temid silence the fears of his court with the
+reflection, “Better be a camel-driver in African deserts than a
+swine-herd in Castile.” So they fled from the danger of the Castilians
+to the succour that Africa was waiting to send them. A conference of
+Moorish rulers was held in Seville, and a message imploring assistance
+was despatched to Yusuf, the Almoravide king. Yusuf defeated the army of
+Alfonso near Badajoz in 1086. Four years later the King of Seville again
+besought the help of Yusuf against the Christians of the North. This
+time he came with a force of twenty thousand men at his back, and before
+the end of 1091 the leader of the Almoravides had captured Seville and
+established a dynasty which was to last until its overthrow by the
+Almohades in 1147.
+
+The Almoravide rule, which was distinguished in the beginning by piety
+and a love of honest warfare, ended in tyranny and corruption, and the
+Almoravides gave place to a race more pious and fanatical than the
+demoralised followers of Yusuf had ever been. For a hundred and one
+years the Almohades remained masters of Seville. The monuments of their
+devotion and artistic genius are extant in the mosque and the alcazar,
+and we know that under Abu Yakub Yusuf a new era of commercial
+prosperity set in for Seville, and a new light arose to illumine the
+fast deepening shadows which fell over the vanishing glory of Cordova.
+The thunder of the blows which had reduced “the City of the Fairest” to
+a heap of ruins still echoed in the air, and mixed with the noise of the
+builders and artificers who were re-moulding Seville “nearer to the
+heart’s desire.”
+
+The remains of Moorish architecture which we find in Cordova, in
+Seville, and in Granada, enable us to realise that the civilisation and
+art of the Spanish Moslems were progressive, and that each stage
+developed its varied and singular characteristics. “The monuments of
+Seville,” says Contreras in his _Monuments Arabes_, “produce quite a
+peculiar effect on the mind, a sublime reminiscence of ancient and
+profound social transformations, which only the inartistic aspect of bad
+restorations can dissipate--a vandalism inspired by the desire to see
+the building shining with colour and gold, and which impelled people to
+restore it without paying the smallest heed to the most elementary
+principles of archæology. The alcazar of Seville is not a classic work;
+we do not find in it the stamp of originality, and the ineffaceable
+character that one admires in ancient works like the Parthenon, and in
+more modern ones like the Escurial; the first on account of their
+splendid simplicity, and the latter for their great size and taciturn
+grandeur. In the alcazar of Yakub Yusuf, the prestige of a heroic
+generation has disappeared, and the existence of Christian kings, who
+have lived there and enriched it with a thousand pages of our glorious
+history, is perfectly represented there. The Almohades who left the
+purest African souvenirs there, and Jalubi who followed Almehdi to the
+conquest of Africa, left on the walls Roman remains, taken from the
+vanquished people. St. Ferdinand, who conquered it; Don Pedro I., who
+re-built it; Don Juan II., who restored the most beautiful halls; the
+Catholic monarchs, who built chapels and oratories within its precincts;
+Charles V., who added more than half, with the moderated style of this
+epoch of sublime renaissance; Philip III., and Philip V., who further
+increased it by erecting edifices in the surrounding gardens; all these,
+and many other princes and great lords, who inhabited it
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--ARCADE IN THE PRINCIPAL COURT.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE INTERIOR.]
+
+for six centuries, changed its original construction in such a degree
+that it no longer resembles, to-day, the original Oriental monument,
+although we have covered it with arabesques, and embellished it with
+mosaics and gilding.”
+
+All that succeeding generations have constructed in the alcazar has
+contributed to deprive it of its Mohammedan character. Transformed into
+a lordly mansion of more modern epochs, one no longer sees there the
+voluptuous saloons of the harem, nor the silent spaces reserved for
+prayer, nor the baths, nor the fountains, nor the strong ramparts,
+supporting the galleries, which, by circular paths, communicated with
+the rich sleeping apartments, situated in the square towers. It is not
+that Arab art is in a different form here to that seen in other parts of
+Spain; but while the Moors always built palaces in close proximity to
+fortified places, they here combined the two, and for that reason they
+sacrificed the exterior decoration to the works of fortification and
+defence. On approaching the palace, one finds marks of grandeur, but one
+must not look for them in the structure, but rather in the numerous
+reparations and additions which have been made there, and also in the
+solid walls, dominating the ruins of those castles, which seem to
+protest eternally against the cold indifference with which so many
+generations have passed over them. And if, on the one hand, there is no
+doubt that this is the old wall or the ancient tower, on the other hand,
+the traveller, greedy for impressions left by a past world, finds
+nothing but square enclosures, gardens and rectangular saloons of the
+mansions of the 16th century. Here there is nothing so majestic as the
+Giralda; nothing so essentially Oriental as the mosque of Cordova;
+nothing so fantastic and so picturesque as the alcazar of Granada. One
+only sees here the chronicle of an art, carried out by a thousand
+artists, obeying different beliefs, and which presents rather the
+appearance of a game played by children who had invaded the spot where
+the most valued works of their ancestors were preserved, rather than the
+passionate conception of the terrible descendants of Hagar, who in fifty
+years invaded half the globe. But one still catches something of the
+spirit of an art that was almost a religion, as one lingers in the quiet
+gardens of the alcazar; the deep impress of the Moor will never be
+entirely obliterated from the courts and saloons of this palace of
+dreams. As Mr. W. M. Gallichan writes: “The nightingales still sing
+among the odorous orange bloom, and in the tangle of roses, birds build
+their nests. Fountains tinkle beneath gently waving palms; the savour of
+Orientalism clings to the spot. Here wise men discussed in the cool of
+summer nights, when the moon stood high over the Giralda, and white
+beams fell through the spreading boughs of lemon trees, and shivered
+upon the tiled pavements. In this garden the musicians played, and the
+tawny dancers writhed and curved their lissom bodies in dramatic Eastern
+dances.”
+
+Ichabod! The moody potentate, bowed down with the cares of high office,
+no longer treads the dim corridor, or lingers in the shade of the palm
+trees. No sound of gaiety reverberates in the deserted courts, no voice
+of orator is heard in the Hall of Justice. The green lizards bask on the
+deserted benches of the gardens. Rose petals strew the paved paths.
+One’s footsteps echo in the gorgeous patios, whose walls have witnessed
+many a scene of pomp, tragedy, and pathos. The spell of the past holds
+one; and, before the imagination, troops a long procession of
+illustrious sovereigns, courtiers, counsellors, and warriors.
+
+This wonderful monument, which has moved generations of artists and
+poets to rhapsody and praise, and inspired
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE.
+
+ALCAZAR.
+
+Details of Hall of Ambassadors.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369-1379.]
+
+that picturesque Italian author, De Amicis, to people the gardens of the
+alcazar with Mo’temid and his beautiful favourite, Itamad, who had been
+dead nearly a century before the alcazar was erected, failed to create
+any impression in the mind of Mr. John Lomas, whose strictures upon the
+place in his _Sketches of Spain_ must ever be a standing reproof to
+those who dare to see Oriental beauty in this Sevillian castle. “Greater
+far,” says Mr. Lomas, “is the alcazar in reputation than in intrinsic
+worth. Like the Mother Church, it forms a sort of sightseers’ goal, and
+it shares equally in the good fortune of so entirely satisfying the
+requirements of superficial observers, that it is esteemed a kind of
+heresy to take exception to its noble rank as a typical piece of Moorish
+work. Yet it is just a great house, of southern and somewhat ancient
+construction--say the fifteenth century--with a number of square rooms
+and courts, arranged and decorated after Arab models as far as was
+possible in the case of a building designed to fulfil the requirements
+of Western civilisation. Nothing else. Of course, if the courts and
+towers of the Alhambra have not been seen--or are not to be
+compassed--there will be found here an infinity of fresh loveliness in
+design and colouring, together with a vast amount of detail which will
+repay study. But even then it must all be looked upon as an exceedingly
+clever reproduction of beautiful and artful forms, not as their best
+possible setting forth, or type. There are dark winding
+passages--evidently dictated by the exigencies of the work--but they
+yield none of the delicate surprises which form so great a charm of the
+old Moorish monuments. There is any amount of rich decoration and
+Moresque detail; but never the notion of the luxury and voluptuousness
+of Eastern life, or a suggestion of its thousand-and-one adjuncts. There
+are, here and there, indubitable traces of the original Eleventh
+Century alcazar of Yakub Yusuf” (it was not built until the latter part
+of the twelfth century) “but there is nothing either distinctive or
+precious about them, and the rest is a record rather of Christian than
+Arab ways.”
+
+Mr. Lomas is perfectly correct in suggesting that the alcazar of Seville
+is, in great measure, a reproduction of the delights of the Alhambra, a
+reproduction due, without any doubt, to that school of architecture
+which embellished the sumptuous palace of Granada for the kings of the
+second Nazarite dynasty. In it we see the record of the ingenious
+almizates, of its gates and ceilings, of those stalactited domes, which
+dazzle and confuse, of those wall-facings encrusted with rich
+ornamentation, of those graceful Byzantine and Moorish geometrical
+designs, which even to-day are the despair of perspective painters, of
+those enchanting saloons where the genius of harmony seems to rest, and
+of those balmy gardens which invite repose, meditation, and melancholy.
+
+While it is generally accepted that the city of Seville possessed no
+alcazar of striking importance until the declining power of the
+khalifate of Cordova made Seville the capital of an independent kingdom,
+there is substantial reason for believing that in the foundations of the
+present superb edifice there are unmistakable relics of an earlier work
+of truly Arab architecture. The Almohades so thoroughly effaced and
+distorted the magnificence of their predecessors’ work that it would be
+impossible to point with certainty to any of the original remains of
+this many-times-restored palace. The ultra-semi-circular arches which
+are seen in the Hall of the Ambassadors, those graceful arches which
+carry the mind from Seville to the graceful arcades of the mosque of
+Cordova, incline one to regard this apartment as a relic of Abbadite
+antiquity, while the rich columns with
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.
+
+Blank Window.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--RIGHT ANGLE OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXX.
+
+Soffit of Arch.]
+
+their gilded capitals of the Corinthian style appears to contain
+authentic proof of their Arabic-Byzantine origin. Señor Pedro de
+Madrazo, whilst admitting the difficulty of determining the period to
+which the various parts of the alcazar belong, disregards the
+conclusions of Señores José Amador de los Rios and his son Rodrigo, who
+resolutely denied the antiquity of these ultra-semi-circular arches, and
+declares the Hall of Ambassadors to be an example of Abbadite
+architecture. He further attributes to the same epoch, the showy
+ascending arcade of the narrow staircase which leads from the entrance
+court to the upper gallery, and rises near the balcony or choir of the
+chapel, and the three beautiful arches, sustained by exquisite capitals,
+which remain as the sole relic of the decoration of the abandoned
+apartment situated close to the “Princes’ Saloon.”
+
+In his work on “Sevilla,” the same authority distinguishes between the
+art of the Mudejare, or transition artificers, and that of the Almohado
+Moors. “The latter art,” he observes, “is less simple, less select in
+its ornamentation, discloses less rational regularity, and is, generally
+speaking, more affected.” These differences may be seen in a comparison
+between the Moorish Giralda of Seville and the beautiful creation of
+artists of the Arab-Andalusian period which are to be studied in the
+ornamental parts of the Alhambra. The Almohade architecture displays a
+base taste, which imitates rather than feels, and creates forms by
+exaggerations which are unsuitable to the design, and thus differs in
+æsthetic principles from the Mudejaren-Moorish work of the 13th, 14th,
+and 15th centuries, which reveals an instinctive feeling for the
+beautiful in ornamentation, which never loses sight of the elegant, the
+graceful, and the bold, and consequently never falls into aberration.
+The Almohade period, in short, discloses at once the force of the
+barbarous spirit civilised by conquest, while the latter offers the
+enduring character of cultured taste and wisdom in all the epochs of
+prosperous or adverse fortune; both are the faithful expression of
+people of different ages, origins, and aptitudes. “It is certain,”
+declares Señor de Madrazo, “that the innovations which characterise
+Mussulman architecture in Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries, cannot
+be explained as a natural mutation from the Arab art of the khalifate,
+or as a preparation or transition to the art of Granada, because there
+is very little similarity between the style called secondary or Moorish
+and the Arab-Byzantine and Andalusian, while on the other hand it is
+evident that the Saracen monuments of Fez and Morocco, of the reigns of
+Yusuf ben Texpin, Abdel-ben-Ali, Elmansur and Nasser, bear the principal
+character of the ornamentation which the Almohades made general in
+Spain.”
+
+It must always be remembered when approaching the forbidding exterior of
+the alcazar, that it was erected to serve the purpose of a fortress as
+well as a palace. Yusuf is supposed to have used a Roman prætorium as
+the foundation of his castle, and there are parts of the wall which date
+back to Roman times. But the principal gateway which gives entrance to
+the palace is of Arab origin, and it is evident that all the upper part,
+from the frieze with the Gothic inscription, is purely Mohammedan,
+according to the Persic style, very much used in the entrances to
+mosques of the first period, in Asia. The two pilasters, in their entire
+height, as well as the sculptured framing of the lower part, are of the
+Arab style; but the balconies with arches, and Byzantine columns, the
+Roman capitals, the lintels of the doors and windows with Gothic
+springs, are indications, which prove the reconstruction of the time of
+Don Pedro. The later restorations have not completely
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--UPPER PART OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+changed the primitive form, but have only modified it. On entering the
+palace one finds other works less Arab than these, the ornaments do not
+form an integral part of the decoration, and one can observe that in
+order to place them it was necessary to remove inscriptions and
+Mohammedan shields which filled the little spaces.
+
+But in passing this square entrance, whose form recalls Egypt, and which
+began to be used when the horseshoe arch was no longer in vogue, we find
+ourselves in the chief courtyard of the alcazar, which makes a slight
+detour in order not to be overlooked from the street, and which offers
+an extravagant assemblage of lines without departing from exactness. The
+actual lines of this superb edifice, mentioning principally the two
+types of architecture which prevail, are the Moorish of the works
+erected from 1353 to 1364, and the Renaissance, in the works carried out
+under the monarchs of the house of Austria.
+
+It is curious that while the Alhambra was allowed to fall into decay,
+and suffered periods of neglect that could be reckoned by scores of
+years at a stretch, the alcazar has seldom been free from the hands of
+the restorers. The fact accounts, of course, for the splendid state of
+preservation in which it is to be found to-day, but it also owes to it
+the weird incongruity of style and decoration which lovers of pure
+Moorish art deplore. After Pedro had almost entirely reconstructed the
+palace--and to him the alcazar owes many of its best portions--it came
+under the restoring influence of Juan II., that weak but artistic
+monarch, whose handiwork is seen in some of the chief apartments. The
+arch-vandal, Charles V., whose palace in the Alhambra would be a work of
+art anywhere save on the spot on which he chose to erect it, could not
+be expected to spare the alcazar. Under his direction the greater
+portion of the Renaissance additions were made, and the portraits of
+Spanish kings hung in the Hall of Ambassadors were introduced by his
+successor. In the 17th century this favourite residence of the kings of
+Spain attained to the zenith of its magnificence; and then for a whole
+century the palace was allowed, for the first and only time, to fall
+into a state of disrepair. Spain was passing through troublous times,
+and its rulers had weightier matters to absorb their attention. The
+alcazar, stricken by neglect, shrank to something like its original
+proportions, and its beauties fell into decay. In the middle of the 19th
+century Queen Isabella II. rescued the ancient structure from the
+ravages of time, and the present order and distinction which it now
+enjoys is largely due to her timely efforts.
+
+After the restorations made by Don Pedro were finished, the alcazar had
+various entrances, but the principal were the two opened in the old Arab
+wall, which lead to the courts called the “Banderas y de la Monteria.”
+The delicate pointed arches which composed them were almost hidden
+between the massive towers of the neighbouring minaret; nothing
+externally reveals the dazzling beauty which is to be seen behind these
+walls.
+
+In the courtyard one sees very fine ornaments placed hap-hazard, which
+had been left over from the last restorations of the palace of Granada,
+and which were sent here without any consideration for period or style.
+That this system prevailed can be proved by reference to the archives of
+the royal patrimony, where there is a document requesting, on the part
+of the keeper of the alcazar, that some of the “best” arabesques, which
+were being used for the restorations at Granada, should be sent to
+Seville. These ornaments, of different epochs and styles, can be seen on
+the walls of the alcazar, face to face with others corresponding to the
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--UPPER PORTIONS OF THE COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE DOLLS.]
+
+infancy of the art. The Alhambra does not suffer from these
+incongruities, because it has not suffered a great transformation
+similar to that which the alcazar underwent at the hands of Don Pedro.
+It has not been altered to suit the requirements of a Christian court,
+and it has never been occupied by great personages, with large revenues
+at their disposal, to reconstruct it according to their caprice.
+
+The ornaments of the ceilings of the alcazar are magnificent, because,
+as Contreras points out, the Moorish workmen were beginning to
+understand all the majesty and grandeur that Christian art stamped upon
+the complicated and minute assemblage of Mussulman edifices; they began
+to make rich coverings, with bolts or stays with apertures, and with
+hollows in the form of an arch, and keystones imitating rhombus, stars,
+and bow ornaments. The famous Gothic roofs and ceilings of the Bretonne
+buildings of the ninth century have never been able to equal this one,
+because here one finds more beautiful specimens than in the other
+edifices, when the vaults with little stalactites had not yet acquired
+their complete development. The perfectly-worked and carved designs of
+the doors give a great relief to the palace. One remarks here that the
+ceilings are less magnificent or luxurious, when the ornamentation is
+less classic, and, as at Fez, the walls were covered with hangings
+instead of reliefs in plaster; and then they used more gold in the
+cornices, in the friezes, in the domes, in the lintels, and in the
+crownings, whilst the walls remained bare, as in the Moz-Arabian
+constructions. There was here such a mixture of styles, such a confusion
+of ideas, and such a number of little quadrangular windows, which
+interrupt the general line of the ornamentation, as one does not see
+anywhere else. One sees, too, walls covered with arabesques, stretching
+like pieces of tapestry or coverings of bright colours, and which
+produce a rich effect, beautiful and varied, thought-out and
+elegant--but not at all simple--which is the chief condition of art in
+the epochs of great culture.
+
+In going through this alcazar one sees nothing but square saloons, one
+following the other, of the same shape and dimensions, occasionally
+varied by the composition of the arabesques traced there. Symmetry has
+been sacrificed to convenience, and the central arches to the alignment
+of the doors. In the time of the Arabs the alcazar constituted a series
+of constructions, flanked by the walls and the towers, which surrounded
+the town, which had not the symmetrical form of the rectangular plan of
+the buildings of the Renaissance. Neither does it resemble the palaces
+of Egypt or of Syria. These quays, placed side by side, give this
+edifice the appearance of a Christian house of the fifteenth century;
+and one can only confidently give the name “Arab” to the Court of the
+Damsels, the Hall of Ambassadors, and the apartments immediately
+adjoining it.
+
+The Court of the Banners, and of the Hunters, lead to the Court of the
+Principal Façade, where one sees the first specimen of Mussulman
+decoration! In all these divisions the monument is only revealed by the
+vestiges of battlements of the towers and of the walls, in which the
+original doors were opened, and where the sultans had the chambers for
+judging the quarrels of their subjects,--a custom perpetrated by the
+Christian monarchs. In the Court of the Hunters one can still see the
+apartment named the Hall of Justice, where all writers suppose that the
+audiences were held. Here Don Pedro held his tribunal; and the
+traveller, Don Antonio Ponz, asserts that he saw one of the columns of
+the memorable seat occupied by the monarch when he held those famous
+audiences, which were an imitation of the
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--THE LITTLE COURT.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW IN THE LITTLE COURT.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.
+
+Cornice at Springing of Arch of Doorway at one of the Entrances.]
+
+judgments of the East and of the feudal lords of the West, and which
+magnified the idea of justice in the eyes of foolish and irreflective
+people, but which were held by men of good sense to be a mere pretence
+of equity, with which to mask his tyranny. The place where justice was
+administered in the time of the Almohadan kings was in the Court of the
+Monteria--a vast and beautiful apartment, one of the oldest
+constructions in the alcazar, and of a more purely Moorish style.
+
+The Court of the Hunters leads to another larger court, known as the
+Princes’ Hall. This is more regular in form, and in it rises the chief
+entrance, dazzling and richly ornamented with painting and gilding, from
+its twin windows to the topmost moulding of its projecting eaves, of the
+purest Almohadan style. How can one describe it? Not only the entrance,
+but the whole façade is of precious marbles, the capitals of the columns
+being in the most exquisite Moorish taste; and the facia of interlaced
+arches above the doorway display the escutcheons of Castile and Leon;
+while round another facia, running between the brackets over the twin
+windows of the principal floor, there is a legend in Gothic characters,
+which says: “The very high, and very noble, and very powerful, and very
+victorious Don Pedro, King of Castile and Leon, commanded these
+alcazars, and these palaces, and these doorways to be made, which was
+done in the era of one thousand four hundred and two.” The cupola of the
+Princes’ Hall rises above this façade, its outer walls being adorned
+with little arches and blue tile work, in imitation of a pyramid, and
+bearing at its summit, in the Oriental fashion, a weather-cock with
+gilded spheres.
+
+On entering the vestibule, one sees first the result of unfortunate
+modern reformations, little rooms or recesses to right and left, now
+almost stripped of their ancient ornamentation. On taking the corridor,
+which is at the back of a sort of ante-chamber, nearly square, one
+arrives at the chief inner court called the Court of the Damsels. There
+is an unfounded tradition which says this court derives its name from
+the disgraceful tribute of one hundred damsels levied by Mauregato, and
+paid to the khalifs of Cordova, it being supposed that the throne upon
+which the Moorish king sat when receiving this tribute was situated in
+this court. In point of fact, as Pedro de Medrazo reminds us, there were
+no Moorish kings in Spain, and neither was Seville the capital of the
+Andalusian khalifate, nor can it be asserted that there was a Saracen
+palace there before the eleventh century. Without any doubt this court
+was part of the great restorations of the fourteenth century. Its plan
+is a rectangle, with galleries of marble columns in couples and pointed
+mitred arches; the central arches of each side are higher than the rest,
+and instead of resting, as these do on the columns, they are supported
+by small square pillars, which appear to be held up by the capitals.
+These small pillars have beautiful little columns at their angles, which
+at first sight seem to be a prelude to the caprices of the Renaissance,
+which loved so much to surmount one style by another; but here it is
+really an accident very characteristic of the Arabic-Granadian
+architecture, such as is often to be noticed in the Courts of the
+Alhambra.
+
+These arches are only seen in the façade here, in the House of Pilate,
+and in the buildings of the eighth century in the East. One could not
+explain them unless there were hanging decorations, such as tapestries
+attached to the walls, which were neither seen nor guessed in the
+intercolumniations. It is a strange shape, which is elegant on account
+of the lobules, the point, and the horseshoe-formed
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS FROM THE LITTLE COURT.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS.]
+
+span, which at a later period regulated the arches of the palaces of
+Fez, of Tunis, and of Cairo.
+
+The second gallery of the Court of the Damsels, added to the ancient
+construction, is an addition of little importance; but it is a fine
+court, if one considers the modifications of its style, its socles
+showing beautiful panels of decorated porcelain of admirable delicacy.
+Different doors lead to the saloon of Charles V., to that of the
+Ambassadors, and to those of the “Caracol,” or of Don Maria de Padilla.
+They have scarfs cut into polygons, which cover them on both sides, but
+this fine work has been badly restored with stucco barbarously painted.
+
+The Hall of Ambassadors is a square apartment of a solemn aspect, with
+four frontages composed of high arches, which enclose twin windows,
+placed on slender columns, whose little arches are more than
+semi-circular, without having the characteristic form of the
+horse-shoe,--a curve which marks the decadent transition. The capitals
+are degenerate Greco-Roman; but the great decorative arch with running
+knots, although it has an Arab curve, has not the two squares in height
+from the floor of the hall, and that deprives it of elegance in its
+ornamentation. The spaces, or triangles, are not original, the work is
+interrupted, as in the inner side of the wall of the frontage, by
+shutters which open, as though escaping from the tympan of the twin
+windows. A wide frieze of windows, or painted transparencies, stretches
+above, in an admirable manner, and higher still there is a geometrical
+band of ornaments in the form of knots, and then come architraves and
+supports on which the roof rests. The sub-basements of porcelain are
+adorned with arabesques, and the connecting doors are decorated with
+almost exaggerated profusion. The open balconies, with the eagles on
+their consols, are an eternal affront for him who had them made; and we
+may say the same thing of the portraits with Gothic frames, placed under
+the arch-like hollows of the walls, and also of the gilding, which has
+not the fine ornamentation of blue, red, and black, which renders these
+little vaults more graceful, when they are done by Arabs. The spherical
+cupola, with rafters with arabesques forming stars of symmetrical
+polygons, may have been constructed for stained glass windows at a
+higher light, but later it was ineffectively decorated with little
+mirrors. The mosaics have been restored with pieces larger than the
+originals, and the jasper columns seem to be Roman and not Arab, as do
+many others of the decadence; and the capitals too, without uniformity,
+and unsuited to the columns, appear to be Moz-Arabian work, which is
+seen in many of the Saracen mosques.
+
+The type of the African inscriptions in the alcazar is not as fine or as
+pure as are those in the Hall of Comares at Granada; but on the other
+hand the classic character of the cufic inscriptions here is more
+uniform and more simple. The ornaments, in the shape of leaves, of pine
+cones, and of palms interlaced with ribbons, with geometrical outlines,
+is a style that is no longer seen after the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century. The little windows, in parallelograms above the doors, the
+Roman imposts, the Gothic carvings, and the escutcheons with broken
+chiselings shown in this palace, are the work of several generations who
+were wanting in the consciousness of art.
+
+Yet the Hall of Ambassadors is beyond dispute the most splendid and
+beautiful apartment of all the palaces of Moorish architecture belonging
+to the Crown in Spain. The painting and gilding of arabesques, the
+lovely carved wooden ceilings, now shaped like inverted bowls, now like
+sections of a sphere, and now like capricious many-sided
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--INTERIOR OF THE HALL OF AMBASSADORS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS.]
+
+figures, which reflect the light and shade with a marvellous effect; the
+inscriptions in African characters; the rich doors of marquetry,
+surrounded by Arabic invocations (a beautiful work done by artificers of
+Toledo); the columns of various marbles with capitals of exquisite cut,
+now primitive, now Almohadan, now Moorish; the variegated marble of the
+pavement, the perforated stucco of the partitions, the ingenious work,
+with birds introduced in the doorways; and finally this strange
+combination of five different styles, which in theory is so impossible,
+and in practice so harmonious--Arabic, Almohadan, Gothic, Granadian, and
+Renaissance--to be seen in so many apartments of the alcazar, but more
+especially in this hall, are things which the pen could never describe
+satisfactorily, and which must be left to the impression produced by a
+sight of the original, or to a contemplation of its pictured
+representation. For this reason one may not endeavour to describe,
+either technically or minutely, this magnificent hall, to the gradual
+architectural composition of which overseers and workmen of so many
+different times contributed. The Abbaditas made the bold horse-shoe
+arches of the lower part; the Almohadans, and afterwards the school of
+Christians of Granada which arose, carried out the work of ornamenting
+the walls with the ornamental arches, the perforated windows, the facias
+of little interlaced arches, and the inscriptions; and they covered the
+hall with the marvellous dome shaped like an inverted bowl. It is
+probable that the architects of the Catholic monarchs constructed the
+third body in the pointed style, forming a series of corrupted trefoils
+bordered with lilies, in whose centres the portraits of the kings of
+Spain, from Chindasvinto, are reproduced; and, finally, the kings of the
+House of Austria added the third body of the decoration, four balconies,
+of great projection, which doubtless formerly were twin windows
+(ajimeces) with one or more columns, supported by griffons gilded, and
+of bold outline.
+
+It was probably in this saloon that the ceremonious and perfidious
+reception of Abu Said, King of Granada, by Don Pedro took place. The
+usurper of the Throne of Granada presented himself to the owner of the
+alcazar, thinking he had ensured his personal safety by the gifts he had
+forwarded, and by his complete submission to the wishes of his host. But
+after being entertained at a splendid supper, he was rewarded with
+prison, and death, accompanied with the most horrible mockeries. Amongst
+the jewels, with which the unhappy Abu Said is supposed to have hoped to
+win the heart of his faithless enemy, was the immense ruby, which to-day
+shines in the royal crown of Edward VII. It was given by Don Pedro to
+the Black Prince; it later came into the possession of Queen Mary Stuart
+of Scotland, and through her son, James I., returned once more to
+England.
+
+If the Hall of Ambassadors is rich, the Court of the Dolls is not less
+so in its own style. This, with some other saloons, constituted one of
+the remaining splendours of the alcazar which are associated with Don
+Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago, the timid son of Alonso XI.
+We cannot tell from what source this court has received its modern
+denomination. In the old chronicles there is no trace of such a name;
+but they, and tradition, have handed us down copious notes, all of which
+make this part of the alcazar the theatre of that sanguinary drama of
+the Fourteenth Century. After reading these chronicles and romances, one
+imagines the ghosts of the actors moving about the apartments; one sees
+Don Pedro, who has already planned his execrable plot, receiving, with
+false expressions of interest, his half-brother Don Fadrique; one sees
+the lovely Padilla,
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--THRONE OF JUSTICE.]
+
+[Illustration: ALCAZAR--HALL OF AMBASSADORS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--FAÇADE OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.
+
+Borders of Arches.]
+
+sad and terrified in her room, in the “caracol” apartments, wishing to
+reveal the danger which awaits him to the Master, but not daring to do
+so; and one also seems to feel the impending doom of the eccentric
+prince, when he is deprived of the help of his servants, whom the
+porters force to leave the courtyard with their mules, where they were
+waiting for their lord. And finally we see the return of Don Fadrique to
+the presence of the irritated monarch, who has called him, and who has
+ordered that his companions shall be detained outside the doors, whilst
+the stewards of the king kill his unfortunate brother. Fadrique, after a
+desperate struggle, manages to escape from the murderers and to reach
+the court, looking for the postern of the corral, which he fancies is
+open--all the time making unavailing efforts to draw his sword, the
+handle of which has become entangled in the cords of his sash--and there
+at last he falls, his head being crushed by a blow of a club. Other
+accounts declare that when Fadrique returned to Don Pedro’s apartment,
+after paying a courtesy visit to Maria de Padilla, he was met with the
+sentence, shouted in the king’s voice, “Kill the Master of Santiago!”
+Don Fadrique drew his sword and made a valorous defence, but was
+overpowered and struck down by blows on the head. Seeing that his
+half-brother was still breathing, the king handed his own drawn dagger
+to an attendant and commanded him to kill the Master outright.
+
+To-day we cannot say positively which was the “Palacio del Yeso,” or
+“Palace of stucco or lime,” where Don Pedro received his unhappy
+half-brother, nor yet which were the apartments of the “caracol.” It is
+thought the court which has the chief façade of the alcazar was that
+which in the chronicle is called the “caracol,” and that the “postern”
+was that which led from this court to that of the “banderas.” It is
+true that tradition persists in pointing out the Court of the Dolls and
+the Hall of Ambassadors as the theatre of this horrible fraticide,
+without taking into account the notes of the historian, who relates that
+Don Fadrique, pursued by his murderers, ran in the direction of the
+postern, where he had been warned that he could make a stand, but found
+that all his escort had been driven out.
+
+The King Don Pedro fills with his grand sinister figure the apartments
+which he occupied, and even those added by later monarchs, just as the
+whole gloomy pile of the Escurial seems to be haunted by the ambiguous
+personality of Philip II. Sad privilege of despots; the terror which
+they inspire in life, survives them, freezing the smile of happiness on
+the lips of generations, who are free from their malevolent actions,
+even in the very chambers which they dedicate to their pleasures.
+
+The architecture of the Court of the Dolls is purely in the style of
+Granada. The surface of the arches is covered with minute mosaic work,
+and they rest upon beautiful brick pillars, sustained by marble columns
+with delicate capitals, while the double partitions, covered with
+perforated work, are of brick, wood, and stucco. Delicate tints cover
+the ornamentation with a beautiful veil, which is like a lovely Persian
+tapestry. This court is a rectangle with unequal sides; there is a great
+arch in those looking towards the Hall of Ambassadors, somewhat
+pear-shaped, between two smaller arches of the same form; in the other
+two sides there is a large arch and a smaller one, all resting upon
+graceful columns of different colours, in the capitals of which
+(believed to belong to the primitive epoch, on account of their
+resemblance with those of the primitive part of the Mosque of Cordova)
+there is a freshness and delicacy of line which holds the imagination
+captive. The
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--INTERIOR OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT
+1369--1379.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--GENERAL VIEW OF THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS.]
+
+entablatures, which are borne by the columns, are finely decorated with
+vertical borders, formed by inscriptions in cufic characters. The upper
+part of this lovely court has been spoilt by bad restorations.
+
+The Hall of Ambassadors, as well as the Court of the Dolls, is
+surrounded by beautiful saloons, starting from the chief façade of the
+alcazar, running round the north-east angle of the building, and forming
+a series of mysterious and voluptuous rooms adjoining the galleries of
+the “Gardens” of the “Princes” of the “Grotto” and of the “Dance,” till
+they terminate at the other south-west corner of the Court of the
+Damsels where the chapel used to be, and where it is believed the
+luxurious apartments of the “caracol” stood. According to tradition they
+were at the eastern side of the Court of the Damsels where the lower
+chapel stands to-day; this space adjoins at its north-east corner the
+baths, which still bear the name of the unhappy favourite, more worthy
+of pity than of hatred; and they also lead, by a narrow and almost
+hidden staircase,--the oldest in the alcazar,--to the bedroom of Don
+Pedro, situated in the story above. Nothing remains of the dwelling
+which the enamoured king prepared for the woman he loved most in his
+distracted and changeful life.
+
+The entrance to the famous and regal baths of Doña Maria de Padilla is
+in the garden of the “Dance,” below the saloons constructed in the time
+of Charles V. It is supposed they were used by the sultanas, whilst the
+Saracen court was at Seville. They are surrounded by orange and lemon
+trees, and not enclosed by those massive walls which give the appearance
+of a gloomy dungeon. At the eastern extremity of the garden of the
+“Dance” there is a tank or fountain. It is said that one day the king,
+being much preoccupied with the choice of a judge to whom to confide a
+very complicated and obscure case, drew near this tank, and cutting an
+orange in two, threw one half on the surface of the water, where it
+floated. He then sent for one of his judges and asked him what he saw
+floating on the water. “An orange, Sire,” was the reply. He received the
+same answer from several other judges whom he summoned; but finally came
+one who, when asked the question, broke off a branch of one of the trees
+near by, and with it drew the fruit floating on the water to the edge,
+when he answered, “Half an orange, Sire.” Whereupon the monarch decided
+to entrust him with the conduct of the case.
+
+The strange character of Don Pedro, and his manner of administering
+justice, take us now to the upper floor of the alcazar, to the
+south-east corner, where, at the end of a series of saloons of little
+interest, with rich bowl-shaped ceilings and cornices of mosaic, there
+is the king’s sleeping chamber, whose walls still preserve the high
+socle of inlaid tile work, the stucco ornaments with borders of
+inscriptions in African characters, and the recessed windows with
+shutters, the frieze with stalactites, the ceiling of good design and
+beautiful gilding, and an alcove with a mosaic arch. Near one of the
+corners there is a bas-relief in one of the walls, representing a man
+seated with his body twisted towards the entrance door, and his head
+turned upwards, as though contemplating the skull which is to be seen
+above the facia of African characters. It appears that this horrible
+emblem was placed there by order of Don Pedro, in order to perpetuate
+the memory of his summary punishment of some deceitful judges.
+
+The Princes’ Hall and the Oratory are the only upper apartments, prior
+to the Renaissance, which are left for us to examine,--a fire in the
+year 1762 having destroyed many of the rooms of the upper story. But we
+must first
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COURT OF THE VIRGINS.]
+
+take note of the external objects which surround us. Don Pedro’s bedroom
+looks on the south over the gardens; the Princes’ Hall looks north, and
+occupies the upper floor of the chief façade, whose elegant “ajimeces”
+illuminate it. The oratory is in the east wall. In the bedroom there is
+a balcony, which leads to a wide gallery, with other little balconies,
+with seats running round them, at the end of which there is a sort of
+turret, with three semi-circular arches, supported by pairs of marble
+columns, with capitals of the purest Arab style. The spacious gardens
+stretch at our feet, forming a delightful spectacle. From the Princes’
+Hall one can perceive, above the watch-towers of the alcazar, the
+innumerable perforated weather-cocks of the cathedral; and, towering
+over all, like a gigantic sentinel, the Giralda, crowned with the sacred
+sign of the conversion to the faith of Christ.
+
+In the Princes’ Hall and in the Oratory the influence of the pointed
+style of architecture is very noticeable; and yet in studying the arches
+of the Oratory and the little pillars, which surmount the columns in the
+centre, the influence of Moorish architecture on the Gothic or pointed
+architecture of the third period is most striking. The columns of the
+Princes’ Hall, and of the other adjoining apartments, are of marble,
+with very rich capitals. According to Jeronimo Zurita, these columns
+were in the royal palace of Valencia, and were removed after the defeat
+of Don Pedro, King of Aragon, by the King of Castile. There are
+luxurious divans all round the hall, and everything is rich except the
+ceiling, now destroyed, and the floor, which is poor and in very bad
+repair. The Oratory was built by order of the Catholic monarchs in 1504;
+its altar screen has a picture in the centre, representing the
+Visitation, with the signature, “Niculoso Francisco Italiano,” _me
+fecit_, which is notable for the mixture of the pure Italian school,
+and the realistic Dutch school in its design. The blue tile plaques of
+this oratory are purely Italian, and perhaps they are the most beautiful
+examples of this class of Christian ornamentation in Andalusia.
+
+Ford says that the Emperor, Charles V., married Doña Isabella of
+Portugal in this oratory, but the statement is not correct. Sandoval,
+better informed, describes the happy event in the following
+words:--“Eight days after the empress entered Seville, the emperor
+entered, being greeted with the same ceremonies. He went direct to the
+principal church, and from there passed to the alcazar, where the
+empress awaited him, accompanied by the Duchess of Medina-Sidonia, Doña
+Ana of Aragon, and the Marchioness of Cenete, wife of the Count of
+Nassau, and by other great ladies; the empress and her ladies being all
+most richly dressed. Afterwards the emperor arrived; they were married
+that same night by the Cardinal Legate, in the great room which is
+called the “half orange” (the Hall of Ambassadors), in the presence of
+all the prelates and grandees assembled there. The empress appeared to
+all present one of the most beautiful women in the world, as is
+testified to by those who saw her, and by her portraits. The hour of
+supper came, and the emperor and empress retired to their apartments;
+and after midnight, the emperor wishing it thus for religious reasons,
+an altar was erected in one of the apartments of the alcazar, and the
+Archbishop of Toledo, who had remained for the purpose, said mass
+there.”
+
+This marriage, as M. de Latour rightly says, was the last memorable page
+in the history of the alcazar; and the works completed by the emperor
+are the last notable improvements made in the monument. The architects,
+Louis and Gaspar de Vaga, were responsible for important works
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.
+
+Borders of Arches.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--GALLERY IN THE COURT OF THE HUNDRED VIRGINS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--THE SULTANA’S APARTMENT AND COURT OF THE VIRGINS.]
+
+in the alcazar, the high gallery of the Court of the Damsels, and those
+looking south over the gardens and over the baths of Doña Maria de
+Padilla. New habitations were then erected, which shone with the art of
+the Renaissance, intertwined with the Arab adornments of the style
+called “plateresco.” But the emperor did not confine himself to
+restoring, re-building, and to erecting fresh works in the old alcazar;
+nor were the above-mentioned architects the only ones who worked, but he
+also enlarged and embellished the gardens, and in that which is called
+the “Lion Garden,” he had built by a certain Juan Hernandez, in the year
+1540, an elegant dining hall, of singular architecture--half Italian,
+half Moorish--which, without doubt, is a worthy dwelling place for a
+fairy princess of the days of chivalry. This supper hall, or pavilion,
+has a square plan, and measures ten steps in each frontage; a gallery of
+five arches surrounds it on each side, which rest on graceful pillars of
+the rarest marbles with capitals in the Moorish style. A frieze is seen,
+externally made of arabesques, forming ribbons, cutting each other at
+angles, and making stars; all the lower part is faced with blue tiles of
+Triana, with the outlines of the designs in bold relief. Inside there is
+another frieze in the “plateresque” style, cleverly perforated, and a
+socle of blue tiles with a border, in which shine the arms of Castile
+and the imperial eagles. In the centre rises a beautiful fountain with a
+white marble basin. A facia of blue tiles, in imitation of inlaid tile
+work, runs around, and between the work one can read the date of its
+construction and the abbreviated name of the artificer. The dome is of a
+decadent taste.
+
+The wall which encloses these gardens to the west is decorated in the
+style called “vignolesque,” with stout pilasters, and a frontispiece of
+two bodies above the pond in the garden of the “Dance,” and light
+arches which form a long “loggia” of beautiful effect.
+
+The works carried out under Philip III., and Philip V., and Ferdinand
+VI. are not worthy of close attention. They constructed the parts which
+face the gateway of the “banderas,” containing the “apeadero” and the
+“armeria.” The “apeadero” is a portico thirty-eight yards long and
+fifteen wide, with two rows of marble columns in pairs. The “armeria,”
+or armoury, is a spacious apartment above, destined for the object
+indicated by its name. The epoch of the construction of both is
+testified to by a stone set in the façade, which bears the following
+inscription: “Reigning in Spain Philip III., he erected this work in the
+year MDCVII.; Philip V. enlarged and repaired it, and destined it for
+the royal armoury in the year MDCCXXVIII.”
+
+Ferdinand VI. only constructed the offices above the baths of Doña Maria
+de Padilla, repairing the damage caused by the terrible earthquake of
+1755.
+
+The greater part of the halls on the upper story looking on the gardens
+perished in the dreadful fire of 1762; and the Government doubtless
+fearing the expense which would be incurred by a regular restoration in
+the original style, ordered all the roofs and ceilings destroyed by the
+fire to be repaired in the “modern manner.” The unhappy result of this
+order was to make the ceiling of many of the apartments much too low,
+and to scrape away many of the ancient arabesques from the walls. In the
+year 1805 the unhappy idea was conceived of changing the principal
+entrance, and of white-washing with hideous lime the magnificent stucco
+work in the Princes’ Hall, and of other ancient apartments. The
+unfortunate reformation even went so far as to substitute a plaster
+ceiling, which makes one shudder, for the beautiful Arab bowl-shaped
+one, and
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.
+
+Border of Arches.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--ENTRANCE TO THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--DORMITORY OF THE KINGS.]
+
+to put modern windows in the hall over the principal façade, called the
+Hall of the Princes, near the Court of the Dolls; and also to spoil the
+ceiling of the Hall of Ambassadors with heavy beams and supports, quite
+ruining the beauty of this enamelled half-orange. One is curious to know
+who it was who first tried to repair in a measure the harm done by these
+so-called “restorations.” In 1833 a rational restoration of the Court of
+the Dolls, and of the hall near it to the north, was begun with laudible
+zeal by the Don Joaquin Cortes, professor of painting, and the
+intelligent overseer, Antonio Raso, and the official, Manuel Cortes. The
+real work of restoration commenced about the year 1842, thanks to the
+praiseworthy efforts of Don Domingo de Alcega, administrator of the
+royal patrimony, and to those who helped him in his difficult task, the
+distinguished artist, Don Joaquin Dominguez Becquer, and the master
+artificer, José Gutierrez y Lopez. Señor Becquer designed the Arab
+cornice which to-day decorates the outer part of the edifice defining
+the dome of the Hall of Ambassadors, which had been half destroyed in
+1805, and he never ceased to devote his genius to the restoration, now
+in part and again general, of the most precious monument of Moorish art
+of the fourteenth century. During the years 1852 and 1853 the alcalde of
+the royal palaces completed the work of replacing some of the stucco
+ornaments in various apartments. Afterwards the vice-alcalde, Don Alonso
+Nuñez de Prado, assisted by Señor Becquer, brought a complete
+restoration to a successful end, which, though it may not be faultless
+in the eyes of a modern critic, is still worthy of praise, considering
+the period in which it was undertaken. In 1855 the administrator of the
+alcazar invited the Queen, Doña Isabella II., to interest herself in the
+works, with the result that he was able to cover the Court of the Dolls
+with glass, and to re-build the thirty-six arches of the Court of the
+Damsels.
+
+There is no inscription in the alcazar which offers a real historical or
+literary interest to the archæologist. One does not find here the
+fragments of poems on the walls which in the Alhambra rest the eye and
+speak to the intelligence in praising the heroic deeds of warriors and
+the beauties of the sumptuous habitations. In the alcazar one reads the
+Koran with its repeated salutations and some praises of Don Pedro, in
+which the praises of the Mohammedan sultans have been suppressed, also
+the word, Islamism; but we must draw attention to the fact that the
+greater number of the inscriptions are the same as those employed in the
+alcazar of Granada, repeated a thousand times, and it would be tedious
+and tiresome to accompany the artistic description with the same verse,
+repeated a hundred times, which is to be found in the different
+apartments, and interrupted a hundred times also by others put in at the
+time of the restorations. As the persons who were charged with the work
+of restoring the inscriptions did not know the ancient language, they
+very often placed the inscriptions upside down.
+
+On the façade, and over the principal entrance of the alcazar, around
+the twin windows, one reads the well-known verses: “Glory to our Lord
+the Sultan;” “Eternal Glory for Allah, the perpetual empire for Allah;”
+“Lasting happiness;” “Benediction;” “The kingdom of God, the power of
+God, glory to God;” “Happiness and peace, and the glory and generosity
+of perpetual felicity;” “In prosperous fortune this palace is the only
+one.” The inscription, “There is no conqueror but God,” placed above and
+below the wide frieze of painted porcelain, in cufic characters, in our
+opinion, must be the work of an artist from Granada.
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--THE DORMITORY.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR.
+
+FRONT OF THE SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS.]
+
+[Illustration: ALCAZAR.
+
+SLEEPING SALOON OF THE MOORISH KINGS.]
+
+Then comes the vestibule, where one sees almost the same inscriptions.
+The African characters are changed into cufic, or neskis. These are what
+are in the frieze:
+
+“Happiness and prosperity are the benefits of God;” and after: “Glory to
+our Lord the Sultan Don Pedro, may his victories be magnificent.”
+
+In the Court of the Damsels we find very much the same thing: “Praise to
+God, on account of His benefits.”
+
+It must be remarked that, in all the inscriptions mentioned above, the
+word “Islamism” has been suppressed, which proves that the artists were
+the same Arabs who, under the Christian dominion, took advantage of the
+traditional formulas in effacing the religious part of the verse.
+
+On a frieze of the same court:
+
+“Glory to our Sultan Don Pedro, may God lend him His aid and make him
+victorious,” &c., &c.
+
+Then follow a number of inscriptions of no importance, where one sees
+repeated: “Happiness, Praise, Grandeur; God is Unique, the Fulfilment of
+Hopes;” and this one, more worthy of notice, “God is Unique, He does not
+Beget, He was not Begotten, He has no Companion.” This inscription is
+also found at Granada on the Charcoal Gateway, in cufic characters, and
+it proves that it could not have been constructed under the Christian
+dominion, because it is completely contrary to the religion of Christ;
+and, consequently, that Don Pedro profited by the work of Yusuf as much
+as was possible. Amador do los Rios, the well-known _savant_, supposes
+that artists were brought from Toledo to construct this alcazar; but
+this is not exact, they only did the repairs and restorations.
+
+On one of the doors, which like all the rest in this edifice has
+undergone many restorations, the most interesting legend is found: “The
+Sultan our Lord, the exalted, noble Don Pedro, King of Castile and of
+Leon--may God perpetuate his happiness--ordered Jalabi, his architect,
+to make the doors of worked wood for this magnificent portal of
+happiness; he ordered this in honour of the Ambassadors. Joy broke out
+for their construction and dazzling embellishment. The chiselings are
+the work of artists from Toledo, and it was done in the year of grace
+1404.
+
+“Similar to the twilight of the evening, and very similar to the light
+at dawn of day, this work is dazzling on account of its brilliant
+colours and the intensity of its splendours, from which abundance of
+felicity flows for the happy town where the palaces were built, and
+these habitations, which are for our Lord and Master, the only one who
+communicates life to his splendour, the pious Sultan, who is also
+severe, had it built in the town of Seville, with the aid of his
+intercessor, in honour of God.”
+
+One sees the same inscriptions repeated in the Hall of Ambassadors, and
+in the room to the left one reads:
+
+“Oh! entrance to the habitation newly dazzling and noble, Lord of
+protection, of magnificence, and of virtues.”
+
+In the Court of the Dolls, and round the entrance arch, one reads:
+
+“There is no protection if it is not Allah, in whom I trust, for I shall
+return to him.” “All that thou dost possess comes from God,” &c., &c.
+And in the same court (cufic): “Oh! incomparable Master, issue of a
+royal race, protect it.” “Praise God for His benefits.” “God, my
+Master.”
+
+In the sleeping apartment, called that of the Moorish kings, amongst
+other known inscriptions this one is found: “Oh! illustrious new
+dwelling, thy splendid happiness has progressively increased on account
+of the lasting brilliancy
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.
+
+Ornament in Panels on the Wall.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--ROOM OF THE INFANTA.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--COLUMNS WHERE DON FADRIQUE WAS MURDERED.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.
+
+Bands, Side of Arches.]
+
+of the greatest beauty. Thou wert chosen for the place where the feasts
+should be celebrated. He is the support and the rule for all good,
+source of benefits, and food of courage! For thee....”
+
+We left the story of Seville somewhat abruptly to deal in detail with
+the alcazar. Under Almohade rule, and while the alcazar and the mosque
+were in course of construction, the city knew peace, and its commerce
+flourished. But the days of its security were limited; the end of the
+Moslem domination in Seville was drawing to its close. The revived
+prosperity of the Mohammedans spurred the Christian Spaniards to renewed
+efforts to encompass the overthrow of the infidels. Pope Innocent III.
+declared a crusade, and numbers of adventurous French and English
+free-lances travelled to Spain in answer to the call. But in 1195 the
+Christians were defeated at Alarcos, near Badajoz, and again the
+ambitious projects of San Fernando were temporarily frustrated. In 1212
+the Almohade army, it is said to the number of 600,000 men, was almost
+destroyed on the disastrous field of Las Navas, and the work of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Spain was begun. City after city was
+captured by the soldiers of Fernando III., Cordova fell in 1235, and the
+conqueror, with the help of the King of Granada, who had sworn
+allegiance to the Christian monarch, marched against Seville.
+
+The army brought by the holy king to Seville was the most brilliant and
+numerous ever seen in Christian or Mohammedan Spain. No smaller force
+would have been sufficient for the taking of a city which contained
+12,000 Mussulman families divided into twenty-four tribes, and which had
+been in the hands of the followers of Islam for more than five
+centuries. In the spring of the year 1235 the army was moved from
+Cordova and divided into two parts, one under the command of the Prince
+of Molina and the Master of Santiago, which was to march to the Ajarafe;
+and the other under the direction of the King of Granada and the Master
+of Calatrava, which was to harass the country near Jerez. The attack on
+Seville and its territories commenced immediately, and a series of
+uninterrupted victories prefaced the happy termination which was to
+crown the constant and generous efforts of the Christian warriors.
+
+Seville, at this period the court and seat of the Islamite empire, was a
+city calculated to defy the strategy of the most skilful generals, the
+valour of the most devoted men at arms. In form it would resemble a
+shield, stretching from north-east to south-west. Its head and right
+side were formed by the walls with its towers, defended by a barbican
+and a moat, with eight gates and a narrow side entrance. These gates
+were veritable fortresses. They were defended by towers and bastions.
+Their exits were narrow, and never in front; the exterior passages to
+the city had angles and turnings, and very often the first turning
+opened into a square armed place, with narrow doorways at both sides.
+“The gates of Seville,” says Morgado, “were constructed of planks of
+iron, fastened on to strong hides with steel bolts. And because it was
+best defended on its west side by the river Guadalquivir, which
+protected more than half the city, with the six gates in that side, it
+was thought well to place the strongest walls and the best fortified
+towers, with as many barbicans, and the widest and deepest moats on the
+other side.”
+
+The left side of the shield boasted the majestic curve of the river, the
+arsenal, and another series of walls and gates; but at this part, there
+were no moats nor false entrances, because it had the strong towers of
+the Ajarafe opposite to defend it. There were four gates on this side,
+not counting
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR.
+
+GATE OF THE HALL OF SAN FERNANDO.]
+
+[Illustration: ALCAZAR.
+
+GALLERY OF THE HALL OF SAN FERNANDO.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--HALL IN WHICH KING SAN FERNANDO DIED.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.
+
+Bands. Side of Arches.]
+
+that of Bib-Ragel, which occupied the north angle of the city; and, in
+addition to these, it is believed there was a small postern, afterwards
+called the “atarazanas,” through which it is supposed that Axataf, or
+“Sakkáf” his Moorish name, went out to receive King Ferdinand, and to
+deliver up the keys of Seville. The old wharf of Saracen Seville came as
+far as this; and in all the space, which to-day is called El Barrio de
+los Humeros, or the Chimney Quarter, the Mohammedans had their arsenal
+and shipbuilding yard, while the sailors and fishermen of the
+Guadalquivir were also housed in this district. The Gate of the Triana
+must have been in the vicinity; and the Gate of Hercules was directly
+opposite the Ajarafe, which was also called the Garden of Hercules. With
+the gardens and orchards of the Macarena, which adorned it to the north,
+the plains and woods of Tablada, which supplied it with corn and wood to
+the east and south, with an abundant supply of fresh water brought from
+Carmona by the aqueduct, with the river which was its principal
+commercial artery to the west, with the castles on the opposite side of
+the Guadalquivir, protecting the river and its bridge, and occupying all
+the heights from Azalfarache nearly as far as Italica, Seville was one
+of the best situated, best supplied, best defended, and most prosperous
+cities of the Mussulman empire in Andalusia. To attack her she must be
+cut off from the Ajarafe, and her bridge of boats must be taken. It
+would have been useless to descend to Italica and be exposed to the
+assaults of the city and of Triana, as long as the bridge existed, and
+this task was thought to be beyond the power and ingenuity of any enemy.
+
+The bridge of boats, protected by a great wooden chain, linked by iron
+rings, kept the communication open between the city and the Ajarafe,
+that vast and fertile district from which the Sevillians received all
+sorts of supplies, and where the Saracen magnates had their country
+villas. This delightful Garden of Hercules, in whose praise many Arab
+writers have exhausted the treasure of their rich and exalted
+imagination, has been described in the following manner by an anonymous
+poet, in some verses dedicated to the Abbadite Sultan Almutamed:
+“Seville is a young widow, her husband is Abbad, her diadem the
+Aljarafe, her collar the winding river.” Indeed, says the poet Ibn
+Saffar, “the Aljarafe surpasses in beauty and fertility all the lands of
+the world, the oil of its olives goes even to far Alexandria, its farms
+and orchards are superior to those of other countries on account of
+their extension and convenience; and, always white and pure, they seem
+to be so many stars in a sky of olive gardens.” Travelled Arab
+historians recall with pleasure the delights of Andalus; preferring
+Seville to either Baghdad or Cairo, saying: “The Aljarafe is a luxuriant
+wilderness without wild beasts, and its Guadalquivir is a Nile without
+crocodiles.” One of the authors, quoted by El-Makkari, gives the
+following exact description of the Aljarafe: “It is an immense district,
+measuring forty miles long, and almost as many broad, formed of pleasing
+hills of reddish earth, on which there are woods of olive and fig-trees,
+which offer a delicious shade to the traveller in the hours of the
+mid-day heat. This district contains a numerous population, scattered in
+beautiful farms or collected in villages, none of which are wanting for
+markets, clean baths, fine buildings, and other conveniences, such as
+are usually only to be found in cities of the first order.”
+
+This fertile territory, which the Saracens called the “Orchard of
+Hercules,” rose gradually to the west of Seville, after stretching along
+the right bank of the river.
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--ROOM OF THE PRINCE.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+ALCAZAR--VIEW OF THE GALLERY FROM THE SECOND FLOOR.]
+
+Its heights were covered with farmhouses and hamlets, as the Arab writer
+indicates, which formed, as it were, a continuous population, rich in
+provisions, from which Seville usually received abundant supplies of all
+necessaries. There were four principal villages: Aznalfarche (to-day,
+San Juan de Alfarache), Aznalcazar, Aznalcollar, and Solucar de Albayda,
+strong walled places, where the Mohammedans collected the revenues of
+the district. The fringe, formed by the heights of the Aljarafe, was
+given the name of “Mountain of Mercies” (Jebl arrahmah) by the
+Mohammedans, on account of its extraordinary fertility, a surprising
+abundance of figs, known as “Al-kuiti” and “Ash-shari,” being produced
+there.
+
+The Sevillians faced the Christian attack with boldness, bred of
+confidence, and a determination to strain every nerve, and exhaust every
+resource, in repelling the invaders. They were engaging upon their last
+throw for the sovereignty of Andalusia. Fernando’s warships encountered
+the Moorish fleet at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and drove them from
+their position, and the infidels collected their forces to make a last
+stand on land. But their stubborn front was broken by the Christian
+host, and the war-worn remnant of the Moorish army prepared to withstand
+a siege. Even when the bridge of boats was destroyed, and all
+communications with the suburb of Triana and the surrounding country was
+cut off, the Moors still fought on within the city walls, and it was not
+until fifteen months had elapsed that Seville was starved into
+submission. On the 23rd February, 1235, Fernando entered the city, and
+Abdul Hassan, rejecting the king’s invitation to become a dependent
+officer of the Spanish Crown, retired with thousands of his vanquished
+Almohades to Africa.
+
+Fernando’s first act was to have the mosque purified for the
+celebration of a high and imposing Mass; he took up his quarters in the
+alcazar; divided the Moorish possessions among his knights, and rested
+his army after their long and arduous campaign. Four years later he died
+of dropsy. He was succeeded by Alfonso X., who founded the University of
+Seville, devoted his leisure to the study of poetry, history, and
+ancient laws, and merited the title of “El Sabio,” “the Learned.” But
+although the beautiful alcazar appealed to the studious temperament of
+“El Sabio,” the fortress-palace is more closely associated with his son,
+Pedro I., Pedro, “the Cruel,” the most renowned of all the Christian
+sovereigns who ruled Andalusia from Seville.
+
+Pedro’s character has been made the study of many biographers and
+historians, and he has not been without his literary whitewashers, but
+the “incidents” which illuminate his career do not place him in a
+favourable light. His Bohemianism endeared him to the people, and a
+certain sense of justice, in cases in which his own interests were not
+concerned, has gained for him the title of “The Justiciary.” It may be
+that the plottings of Albuquerque, his father’s chancellor, and the
+perfidious behaviour of his relatives, including his own mother, served
+to warp and embitter his nature; but he had no sooner, at the
+instigation of his mistress, Maria de Padilla, taken up the reigns of
+government, than he revealed the cruelty and malignity of his character.
+Leonora de Guzmar, the mother of Alfonso’s illegitimate son, Enrique,
+was done to death in his prisons; Abu Said, the King of Granada, was
+seized by treachery, robbed, and executed; Urraca Osorio, for refusing
+Pedro’s addresses, was burned to death in the market-square of Seville;
+his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, was mysteriously murdered; Don Fadrique,
+his half-brother, was assassinated with Pedro’s dagger; and he himself
+was eventually defeated
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+TOWER OF THE GIRALDA.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+DETAILS OF THE GIRALDA TOWER.]
+
+in battle by the troops of his brother Henry and Bertrand du Guesclin,
+and killed in single combat by Henry.
+
+Pedro wearied of his first wife, Blanche of Bourbon, in forty-eight
+hours; and, having had his marriage annulled, he espoused the handsome
+Juaña de Castro, only to desert her a few days later to return to his
+beautiful mistress, Maria de Padilla. This woman appears to have been
+the only person who inspired Pedro with more than a transitory passion,
+and the courtiers testified to the power she wielded by chivalrously
+drinking the waters of her bath in El Jardin del Crucero. But Pedro’s
+passion for his mistress, though lasting, was not monopolising, and his
+amours supply us with an incident which reveals at once the king’s
+ferocity, his humour, and his alleged respect for justice. It was his
+custom at night to muffle himself in a cloak and adventure alone into
+the city in quest of entertainment. On one of these excursions he
+encountered a hidalgo serenading a lady, whose favours he himself
+coveted. Cloaked by the dim light, and made secure by the emptiness of
+the street, the king fought and slew his rival, in defiance of his own
+order, which made street fighting punishable upon the officers of the
+city when they failed to bring the disturbers of the peace to justice.
+He had not bargained for the noise to disturb the rest of an old lady in
+the vicinity; he had not observed a venerable head protruding through an
+upper window. Believing the incident to be “wrapped in mystery,” he
+summoned the alcade of the city to his presence, acquainted him with the
+fact that the body of a hidalgo, pierced to the heart, had been found in
+the street, and gave him the option of discovering the murderer within
+forty-eight hours, or of being hanged in his stead. And hanged he
+doubtless would have been but for the timely confidence of the old lady
+who had witnessed the fight. The alcade came again to the king with the
+news that the murderer had been found, and would be on view upon the
+gallows within the time specified by Pedro. Curious to see who had been
+secured to expiate his sin, or eager to fasten a new dereliction of duty
+upon the alcade, the king went to the place of execution and found,
+suspended from the gallows, an effigy of himself. “Good,” said the king,
+“justice has been done! I am satisfied.” There is a street in Seville
+which is called the Calle della Cabeza del Rey Don Pedro, to commemorate
+the duel; and the alley from which the old lady observed the issue is
+known as the Calle del Candilejo, “the street of the candlestick.”
+
+The alcazar extends along the river as far as the Golden Tower, built
+during the reign of Yusuf Almotacid Ben Nasir, by the Almohadan governor
+Abulala. The view of Seville, from the Christina promenade, the famous
+thoroughfare, which extends from the palace of the Duke of Montpensier
+to the Golden Tower, is a spectacle of which the Sevillians never tire,
+and visitors are never weary of praising. The tower itself, which took
+its present name either from the fact that it held the gold which the
+Spanish ships brought from America, or because Don Pedro secreted his
+treasures there, is octagonal in shape, with three receding floors,
+crowned with battlements, and washed by the Guadalquivir. The shimmering
+Torre del Oro, reflecting its light upon the broad bosom of the
+rose-coloured river beneath the setting sun, has inspired poets and
+painters of every age and nationality. George Borrow believes it
+probable that it derived its name from the fact that the beams of the
+setting sun focussed upon it makes it appear to be built of pure gold;
+and then, carried away by the loveliness of the picture, he cries:
+“Cold, cold must the heart be which can remain insensible to the
+beauties of this magic
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.
+
+Ornaments on Panels.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS.]
+
+scene, to do justice to which the pencil of Claude himself were barely
+equal. Often have I shed tears of rapture whilst I beheld it, and
+listened to the thrush and the nightingale piping forth their melodious
+songs in the woods, and inhaled the breeze laden with the perfume of the
+thousand orange gardens of Seville.”
+
+Of the great mosque of Seville, which was built by Abu Yakub Yusuf in
+1171, and completed by the addition of the tower in 1196 by his son,
+only the barest traces now remain. It is impossible to determine who
+really designed the famous Tower, now called the Giralda; but historians
+favour the claims of the renowned architect, whose name is variously
+spelt Gever, Hever, or Djabir, and who is erroneously supposed to have
+been the inventor of algebra. In its original state this structure was
+an immense and stately pile, planned on the model of the mosque of
+Cordova, and decorated with lavish magnificence. In 1235 it was
+dedicated to the service of God and the Virgin, but it retained all its
+Moorish characteristics until 1401. The Moors would have destroyed the
+building and the beautiful Muezzin tower before it fell into the hands
+of San Fernando’s soldiers, and thus save their sacred temple from
+desecration by the “infidels,” but the king’s son, Alonso “el Sabio,”
+threatened to visit such spoliation upon the garrison by sacking the
+city. This threat had the desired effect, and for nearly two centuries
+the religious spirit of Seville found expression in a temple which had
+been built to the glory of Allah. But at the beginning of the fifteenth
+century the mosque was razed to the ground, and Seville cathedral began
+to take that huge and splendid form which, in the words of the pious
+originators, was to inspire succeeding generations with the idea that
+its designers were mad. It was to be the greatest cathedral in Spain,
+and it ended in being second only to that of Cordova, but still the
+third largest Christian church in the world. Its area of 125,000 square
+feet is 35,000 square feet less than Cordova cathedral, and 105,000
+square feet less than St. Peter’s at Rome; but it is 15,000 square feet
+greater than that of Milan Cathedral, and greater by 41,000 square feet
+than St. Paul’s in London.
+
+The Moors, in building their mosque, employed the remains of ruined
+Roman and Gothic structures, and the Spaniards in 1401 used the Arab
+foundations in the construction of their cathedral, while the Moorish
+tower was preserved to do duty as a spire. In its original form the
+Giralda was only 250 feet high, the additional 100 feet which forms the
+belfry being added by Fernando Ruiz in 1567. In 1506 the cathedral was
+completed. Five years later the dome collapsed, and was re-erected by
+Juan Gil de Hontanon. Extensive restoration work was carried out in
+1882, under the superintendence of Cassova; but six years after this
+work was completed, the dome again gave way, and workmen have been
+constantly employed ever since in reconstructing this part of the vast
+building.
+
+According to Contreras, the Giralda is the most expressive monument of
+the Mohammedan dominion; and, despite all that has been said of its
+Moorish structure and primitive African style, it is in his opinion a
+perfect work of Arab art. The construction is anterior by four
+centuries, at least, to that of any tower of Granadian architecture such
+as that which to-day belongs to the Church of St. John of the Kings, but
+there is not the slightest difference in the manner of their
+ornamentation, and the rhomboids of painted bricks, the festoons of
+terra cotta, the windows with double arches, following the segments of a
+circle, present all the variety of the alcazar of Granada.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.
+
+Ornaments on Panels.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+HOUSE OF PILATOS--VIEW IN THE COURT BY THE DOOR OF THE CHAPEL.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+HOUSE OF PILATOS--CHAPEL.]
+
+“Here one sees plainly,” Contreras says, “the origin of the superposed
+arch of the belvedere of Lindaraja of the Alhambra, of the hanging arch
+of the three entrances of the Lions’ Court, of the festoons of the Court
+of the Fountain, and of all those forms, so delicate and so luxurious,
+that they are without equal in architecture. It is in the Giralda that
+one finds the beginning of truly decorative art. Built of varnished
+bricks, with a stout construction, as is demanded by the façade of a
+very high tower, it is to be regretted that such a beautiful edifice
+should be crowned by so strange a body as its gilded frontages and
+painted porcelains.”
+
+With the exception of the Giralda, and part of the lower portions of the
+walls, the Moorish remains that are to be recognised in the cathedral
+are few and not remarkable. The Puerta del Perdon in the Calle de
+Alemanes was reconstructed by Alfonso XI., after the victory of Salado,
+and the plateresque ornamentations were added by Bartolome Lopez about
+1522. But although the bronze-covered doors have been disfigured by
+paint, their Moorish character is still distinctly traceable. Through
+the gateway we enter the old Moorish courtyard, the Patio de los
+Naranjas (Court of Oranges), robbed of its former grandeur, but still
+distinguished by its beautiful Arabic fountain, with an octagonal basin,
+which occupies the centre of the court. From this spot we get a splendid
+view of the cathedral and the massive yet delicate Giralda tower, which
+has been declared to be even more to Seville than Giotto’s Campanile is
+to Florence, or that of St. Mark’s to Venice. “Long before the traveller
+reaches the city,” writes an imaginative admirer, “the Giralda seems to
+beckon him onwards to his promised land; during all his peregrinations
+through the intricate streets and lanes it is his trusted guide, always
+ready to serve him, soaring as it does far above all surroundings, it is
+a thing of unfailing beauty and interest as day by day he passes and
+repasses it, or wanders about its precincts; it tells him even afar off,
+how the day moves on, and how the night; and it dwells in his thoughts
+the fairest memory of his sojournings in the queen of the Southern
+cities.”
+
+From the Court of Oranges to the Giralda the way leads through the
+Capilla de la Granada of the cathedral. A solitary horseshoe arch
+reminds us of the Moorish origin of the building; and the huge
+elephant’s tusk suspended from the roof, a bridle that tradition
+declares belonged to the Cid’s steed, and a stuffed crocodile, are
+Oriental rather than Christian relics. And the Giralda, in spite of its
+added belfry--its surmounting figure symbolic of the Christian
+faith--and the fact that it is under the special patronage of the two
+Santas Justa and Rufina, “who are much revered at Seville,” is still a
+Moorish monument. At its base the tower is a square of fifty feet, and
+it rises by a series of stages, or cuerpos, which are named after the
+architecture, decoration or use for which they are designed. At the
+Cuerpo de Campanas is hung a peal of bells, of which the largest, Santa
+Maria, eighteen tons in weight, and referred to in the vernacular as
+“the plump,” was set up in 1588 by the order of the Archbishop Don
+Gonzola de Mena, at a cost of ten thousand ducats. Above, we come to the
+cuerpo of the Azucenas, or white lilies, with which it is embellished;
+and, going still higher, we reach El Cuerpo del Reloj, the clock-tower,
+in which was erected, in 1400, the first tower-clock ever made in Spain.
+Portions of this old timepiece were employed by the Monk Jose Cordero in
+making, in 1765, the clock which is working to this day. The belfry,
+which is the home of a colony of pigeons and hawks, is girdled with a
+motto from the proverb, “Nomen Domini fortissima turris”--(“The name of
+the Lord is a strong tower.”) The
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+GALLERY OF THE COURT OF THE HOUSE OF PILATOS.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XL.
+
+Ornaments on Panels.]
+
+Moorish summit was crowned with four brazen balls, so large that in
+order to get them into the building it was necessary to remove the
+keystone of a door called the Gate of the Muezzin, leading from the
+mosque to the interior of the tower. The iron bar, which supported the
+balls, weighed about ten cwt., and the whole was cast by a celebrated
+alchemist, a Sicilian, named Abu Leyth, at a cost of £50,000 sterling.
+These particulars were set down by a Mohammedan writer of the period,
+and their accuracy was proved in 1395 (157 years after the overthrow of
+the Arab dominion), when the earthquake threw the entire mechanism,
+balls and supports, to the ground, where they were weighed, and the
+figures were found to be absolutely correct. The figure of La Fé, “The
+Faith,” which now tops the Giralda, was cast by Bartolomé Morel in 1568.
+It stands fourteen feet high, and weighs twenty-five cwts., yet so
+wonderful is the workmanship that it turns with every breath of the
+wind. The head of the female figure is crowned with a Roman helmet, the
+right hand bears the Labaro, or banner, of Constantine, and in the left
+it holds out a palm branch, symbolical of conquest.
+
+But when we return from this “strange composite fane,” with its
+Christian summit surmounting a Moslem tower, which again has its
+foundations in a Roman temple, when we re-cross the Court of Oranges,
+with its Moorish fountain, flanked by a Christian pulpit, and enter the
+cathedral, the mind is transported at a bound from the fairy-like
+beauties of Morisco ornamentation to the sombre, awe-inspiring majesty,
+which prompted Theophile Gautier to the reflection that “the most
+extravagant and monstrously prodigious Hindoo pagodas are not to be
+mentioned in the same century as the Cathedral of Seville. It is a
+mountain scooped out, a valley turned topsy-turvy; Notre Dame, at
+Paris, might walk erect in the middle nave, which is of frightful
+height; pillars as large round as towers, and which appear so slender
+that they make you shudder, rise out of the ground, or descend from the
+vaulted roof, like stalactites in a giant’s grotto.” Lomas, who finds
+the exterior of the cathedral “simply beneath criticism,” and deplores
+that “age after age a great band of glorifiers of self, through self’s
+handiwork, should have been employed in producing what they determined
+should be a world’s marvel,” is compelled to admit that “the first view
+of the interior is one of the supreme moments of a lifetime. The glory
+and majesty of it are almost terrible. No other building, surely, is so
+fortunate as this in what may be called its presence.” Even George
+Borrow, who thought more of his beloved testaments than of Spanish
+monuments erected to “the spiritual tyranny of the Court of Rome,” was
+feign to declare that it is impossible to wander through the cathedral
+of Seville “without experiencing sensations of sacred awe and deep
+astonishment”; and Caveda describes the general effect as “truly
+majestic.”
+
+The Italian rhapsodist, Edmondo de Amicis, who always succeeds in
+conveying a strikingly convincing impression of the spectacles that
+fascinate his sensitive mind, is at his best in his description of
+Seville cathedral. “At your first entrance,” he says, “you are
+bewildered, you feel as if you are wandering in an abyss, and for
+several moments you do nothing but glance around you in that immense
+space, almost as if to assure yourself that your eyes are not deceiving
+you, nor your fancy playing you some trick. Then you approach one of the
+pillars, measure it, and look at the more distant ones, which, though as
+large as towers, appear so slender that it makes you tremble to think
+that the building is resting upon them. You traverse them with
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLI.
+
+Ornaments on Panels.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE
+
+COURT OF THE PALACE OF MEDINA-CŒLI.]
+
+a glance from floor to ceiling, and it seems as if you could almost
+count the moments it would take for the eye to climb them. There are
+five aisles, each one of which might form a church. In the centre one,
+another cathedral, with its cupola and bell tower, could easily stand.
+All of them together form sixty-eight bold vaulted ceilings, which seem
+to expand and rise slowly as you look at them. Every thing is enormous
+in this cathedral. The principal chapel, placed in the centre of the
+great nave, and almost high enough to touch the ceiling, looks like a
+chapel built for giant priests, to whose knees the ordinary altars would
+not reach. The paschal candle seems like the mast of a ship, and the
+bronze candlestick which holds it, like the pillars of a church. The
+choir is a museum of sculpture and chiselling. The chapels are worthy of
+the church, for they contain the masterpieces of sixty-seven sculptors
+and thirty-eight painters.... The chapel of San Ferdinand, which
+contains the sepulchres of this king and his wife Beatrice, of Alonso
+the Wise, the celebrated minister, Florida Blanca, and other illustrious
+personages, is one of the richest and most beautiful of all. The body of
+Ferdinand, who redeemed Seville from the dominion of the Arabs, clothed
+in his uniform, with crown and mantle, rests in a crystal casket,
+covered with a veil. On one side, is his sword which he carried on the
+day of his entrance into Seville; on the other, a staff of cane, an
+emblem of command. In that same chapel is preserved a little ivory
+Virgin, which the holy king carried to war with him, and other relics of
+great value.” And here also, although De Amicis makes no mention of
+them, are the keys of Seville which Abdul Hassan handed to Ferdinand at
+the surrender of the city. One key is of silver, and bears the
+inscription, “May Allah grant that Islam may rule for ever in this
+city.” The other key is made of iron gilt, and is of Mudejar
+workmanship. It is inscribed, “The King of Kings will open; the King of
+the Earth will enter.”
+
+In its churches and its old houses, Seville is rich in Moorish
+influences, and exhibits abundant traces of Morisco art, which prevailed
+against the material dominancy of the Christian conquerors. The
+reconciled Arabs who remained as subjects of Ferdinand became the chief
+of the most lavishly-remunerated artisans of the city. They pursued
+their craft in the dwellings of the rich; and in the churches of the
+“infidel.” Untrammelled by religion and uninspired by faith, they worked
+for art’s sake, and the substantial pecuniary award that sweetened their
+labours. The church of San Marco has a beautiful Moorish tower built in
+imitation of the Giralda, and second only to the minaret tower of the
+cathedral in point of height; San Gil is a Christianised Mezquita; Santa
+Catalina reveals the survival of Moorish art in its façade, while its
+principal chapel is Gothic. In nearly all the sacred edifices of
+antiquity the combination of Moorish and Renaissance architecture
+betrays an incongruity of style and sentiment which is only to be found
+among the Christian churches of Spain. And if the Catholic kings, who
+were sworn to the extirpation of the Moslems, allowed the Moors to build
+their churches in the style of temples devoted to Allah, it is not
+surprising that many of the finest private residences of the city retain
+a Moorish design, and possess a distinctly Oriental atmosphere.
+
+The Casa de Pilatos, which has been pronounced the fourth great monument
+of older Seville, was commenced in 1500 by Don Pedro Enriquez, in the
+then popular decadent Saracenic style, and was completed by his son,
+Fadrique, in imitation of Pilate’s palace at Jerusalem. In accordance
+with this scheme, he fashioned a reception-hall, called the
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLII.
+
+Frieze in the Upper Chamber, House of Sanchez.]
+
+Prætorium, erected an upright column--a gift of Pope Pius V.--copied
+from the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and made a replica of the
+basin into which the thirty pieces of silver were counted. When the
+house came into the possession of the first Duke of Alcalá, he was
+acting as the Spanish viceroy at Naples, and he filled the rooms and
+corridors with Roman busts and statuary, gathered from Italy and the
+ruins of Italica. On every side the art treasures of the Romans adorn
+the perfect Moorish colonnades, and the shadows of Roman sculptures are
+thrown upon diapered marble pavements from light that enters through
+Arab lattices and ajimez windows. It has been described as a great
+curiosity shop, but to the art lover it is a treasure house of almost
+infinite beauty and variety.
+
+The Moorish palace of the Duke de Alba, in the Calle de las Dueñas, once
+consisted of eleven courtyards, nine fountains, and more than a hundred
+marble pillars, and was surrounded by a garden, which is a forest of
+orange trees and myrtles. In Seville one wanders through streets which
+are redolent of Arabia, and peep into countless Oriental patios, cool
+with fountains, and shaded by palms and Eastern canopies. One “feels the
+East a-calling”--the colour, the scent, the witchery of it gets into
+one’s blood--and one recognises the truth that inspired the old Spanish
+saying: “To whom God loves He gives a house in Seville.”
+
+
+
+
+TOLEDO
+
+
+Toledan history proper, as distinguished from the mixture of fable and
+tradition which are associated with the story of this ancient and royal
+city, dates from the invasion of the Goths. Toledo was old when Euric
+successfully scaled its seven rocks and stormed its battlements--how
+old, cannot be determined. Legend claims that the town was in existence
+when God made the sun; less exalted imagination dates its foundation no
+further back than the days of Tubal, the grandson of Noah. Alphonsus,
+“the Learned,” and Diego Mossem Valera, the historian of Isabel the
+Catholic, agree that it was built by Pyrrhus, the son-in-law of King
+Hispan, and a captain of the army of Cyrus. Hercules has been claimed as
+the father of Toledo by Rufo Festo Avieno, and Ferecio, one of the
+companions of Ulysses, is held by some to have retreated to this spot to
+escape the blood-vengeance of that little band of Greek adventurers.
+Other legends declare the city to be of Jewish origin; and its builders,
+the Judians, who fled from Jerusalem before the victorious hosts of
+Nebuchadnezzar. Don Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada discovers the founders of
+Toledo in Tolemon and Brutus, two Roman consuls in the reign of Ptolemy
+Evergetes, and more reasonable supposition favours the theory that it
+was first settled by nomadic Celtic shepherds, who forsook their flocks
+to erect walls and fortifications on the rocky eminence above the Tagus.
+The little that is known of the origin and beginning of Toledo; the
+very mystery and obscurity of its earliest days, is accepted by the old
+historian, Alcocer, as a proof of its antiquity and nobility. Rais, the
+Moorish writer, says that Tago, at Toledo, was one of the eleven
+governors of Carpetania. Tago was foully murdered by Hasdrubal, the
+successor of Hamilcar, and the assassination of Hasdrubal was followed
+by so determined an insurrection that even Hannibal was forced to
+retreat before the infuriated Carpetanians. But Hannibal retreated, only
+to return with a reinforced army, and break Carpetania beneath the might
+of Carthagenian rule. In 191 B.C., after the fall of Carthage, Hilermo
+surrendered Toledo to the Roman forces, under Marcus Fulvius Nobilior.
+But Toledo held itself sullenly and haughtily aloof from the affairs of
+Rome. Viriate and Caius Plancius might cut each other’s throats on the
+banks of the Tagus; Sertorius might nurse his hates within the city;
+Cæsar and Pompey might be locked in a death struggle--those things
+mattered nothing to the contemptuous and independent Toledans. The Goth
+was the first real conqueror of Toledo; and the city, outwearing the
+scars of Rome, and throwing off the marks of the Moors, is, to-day, as
+insistently Gothic as Cordova and Seville are unmistakably Moorish.
+
+One sees Toledo from the distance, from the bridges, and from the heart
+of the city, and recognises that it is as it has always been--that it
+will go down into the tomb of the centuries unchanged. It grew “out of
+the night of ages”--its rocky throne has defied the ravages of time and
+the transforming ingenuity of man. Maurice Barrès, who has felt the
+majesty and melancholy of this gaunt monument of mediævalism, writes:
+“The landscape of Toledo, and the banks of the Tagus, are amongst the
+saddest and most ardent things of this world. Whoever lives here has
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.
+
+Cornice at Springing of Arches in a Window.]
+
+[Illustration: TOLEDO
+
+SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA--INTERIOR, 1100-1156.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.
+
+Panels on Walls.]
+
+no need to consider the grave youth, the ‘Penseroso,’ of the Medicis
+Chapel; he may also do without the biography and the ‘Pensées’ of Blaise
+Pascal. With the very sentiment realised by these great solitary works
+he will be filled, if he but give himself up to the tragic fierceness of
+the magnificences in ruins upon these high rocks. Toledo, on its
+hillside, with the tiny half circle of the Tagus at its feet, has the
+colour, the roughness, the haughty poverty of the sierra on which it is
+built, and whose strong articulations from the very first produce an
+impression of energy and passion. It is less a town, a noisy affair
+yielding to the commodities of life, than a significant spot for the
+soul. Beneath a crude illumination, which gives to each line of its
+ruins a vigour, a clearness, by which the least energetic characters
+acquire backbone, at the same time it is mysterious, with its cathedral
+springing towards the sky, its alcazars and palaces, that only take
+sight from their invisible patios. Thus, secret and inflexible, in this
+harsh, overheated land, Toledo appears like an image of exaltation in
+solitude, a cry in the desert.”
+
+Grim, austere, and forbidding is the general type of the Gothic
+character; the history of their kings in Spain is a long story of
+menace, bloodshed, and persecution; and that history covers Toledo as
+with a suit of battered mail. Christianity without the practice of the
+Christian virtues, valour divorced from mercy, power disjoined from
+justice--the religion, the might and majesty of the Gothic sovereigns,
+is a record of gloomy and revengeful despotism. Hermengildo, the Gothic
+saint, used his religion as an excuse for attempting to wrest the throne
+of Toledo from his father, Leovigildo, whom he denounced as a minister
+of the devil; Recaredo, who has been painted by historians as a model of
+all the Christian virtues, practiced a rigorous system of cruelty and
+vindictive bigotry; and his successors were notorious for their queer
+morality, and their persecution of the Jews. Yet San Ildephonso, the
+most famous archbishop of Toledo under the Goths, has enriched the
+history of Spain with many splendid fables of heavenly manifestations;
+and the piece he cut from the veil of a visiting saint, and the
+chasuble, with which the Virgin invested him with her own hands, are
+still displayed among the treasures of Toledo cathedral. The figures of
+Wamba and Rodrigo--the warrior king who was offered the alternative of
+the crown of Toledo, or the thrust of a Toledan dagger, and “the Last of
+the Goths”--stand out with dominating prominence on the stage of Gothic
+history, on which warriors and priests are the principal actors.
+
+The doctrine of the Gothic priesthood has been described as the
+“hardest, meanest, and brutallest imaginable,” and the Gothic warriors
+as men who were never other than savage tyrants, who “aped a culture
+which they could not understand, and with whose aims and tendencies
+their inmost character was powerless to sympathise.” These are the
+people who gave Toledo its character, a character which the art-adoring
+Arabs were unable to change or even to greatly modify. It is so
+important to understand the influence which was at work in the creation
+of the Toledan character, the atmosphere in which it was reared, and the
+discipline under which it developed, that I make no excuse for quoting
+the following illuminating appreciation of the Gothic nature from Mr.
+Leonard Williams’ chapter on Toledo: “Originally barbaric in their
+ferocity, the Goths became as their domination approached its inevitable
+end, barbaric in their effeminacy. So, too, with their religious
+beliefs. Excepting the clergy, who were men of some education and
+unlimited unscrupulousness,
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLV.
+
+From one of the centre arches.
+
+From the entrance to the Divan.
+
+Spandrils of Arches.]
+
+[Illustration: TOLEDO
+
+THE GATE OF BLOOD.]
+
+the Christian Visigoth was every whit as barbaric as the heathen;
+barbaric, either in his violent fanaticism, or else in his total lack of
+individuality, and idiotic acquiesence in the schemes of a designing
+priesthood. An intermediate type was wholly, or almost wholly, wanting,
+and there is little to choose between Leovigildo, the ignorant and cruel
+desperado, and his meek successor, Recaredo, the unresisting prey of the
+ambitious metropolitan of Toledo.... The morals of the Visigoths were on
+a par with their refinement and their mode of living. Serfdom was the
+distinguishing mark of the commons; arrogance of the nobility; avarice
+and ambition of temporal power of the clergy; regicide and tumult of the
+Crown. It is clear that a people, disunited in this manner, could never
+have exercised a long supremacy in any case; and destiny, or chance,
+precipitated their downfall by the arrival of the one-eyed Tarik and his
+host, and the defeat of ‘the Last of the Goths,’ beside the
+memory-haunted osiers of the Guadalete.”
+
+Arrogance, avarice, ambition, regicide, tumult--here we have the
+distinguishing qualities of the nobles, the priests, and the kings of
+Toledo under the Gothic rule. The sovereigns and the nobles stamped
+their personality upon the city, and were themselves moulded and
+dominated by the priests. The priestly influence in Spain has ever been
+for austerity and heartless magnificence; it has ever sought to impress
+by fear and superstition. In the time of the Goths, Christianity
+developed through the increasing power of the bishops. The Church was
+terrible and forbidding; the nobility was arrogant and cruel; the
+monarchy was tyrannical and despotic. Hallam dismisses the consideration
+of the Visigoths in a sentence: “I hold,” he says, “the annals of
+barbarians so unworthy of remembrance that I will not detain the reader
+by naming one sovereign of that obscure race.” But, under those
+sovereigns, and by the hands of that obscure race, Toledo was
+established upon its rocky eminence, and it bears its character on its
+face to-day, as it did in the opening quarter of the eighth century,
+when the one-eyed Tarik entered its melancholy, deserted streets.
+
+The plunder that fell to the Moorish invader is variously reported, but
+all accounts are agreed that it was beyond calculation. According to the
+learned Mohammedan author, Al-leyth Ibn Said, the spoils were so
+abundant that the rank and file of the army all shared in the rewards,
+and it was a common thing for the humblest bowmen to be possessed of
+costly robes, magnificent gold chains of exquisite workmanship, and
+strings of matchless pearls, rubies, and emeralds. So great, in many
+instances, was the greed for plunder, and so grossly ignorant were the
+Berbers of the value of the spoil, that whenever a party of them
+happened upon a rich fabric, they did not hesitate to cut it up between
+them, without regard to its worth or workmanship. It is recorded that
+two Berbers secured a superb carpet, composed of the most splendid
+embroidery, interwoven with gold, and ornamented with filigree work of
+the purest gold, with pearls and other gems. The men carried it for
+awhile between them, but, finding this method of conveyance cumbersome,
+they carved the gem-encrusted fabric in twain with their swords. In this
+fashion, masterpieces of art were heedlessly destroyed for the sake of
+the raw material of which they were composed.
+
+Among the precious objects seized in the palace and church of Toledo
+were twenty-five golden and jewelled crowns--the crowns of the different
+Gothic kings who had reigned in Spain--the psalms of David, written upon
+gold leaf in water made of dissolved rubies, vases filled with precious
+stones, quantities of robes of cloth of gold and
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.
+
+Spandrils of Arches.]
+
+tissue, tunics of every variety of costly skirts and satins, magnificent
+suits of chain armour and mail inlaid with jewels, and jewel-studded
+swords and daggers, weapons of every description, and Solomon’s emerald
+table, wrought in burnished silver and gold. “This table,” says the
+Arabian chronicler, “was the most beautiful thing ever seen, with its
+golden vases and plates of a precious green stone, and three collars of
+rubies, emeralds, and pearls.” Other Arabian historians have claimed
+that it was composed of a solid emerald, and they are practically agreed
+that it was brought to Toledo after the sacking of Jerusalem, and that
+it was valued in Damascus at a hundred thousand dinars--about £50,000.
+Washington Irving, who invariably goes the whole hog when dealing with
+legendary history, says that this “inestimable table” was composed “of
+one single and entire emerald, and possessed talismanic powers; for
+tradition affirms that it was the work of genii, and had been wrought by
+them for King Solomon the Wise, the son of David. This marvellous relic
+was carefully preserved by Tarik, as the most precious of all his
+spoils, being intended by him as a present to the khalif; and, in
+commemoration of it, the city was called by the Arabs, Medina Almeyda;
+that is to say, ‘The City of the Table.’”
+
+But the historian, Ibnu Hayyau, the greatly trusted authority of
+El-Makkari, gives, in the translation of Don Pascual de Gayangos, the
+following account of the origin of this article of virtue: “The
+celebrated table which Tarik found at Toledo, although attributed to
+Solomon, and named after him, never belonged to the poet-king. According
+to the barbarian authors, it was customary for the nobles and men in
+estimation of the Gothic Court, to bequeath a portion of their property
+to the Church. From the money so amassed the priests caused tables to be
+made of pure gold and silver, gorgeous thrones and stands on which to
+carry the gospels in public processions, or to ornament the altars on
+great festivals. The so-called Solomon’s table was originally wrought
+with money derived from this source, and was subsequently emulously
+increased and embellished by successive kings of Toledo, the latest
+always anxious to surpass his predecessors in magnificence, until it
+became the most splendid and costly gem ever made for such a purpose.
+The fabric was of pure gold, set with the most precious pearls, rubies,
+and emeralds. Its circumference was encrusted with three rows of these
+valuable stones, and the whole table displayed jewels so large and
+refulgent that never did human eye behold anything comparable with
+it.... When the Moslems entered Toledo it was found on the great altar
+of the Christian church, and the fact of such a treasure having been
+discovered soon became public and notorious.”
+
+The history here assigned to the table is, it must be confessed,
+somewhat less improbable than the supposition of Gibbon, who is under
+the impression that if it ever existed it may have been carried away by
+Titus at the sacking of Jerusalem, and, later, to have fallen into the
+hands of the Goths at the taking of Rome by Alaric. Don Pascual,
+however, asks, very pertinently, whether it is likely that Bishop
+Sindered, and those who accompanied him in his flight, would have left
+behind them so valuable an object. And the conundrum still remains as to
+the present whereabouts of the table. It has been asserted that it forms
+part of the inestimable treasures of the Vatican, but as the devout
+Moslem would say, “Allah alone knoweth.”
+
+Tarik, who perceived in Musa’s haste to join him in Toledo and take
+possession of the spoils, an indication of the governor’s envy, decided
+to conceal one of the feet of
+
+[Illustration: TOLEDO
+
+INTERIOR OF SANTA MARIA LA BLANCA.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.
+
+Spandrils of Arches.]
+
+the table against future emergencies. Musa, who met Tarik with savage
+upbraidings for exceeding his instructions--and some go so far as to say
+that he supplemented his speech with strokes of his whip--demanded the
+production of Solomon’s table, and questioned Tarik as to the absence of
+the missing fourth foot. The wily general declared that he had found it
+in that condition, and Musa had the missing emerald supplied by a foot
+of gold. Subsequently Musa had Tarik cast into prison, and, it is said,
+that he would have encompassed his death but for the prompt intervention
+of the khalif, who sent peremptory commands that the successful
+campaigner should be restored to his command of the Moorish army.
+Thereupon Musa professed to restore Tarik to his confidence and
+friendship; but he must have regretted that he had not executed his
+original purpose, when, on the occasion of his presenting the famous
+table as his own discovery to the khalif at Damascus, Tarik proclaimed
+himself to be the discoverer, and, as proof of his contention, produced
+the missing emerald foot.
+
+The Moorish conquerors recognised the importance of Toledo as the
+capital of the Gothic empire, but these art-adoring, sun-worshipping
+warriors, who found their Eden in Andalusia, lavished their affection
+and culture on Cordova and Seville, and, for a time, Toledo became a
+secondary town. Musa’s son, Abdelasis, or Balacin, as Rasis el Moro
+calls him, married the widow of King Roderick, who has been variously
+styled Egilona, Exilona, and Blanche, and insisted upon every noble of
+the Moorish Court paying her extravagant homage; but the sultan held his
+Court at Cordova, and the Toledans never forgave this affront to their
+honour and dignity. They brooded in their stormy sullenness and
+independence. Their revolutionary instincts were never crushed; their
+discontent was never appeased through the three and a-half centuries of
+the Arab occupation of the city. Cassin, the Moorish ruler, became
+impregnated with the principles of independence, and threw off the yoke
+of Cordova, only to be betrayed in his turn by the Toledans, who,
+wearied of his tyranny, welcomed Abd-er-Rahman to the city, and
+submitted their allegiance to his throne. But throughout his reign the
+turbulent Toledans proved uncertain and prone to revolution, and his
+son, Hakam, who succeeded him, sought to conciliate them by appointing
+as governor a renegade Christian, one Amron, of Huesca. “By a
+condescension which proves our extreme solicitude for your interests,”
+the sultan wrote to his disaffected subjects, “instead of sending you
+one of our own subjects, we have chosen one of your compatriots.”
+Hakam’s error of judgment resulted in one of the most terrible deeds in
+the history of Toledo, perhaps the most disgraceful blot on the Moslem
+domination of Spain. Amron was entrusted with the mission of humbling
+his fellow countrymen to the rule of the sultan, and he achieved his
+object by the practice of a fiendish policy of perfidious cunning.
+
+By affecting an aversion to the sultan, and preaching the gospel of the
+independence of Toledo, he won the confidence of the nobles, and
+concerted with them in plots to reconquer the city. In furtherance of
+their plans, the people consented to have soldiers quartered upon them;
+they welcomed the building of a fortress commanded by a strong guard at
+the extremity of the city; and it was at their own suggestion that a
+castle was erected in the middle of the town as a stronghold for the
+valiant governor. Then, having fortified himself with the trust of the
+people, and packed the city with troops, Amron secretly advised the
+sultan that the Toledans were ready for the lesson that was
+
+[Illustration: TOLEDO
+
+GATE OF THE SUN.]
+
+to be read to them. Abd-er-Rahman, the son of Hakam, advanced towards
+the city at the head of a great army. The governor proposed that the
+nobles should go out to meet the young prince, and historians record
+that these implacable Gothic revolutionists were infatuated by the
+courtesy and cordiality with which they were received. The future sultan
+conquered their aversion by his grace and charm, and they loudly
+applauded Amron’s suggestion that he should be invited to accept the
+hospitality of the city. Abd-er-Rahman, instated in the castle of the
+governor, invited the nobles and representative men of Toledo to a great
+feast. They came in crowds, they were admitted to the castle singly, and
+not a single invited guest returned to his home. As each man crossed the
+courtyard of the castle he walked past an executioner, who stood in the
+shadow with uplifted blade awaiting his approach. No guest passed him.
+The nobles entered, the blade fell, and ready hands rolled the body into
+a ditch. In Spanish history that bloody day is known as the “Day of the
+Foss.”
+
+“Only conceive,” writes Hannah Lynch, “the horrible picture in all its
+brutal nakedness! The gaily-apparelled guest, scented, jewelled,
+smiling, alights from his carriage, looking forward to pleasure in
+varied forms, brilliant lights, delicate viands, exquisite wines, lute,
+song, flowers, sparkling speech. Then the quick entrance into a dim
+courtyard, a step forward, perhaps in the act of unclasping a silken
+mantle, the soundless movement of a fatal arm in the shadowy silence,
+the invisible executioner’s form probably hidden by a profusion of tall
+plants or an Oriental bush, and body after body, head upon head, roll
+into the common grave till the ditch is filled with nigh upon five
+thousand corpses. Not even the famous St. Bartholomew can compete with
+this, in horror, in gruesomeness. Compared with it, that night of Paris
+was honourable and open warfare. It is the stillness of the hour, the
+quickness of doing, the unflinching and awful personality of the
+executioners, who so remarkably struck down life as ever it advanced
+with smiling lips and brightly-glancing eye, that lend this scene its
+matchless colours of cruelty and savagery. Beside it, few shocking hours
+in history will seem deprived of all sense of mitigation and humanity.”
+
+Only a people rebellious by blood, by training, and by every tradition
+of their implacable race, could have thrown off the prostration that
+followed this terrible blow, and risen from their stupor with renewed
+determination to seize their independence. Yet Toledo survived this
+blow, and many others, which, if not so sudden and appalling, were
+sufficient to crush the spirit and deaden the aspiration of a more
+vincible nation. It is impossible to determine whether Abd-er-Rahman was
+an accessory to this deed of butchery, or to say if Amron planned the
+massacre in the belief that it was necessary to the maintenance of
+Moslem rule, to terrorise the Toledans into submission, or if the deed
+was inspired by the more subtle and diabolical intention of making the
+Moors more odious in the sight of the unmanageable citizens. When the
+people were sufficiently recovered from the horror of the atrocity to
+concoct a scheme of revenge, they acted with ferocious promptness. The
+cry for vengeance spread from the Zocodover into the surrounding
+country, and the people, hastily summoned into the city, surrounded the
+castle of Amron, and burnt the hateful fortress and its inmates to the
+ground. There, for the time, the insurrectionary movement stopped. An
+Arab governor was appointed, and the people, Christians and Jews as well
+as Moors, entered upon a new state of material prosperity. Under Aben
+Magot ben Ibraham the Moorish artistic influence
+
+[Illustration: TOLEDO
+
+DOOR OF THE HALL OF MESA.]
+
+[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF CRISTO DE LA VEGA.]
+
+began to make itself felt. The architecture bore the imprint of the
+governing race, beautiful gardens were laid out along the Vega, Arabian
+palaces sprang into being, and on the ruins of Amron’s castle there was
+built a new alcazar.
+
+But the respite from open tumult was only temporary. The Wali, finding
+the merchants increasing in riches, raised their tribute to the state,
+and smouldering discontent was immediately fanned into a flame. Led by a
+wealthy young Toledan, named Hacam, who subsequently earned the affix of
+“El Durrete”--“The Striker of Blows”--the people murdered the Moorish
+officials and captured the alcazar. The Moslem troops retaliated by
+recapturing that stronghold and routing the revolutionists. Hacam went
+into retirement until the Moors, lulled into security, relaxed their
+vigilance in the guardianship of the city, and then, striking swiftly
+through the neglected gates, he recovered the city between sunset and
+morning. The greater part of the upper town was burnt, the troops sent
+by Abd-er-Rahman II. were repulsed; and, although the Toledans were
+incidentally routed by the renegade Spaniard, Maisara, Toledo was not
+then retaken. In 873 the city was besieged for a whole year, and only
+surrendered when famine had rendered the citizens too weak to further
+resist the assaults of the Moorish troops.
+
+The next firebrand to project itself into the inflammatory fabric of
+Toledan discontent was the fanatical martyr, Eulogius. In Cordova this
+frenzied religionist had fired the Christians into reviling Mohammed,
+and thereby exasperating the Moslems into persecution. To the tolerant
+and broad-minded Moors, religious observances were prejudices to be
+respected. They permitted, to Christians and Jews, the fullest licence
+in the matter of worship; they only demanded that a similar respect
+should be observed towards their own faith. The Christians were not
+asked to reverence the Prophet of Islam, but the Moslems could not allow
+him to be openly blasphemed by the infidels. It was against the articles
+of their creed, and it was contrary to human nature. To-day the
+Christian who rebelled against such a reasonable restriction would be
+accounted a bigot, undeserving of sympathy; in the days of Eulogius, the
+revilers of Moorish religious prejudices were regarded as saints. Toledo
+jumped at their rulers’ resentment of the Christians’ wanton insult to
+their faith as an excuse for an outburst of religious indignation, and
+Sindola seized the city and declared war against the khalifate by way of
+protesting against the execution of Eulogius’s disciples. Ordoño, king
+of Leon, sent reinforcements to Sindola, and the allied armies were
+caught in an ambush by the Moors, who struck off 8,000 Christian heads
+for public exhibition in the various disaffected towns. This reverse had
+the desired effect, and the Toledans made no further move until the
+death of Wistremir afforded them an opportunity of exasperating the
+sultan Mohammed by electing Eulogius to the vacant archbishopric of
+Toledo. The sultan, who retaliated by investing the city, had the bridge
+undermined while it was in the occupation of his troops, and, by making
+a feigned retreat, enticed the impetuous Spaniards to give chase. The
+depleted structure collapsed beneath the sudden burden of the pursuing
+army, and hundreds of men met their death in the sullen depths of the
+Tagus.
+
+But neither massacre nor misfortune could shake the dogged Toledans from
+their purpose. With the king of Leon at their back, they put forth new
+efforts, and in 873 they forced Mohammed to acknowledge their
+independence as a Republic in return for the payment of an annual
+tribute. The treaty made with Mohammed was ratified by his successors,
+Mundhir and Abdallah. Even the Great Khalif, Abd-er-Rahman, was at first
+content to send from Cordova a royal proclamation, commanding Toledo to
+surrender her independence to the khalifate, and acknowledge him as
+liege lord, and it was not until 930, or eighteen years after he had
+ascended the throne, that he went up with his army against the arrogant
+and rebellious city. The siege of Toledo by Abd-er-Rahman lasted for
+eight years. The Moorish king built the city, which he called “Victory,”
+on a mountain commanding Toledo, and here he quartered his troops until
+famine and privation should open the gates for him. The long years of
+waiting culminated in a swift assault, and, at the close of a day’s
+fighting, the emaciated heads of the insurgent chiefs were impaled on
+spears to keep their last sightless watch from the walls of the city
+they had defended with such heroic fortitude.
+
+After the death of the Great Khalif, and, thenceforth until the
+Christian conquest, Toledo maintained a partial independence, tolerating
+the rule of Moslem princes, but paying no allegiance to Cordova. And in
+the end she was recovered to the Christians by a piece of picturesque
+treachery. Alfonso of Leon (Alfonso VI.) had fled from the monastery of
+Sagahun, and sought the protection of King Almamon of Toledo, from whom
+he received the most generous hospitality, including gifts of palaces,
+farms, and orchards, and the government of the Christian section of the
+inhabitants. The Moorish king demanded only the subscription of his
+guest’s allegiance, and, in return, he gave a sincere affection, and
+promises of faithful protection. Almamon, whose one vague but ever
+present concern was the possibility of Toledo ever falling again into
+the hands of the Christians, was discussing the subject one day with his
+courtiers in the garden of Alfonso’s palace, and engrossed in the
+consideration of the possible misfortune, he described minutely the only
+plan by which, in his opinion, the city might be taken. Alfonso, who was
+one of the company, affected to be asleep while this dissertation was in
+progress, and the courtiers, who were unable to restrain the eloquence
+of the king, endeavoured to obtain Almamon’s consent to the execution of
+his Christian guest. But the king refused to listen to this inhospitable
+proposition, and on the death of Sancho of Castile (who was murdered by
+Bellido, under the walls of Zamora), his brother, Alfonso of Leon,
+returned to his own kingdom, loaded with honours, and carrying with him
+the secret of Toledo’s vincibility. Before he departed the two kings
+swore eternal amity, and entered into an offensive and defensive
+alliance against the enemies of either, and the enemies of Almamon’s
+son, Yahya. But after the death of Almamon, Alfonso, forgetting his oath
+to his friend, and remembering only the plan of siege he had overheard
+in the garden of Toledo, adopted the principles invented by the Moorish
+theorist, and, in 1085, entered the city as its conqueror.
+
+What has Toledo to show to-day for the three and a-half centuries of the
+artistic influence of Morisco culture and influence? Surprisingly
+little! And yet it would be an even greater surprise if she had more to
+show. The village that climbs the bosom of a mountain does not alter the
+contour of its impassive resting-place; the etchings traced upon a
+Toledo blade does not affect the temper of the steel. The city is still
+“Moorish in appearance,” to employ the guide-book phrase, but it is
+gradually divesting itself of the marks which at one time, and then only
+in part, disguised its Gothic ancestry. Since Alfonso, the tyrant of the
+Galicians, seized the town of Toledo, “that pearl of the necklace, that
+highest tower of the empire in this Peninsula”
+
+[Illustration: TOLEDO
+
+ANCIENT GATE OF VISAGRA.]
+
+[Illustration: CASTLE OF ST. SERVANDO.]
+
+(to quote Abon I Hasan), the Moorish bridge, near Santa Leocadia, and
+the other, which crossed the old Roman waterway, have disappeared, and
+the legendary Palace of Galiana is let out in miserable tenements to the
+lowest class of peasants.
+
+Moratin has immortalised Galiana de Toledo, “most beautiful and
+marvellous,” and Calderon has written of the palace built for her by her
+father, Galafre, who ruled over Toledo for Abd-er-Rahman I. Galafre took
+the old Visigoth shell, and transformed the edifice, by the witchery of
+Moorish windows and arches and staircases, into a palace of delight. He
+devoted his knowledge of hydraulics to the unkempt Toledan Vega, and
+made of it a paradise of leaf and bloom and rill. In the fairy garden,
+Charlemagne, according to tradition, found the “most beautiful and
+marvellous” Galiana, and carried her away from the unwelcome addresses
+of her Moorish admirer, Prince Bradamante, to reign over France as his
+queen. The arms of the Guzmans, into whose possession the palace passed
+under Castillian rule, may still be descried upon its dismantled front.
+
+The wonderful clepsydras, or water clocks of Toledo, the invention of
+Abou-l’-Casem, Abdo-er-Rahman, or Az-Zarcal, as he is more usually
+styled, are quaintly and vaguely described in the following Moorish
+document: “One of the greatest towns of Spain is Toledo, and Toledo is a
+large and well-populated city. On all sides it is washed by a splendid
+river, called the Tagus.... Among the rare and notable things of Toledo
+is that wheat may be kept more than seventy years without rotting, which
+is a great advantage, as all the land abounds in grain and seed of all
+kinds. But what is still more marvellous and surprising in Toledo, and
+what we believe no other inhabited town of all the world has anything to
+equal, are some clepsydras, or water clocks. It is said that Az-Zarcal,
+hearing of a certain talisman, which is in the city of Arin, of Eastern
+India, and which, Masudi says, shows the hours by means of aspas, or
+hands, from the time the sun rises till it sets, determined to fabricate
+an artifice by means of which the people could know the hour of day or
+night, and calculate the day of the moon. He made two great ponds in a
+house on the bank of the Tagus, not far from the Gate of the Tanners,
+making them so that they should be filled with water or emptied
+according to the rise and fall of the moon.”
+
+In Babylonia, India, and Egypt, the clepsydra was used from before the
+dawn of history, especially in astronomical observations, and Latin and
+Greek writers refer to a type which resembled the modern sand glass, and
+was used in the courts of law to limit the length of the pleadings. The
+general form of the clepsydra, which Pliny ascribed to Scipio Nasica,
+consisted essentially of a float, which slowly rose by the tricklings of
+water from above through a small hole in a plate of metal. As the float
+rose it pointed to a scale of hours at the side of the water vessel; or,
+in the more elaborate forms, moved a wheel by means of a ratchet, and
+thus turned a hand on a dial.
+
+The Moorish recounter of the wonders of the water clocks of Toledo tells
+us that its movements were regulated by the moon. As soon as the moon
+became visible by means of invisible conducts, the water began to flow
+into the ponds, and, by day rise, the ponds were four-sevenths full. At
+night another seventh was added, so that by day or night the ponds
+continued to increase in water a seventh every twenty-four hours, and
+were quite full by the time the moon was full. On the 14th of the month,
+when the moon began to fall, the ponds also fell in like proportion. On
+the 21st of the month they were half empty, and on the 29th
+
+[Illustration: MOORISH SWORD.]
+
+completely so. The exact working of those clepsydras, however, is lost,
+as a bungling astronomer, who was deputed by Alfonso “the Learned” to
+examine them and discover the secret, broke the delicate machinery, and
+was forthwith dubbed a Jew by the indignant and exasperated Moors.
+
+Beyond the walls of the city is a stretch of fertile land beside the
+Tagus, which is called the Garden of the King; and at the further end of
+it is the country palace of Galiana. This pleasure house is of a later
+date than the palace of the same name within the city; but, like that
+debased edifice, it is a ruin, its walls of extreme thickness, flanked
+with two massive towers, only remaining to represent what was once
+
+ “A palace lifting to eternal summer
+ Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
+ Of coolest foliage, musical with birds.”
+
+In the War of Independence the French soldiers made a ruin of the
+one-time magnificent Casa de Vargas, which was built by Juan de Herrera,
+and has been described by Antonio Ponz as one of the architectural
+splendours of Toledo. Ponz tells us that “the façade is perfect Doric,
+of exquisite marble, with fluted columns on either side, and the
+pedestals have military emblems in bas-relief. The frieze consists of
+helmets, heads of bulls, and goblets. The coat of arms above the cornice
+is most beautiful, and the women’s forms, seated on each side, are
+life-size. Nothing could be finer than the details, as well as the whole
+of this façade, and for sure it is the most serious, the most lovely,
+and most finished of all I have seen in Toledo. You enter a spacious
+courtyard with lofty galleries running round it above and below the
+lower gallery, sustained by Doric pillars and by the upper Ionic
+columns. The staircase is truly regal, and likewise the various inner
+chambers. They contain different chimney pieces, ornamented with
+graceful fancies executed in bas-relief; and thus, in the lower
+quarters, as in the principal, are other galleries with columns like
+those of the courtyard, with delicious views of the meadows and the
+Tagus.”
+
+In the most miserable quarter of the town, far up above the river, the
+visitor may see some huge blocks of stone, and a few broken arches--all
+that remains of the once magnificent Moorish palace of Henry of Aragon,
+lord of Villena. Henry of Aragon was an enlightened prince and erudite
+scholar, and the possessor of a superb collection of books, which were
+publicly burnt on the plea that their owner had intercourse with the
+devil. Don Enrique is said to have used the subterranean chambers and
+passages of the palace as a meeting-place for witches, and here he is
+supposed to have entertained his Satanic majesty. Samuel Levi, Pedro the
+Cruel’s treasurer, turned the palace vault into a strong-room, but the
+prince, in a needy moment, proved stronger; and the Toledans, following
+the example of their king, completed the sacking of the mansion. The
+Duke of Escalona, in the reign of Charles Quint, burnt the palace to the
+ground, and fled the city with his family, rather than give house-room
+to the treacherous Bourbon, the Constable of France, at the bidding of
+his royal master.
+
+There is in the little plaza of Santa Isabel, a half-obliterated Arabian
+inscription, wishing “Lasting prosperity and perpetual glory to the
+master of this edifice.” This inscription identifies the ruin as the
+palace of King Pedro. The beautiful Casa de Mesa bears scarcely a trace
+of the exquisite Moorish workmanship which characterised the palace of
+the Dukes of Alva; it is impossible to determine from the dilapidated
+Casa de las Tormerias whether it was originally built for a Moorish
+palace or a mezquita; while
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.
+
+Plaster Ornaments, used as Upright and Horizontal Bands enclosing Panels
+on the Walls.]
+
+some few scraps of Moorish inscription in the wood-work of a ruined wall
+still testify to the origin of the Casa de Munarriz. The alcazar, which
+was twice destroyed by fire, is represented by the façades, the three
+towers, the patio, and the enormous staircase--perhaps the only parts of
+the building that were not rebuilt by Charles Quint. The edifice
+commenced by that monarch, and completed by Philip II., was for long the
+most splendid and colossal palace in Spain. Staremberg’s troops
+destroyed the building by fire in 1710; and, a century later, the French
+troops fired the structure which Carlos III. had recomposed out of the
+ashes of Charles V.’s alcazar. The Casa de Mesa, the palace of Estevan
+de Illan, is reduced to a single chamber of exquisite Moorish
+workmanship; the remaining Moorish part of the Taller del Moro is used
+as a common workshop; the regal staircase of the alcazar, so wide that a
+whole army might march up its noble steps, ends in space.
+
+As with the palaces of Toledo, so it is with its temples--the traces of
+Moorish art are nearly all defaced or obliterated. The mosque, which was
+replaced by the church of San Roman, possesses the purest mudejar
+steeple of Toledo, erected by Esteban de Illan, and another, if smaller,
+Moorish steeple, adorns the Santa Magdalena. A monument, which ranks
+among the most interesting in Spain, is the Cristo de la Luz, located
+between the Puerta del Sol and the Puerta Bisagra--a little gem of
+Moorish-Byzantine architecture, which is regarded as the oldest and most
+perfect specimen of its kind in the Peninsula. On the walls of this
+church, which remains to this day a perfect mosque, the conquering
+Alfonso VI. hung up his shield in 1035 to commemorate the first mass
+that was celebrated in Toledo after the defeat of the Moors. Until Tarik
+came to Toledo the mosque had been a Gothic temple, before which hung a
+cross, bearing an effigy of the crucified Christ. Legend declares that
+two impious Jews pricked the greatly-venerated body with a dagger, and
+that from the wound blood instantly gushed forth. The Jews, who
+attempted to evade the penalty of their folly by hiding the crucifix,
+were traced by the stains of blood to their house, and torn to pieces by
+the infuriated Christians. Tradition further asserts that the Jews
+planned a revenge by poisoning the feet of the restored statue, but that
+when a woman knelt before it the figure withdrew its foot from her kiss.
+Many other legends attach to the sacred relic, which was removed from
+before the church when the city was captured by the Moors, and secreted
+in a cavity in the wall, with a burning lamp placed before it. When the
+Moorish dominion came to an end, 370 years later, and the cavity was
+revealed, the unreplenished lamp was found to be still alight before the
+crucifix in the wall of the Moorish mosque. From this legend the church
+takes its name of the Christ of the Light.
+
+This wonderful little monument, which is only twenty-two feet by
+twenty-five feet, possesses six short naves, which cross each other
+under nine vaults, and in the centre are four short, stout columns,
+surmounted by sculptured capitals, from which spring sixteen heavy
+horseshoe arches. This forest of naves and arches comprises a miniature
+reproduction of the mosque of Cordova. Arcades, cusped in Moorish
+fashion, and supported on shafts, pierce the walls; the inevitable “half
+orange” ceiling domes the centre, and above the principal arch is the
+shield of Alfonso VI., embellished with a white cross on a crimson
+ground, which the victorious king handed to Archbishop Bernardo to
+supply the place of a cross above the dismantled altar. This gem of
+Moorish-Byzantine architecture, so small yet so perfect,
+
+[Illustration: ARAB FRAGMENT AT TARRAGONA.]
+
+so simple yet so fantastic, conveys an impression of amazing strength,
+and presents an admirable example of early Arabian work.
+
+The nunnery of Santa Fe, which was originally a regal Moorish palace,
+has been shorn of nearly all its ancient beauty, which is now only
+traceable in the arcaded brickwork of the wall, almost obliterated by
+exuberant foliage. There are still the remnants of Moorish ornamentation
+in the convent halls and corridors of San Juan de la Penitencia, and the
+influence of Moorish art is also seen in some good azulejo and the
+artesonade ceiling of Santa Isabel.
+
+The Alcantara bridge, which was originally a Roman structure, was
+repaired by the Goths in 687, and rebuilt by the Moors of 866. It was of
+this Moorish bridge that Rasis el Moro wrote: “It was such a rich and
+marvellous work, and so subtly wrought, that never man with truth could
+believe there was any other such fine work in Spain.” Since then it has
+been repaired and restored wholly, or in part, no fewer than eight
+times; and while these alterations have changed its style and
+appearance, it still remains one of the finest and most picturesque
+monuments of Toledo. The bridge of San Martin, which compares with it in
+interest and beauty, was built in 1203, and is guarded at either end
+with a tower and gateway adorned with Moorish arches and battlements.
+The bridge of San Martin gives entrance to the city through the gate of
+the Cambron. It is no longer Moorish, as it was in the time of Alfonso
+VI.; but on its half-renaissance, half-classical architecture, one may
+still read the remains of some of those grandiloquent utterances of the
+Moorish spirit which prompted Ponz to style Toledo the city of
+magnificent inscriptions. It was a devout, if somewhat credulous, spirit
+which inspired the transcription of the following article of faith:
+“There is but one God on earth, and Mohammed is His messenger. All the
+faithful who believe in our prophet Mohammed, and continue to kiss the
+hands and feet of Murabite Muley Abda Alcadar every day, will be without
+sin, will not be blind, nor deaf, nor lame, nor wounded; and receiving
+his benediction, when the time of his death comes, will only be three
+days ill and dying, will go with open eyes to Paradise forgiven of all
+sins.” Another inscription bore the following exhortation and
+compensatory promise: “Prayer and peace over our lord and prophet
+Mohammed. All the faithful, when they went to lie down in their beds,
+mentioning the Alfagiu Murabito Abdala, and recommending themselves to
+him, will enter no battle out of which they will not come victorious;
+and in whatever battle against Christians they may stain their lances
+with Christian blood, dying that same day, will go alive and whole with
+eyes open to Paradise, and his descendants will remain till the fourth
+generation forgiven.”
+
+The present Visagra Gate, rebuilt under Charles V., dates back to the
+Moors. It is entirely Moorish in character, with the heavy simple
+features, the triple horseshoe arches and upper crenellated apertures
+which we associate with the first period of Morisco architecture.
+Through this gate, which is now blocked up, Alfonso VI. entered Toledo.
+The two graceful square towers, roofed with green and white tiles, which
+compose the edifice, are joined by the high turreted walls of a square
+courtyard, and the decorations include the Senate’s dedication of the
+gate to Charles Quint, the sculptured arms of the emperor, a statue of
+St. Eugenie, two others of Gothic kings, and a life-sized angel holding
+an unsheathed sword. This cold, bare inventory of the ornaments of the
+gate convey no idea of the splendid impressiveness of the structure, the
+splendour and charm of
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XLIX.
+
+Blank Window.]
+
+which sink into comparative insignificance beside its glorious
+neighbour, the Gate of the Sun.
+
+This magnificent gate of rough stone, with its towers of brown granite,
+has been rightly described as one of the world’s masterpieces. Yet here
+again the pen is powerless to do justice to its beauty; and to describe
+its proportions and decoration is to complicate, rather than explain,
+the impression that is conveyed by the camera. The square towers, with
+their semi-circular fronts, and the great central arch resting on two
+Moorish columns, and the zones of ornamental arches above the
+horse-shaped openings, comprise a Moorish gem against a Spanish sky, a
+miracle of loveliness upon a rough and naked rampart. But how, cries
+Hannah Lynch, to write of this Puerta del Sol, that “thing of beauty
+even among crowded enchantments! It is to pick one’s way through
+superlatives and points of exclamation and call in vain on the goddess
+of sobriety to subdue our tendency to excess and incoherence. Put this
+matchless gate in the middle of the desert of Sahara; it would then be
+worth while making the frightful journey alone to look at it. However
+far you may have journeyed, you would still be for ever thankful to have
+seen such a masterpiece--incontestably a work of supreme art, perhaps
+the rarest thing of the world.” Whether the writer intends her high
+eulogy to be applied generally to any “work of supreme art,” or to the
+Puerta del Sol in particular, most people who have come under the
+witching influence of the art of the Moors, will not deny that it is
+well deserved.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE L.
+
+Rafters of a Roof over a Doorway, now destroyed, beneath the Tocador de
+la Reyna.]
+
+[Illustration: ANCIENT ARABIAN BATHS AT PALMA, MAJORCA.]
+
+
+
+
+MOORISH ORNAMENT
+
+A NOTE ON THE ELEMENTS OF ARAB ART
+
+
+In art, precept is subservient; practice is supreme. The idea which may
+be hidden in a picture is of little moment; it is the design, fully
+accomplished, which is prized. Its inspiration may become a “light to
+shine before men,” but it attains its paramount value only when
+realised.
+
+Refinement of manners and acuteness of intellect have, in the East,
+nothing in common with what we call education. In this social state,
+ignorance, which, among us, condemns a man, may be the condition of
+great originality. The Arab tent-dweller was, and is, often, a very
+superior man; for the tent is a kind of school, always open, where, from
+contact with educated guests who have seen men and cities, was produced
+an intellectual movement which led the Arab, in exchanging his nomadic
+life for a settled habitation, to translate the tent to a more solid
+form; to commute the tent-pole for a slender marble column; and to
+transform luxurious products of the loom, which had adorned his former
+dwelling, to a semblance of their golden tissues on fairy-decorated
+diapery.
+
+If the poetry and refinement of the South of Europe in modern times
+cannot be traced, as many authors would have us believe--notably Father
+Andres, a learned Spaniard, anxious to give to his own country the
+honour of imparting to the rest of Europe the first impulse of
+refinement after the fall of the Roman Empire--to the Arabs of Spain,
+much must still be allowed to their influence; for their progress in
+refinement was hardly less brilliant and rapid than their progress in
+Empire. At the period of the glory of Cordova, which began about A.D.
+750, and continued to the time of its conquest by the Christians in
+1236, the scholars of Spain were in a higher state of cultivation than
+could be found elsewhere; and if the Kingdom of Granada--the last
+stronghold of the Moslem--which ended in 1492, was less refined, it was
+perhaps more splendid and luxurious. The public schools and libraries of
+the Spanish Arabs were resorted to, not only by those of their own faith
+at home and in the East, but by Christians from different parts of
+Europe; and Pope Sylvester the Second (Gerbet, a Frenchman, Pope
+999-1003), one of the most remarkable men of his age, is believed to
+have owed his elevation to the culture he absorbed in Seville and
+Cordova.
+
+Arab art takes its place with the arts of Greece and Japan as one of the
+three great schools into which all styles of ornament naturally fall.
+Beauty and simplicity--the restrained rhythm and order which form the
+essential foundation of Greek art--is as distinct from the vivacious
+realism and unsymmetrical, haphazard decoration of the Japanese, as from
+that elegance and complexity produced by geometrical involutions
+symmetrically constructed, which constitute the basis of Moorish art.
+These three styles have been compared by Monsieur J. Bourgoin, in his
+_Elements of Arab Art_, to the three kingdoms of Nature. Greek art he
+likens to the animal kingdom, the Japanese art to the vegetable kingdom,
+and Arabian art, from the symmetry which recalls the crystallisation of
+minerals in its uniformity of configuration, and its elementary
+structure, he compares with the mineral kingdom.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LI.
+
+Band at Springing of Arch at the Entrance to one of the Halls.]
+
+In the art of the Arabs the inspiration is completely independent of
+living nature. The Arab artist proceeds from within to the exterior; he
+sets himself problems, and transfers them by means of the compass and
+rule. The decorative impulse of Arab art consists of geometrical
+diagrams either carved into relief, or inlaid, or simply laid flat.
+Since the inspiration is dry, and purely abstract, the artistic
+development is slight and unimportant; and, since the motive is
+restricted, Arab decorative art has remained simple, but still of an
+incomparable elegance, because the harmony between inspiration and
+execution is perfect. By their creed Mohammedan artists were forbidden
+to represent living forms, yet they adopted the principles they found in
+Nature, and developed them with absolute fidelity. Thus, as I showed in
+dealing with the architecture of the Alhambra, in surface decoration by
+the Moors the lines flow from a parent stem; every ornament, however
+distant, can be traced to its branch and root. In all cases we find the
+lines radiating from a parent stem, as we may see exemplified in Nature
+by the human hand, or in a leaf. We are never offended, as in modern
+practice, by the random introduction of an ornament set down without a
+reason for its existence. However irregular the expanse they have to
+decorate, they always commence by dividing the field into equal areas,
+and round these main lines they fill in their details, which invariably
+return to their parent stem, a system which proves them to have been
+absolute masters of space.
+
+In the introduction to my volume on the Alhambra, I emphasised this
+fact, that the Moors ever had regard to the first principle of
+architecture--to decorate construction, never to construct decoration.
+In Arabian architecture, not only does the decoration arise naturally
+out of the construction, but the constructive idea is carried out in
+every detail of the ornamentation of the surfaces. A superfluous or
+useless ornament is never found in Moorish decoration; every ornament
+arises naturally and inevitably from the parent design. The general
+forms were first laid down; they were subdivided by general lines; the
+interstices were then filled in with ornament, to be again subdivided
+and enriched for closer inspection. The principle was carried out with
+the greatest refinement, and the harmony and beauty of all Moorish
+ornamentation is derived from its observance. The highest distinction
+was thereby obtained; the detail never interfering with the general
+form. Seen at a distance, the main lines strike the eye; on nearer
+approach, the ornamentation comes into the composition; and a minute
+inspection reveals the detail on the surface of the ornaments
+themselves.
+
+Monsieur A. Rhone, in his _L’Egypte à Petites Journées_, holds that,
+“seeing the marvellous resources which the Arabs have found in geometry
+for decorating surfaces, one regrets less for art that the laws of
+Islamism have forbidden them, as an idolatrous act, to introduce
+representations of animated forms. Although these laws were not so
+strictly observed as is generally believed, who knows, if in turning the
+Arabian artists away from sculpture and statuary, they have not been the
+means of preserving this special and almost transcendant aptitude that
+the Semites have for all subtle combinations, and especially for those
+of geometrical numbers, lines, and figures?”
+
+Although the principles of Moorish art are so rigid and severe, the
+Arabs have not remained exempt from exterior influence, but have adapted
+and incorporated foreign feeling into their art, and modified it to
+their purpose. A note by the late Owen Jones greatly emphasises this
+fact. He says:--“When the Mohammedan religion and civilisation
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LII.
+
+Panelling of a Recess.]
+
+rose with such astonishing rapidity in the East, the Arabs, in their
+mosques, made use of the materials which they found ready to their hands
+in the ruins of old Roman buildings which they purposely destroyed; they
+took columns with their Corinthian capitals, etc., and adapted them to
+the arrangement required for their own temples. In their subsequent
+works they did not, as we should have done, continue to copy and
+reproduce the models which were at first so convenient to them; but,
+applying to them their own peculiar feelings, they gradually departed
+from the original model, to such an extent at last, that but for the
+intermediate steps we should be unable to discover the least analogy
+between them. Yet by this process the capitals of their columns can be
+traced back to the Corinthian order which they, in the first instance,
+found so abundantly for their use.”
+
+Arab art must ever remain distinct from every other school and style,
+because the essential foundation of it is fixed and limited. Now, those
+who resign themselves to a style of art reduce themselves to formulas,
+to copies, or to diagrams. Greco-Roman art has its formulas of ordinance
+and propositions; Chino-Japanese art has its characteristic copies; and
+Syro-Arabian art its abstract and geometrical diagrams. The general
+elements of Arabian art, as applied to architecture and decoration,
+consist of stalactites, intertwinings, and ornaments. Stalactites, which
+are at the same time ornaments and members of architecture, are employed
+in corbelling, in coving, and in pendentives, and are modelled and
+superposed by tapia, or cut in wood and placed side by side, or opened
+into hollows by superficial casings in wire and tressing. The
+intertwinings which embellish the surfaces are carved and trimmed in
+splitboards of carpentry, or laid in compartments, or carved in open
+work, or engraved in stone, wood, and metal; or set in filigree,
+vignettes, or mosaics. The ornaments, which divide themselves into
+decoration by embroidery or embellishment in sections, reduce themselves
+to a small number of elements, or flower-work cut flat in outline. The
+outlines, complete in the boundary which limits them, are quite
+characteristic. They do not resemble in any way, except in so far as the
+unalterable laws of geometry decree, the outline drawn by Europeans, nor
+the cursive traits used by the Chinese and Japanese. All Arab ornament
+is by involution of lines; in short, it may be said to be _entirely_
+geometric.
+
+The art of the Mohammedan, so powerful in appeal to the imagination, not
+only by beauty and grace, but by the doctrine of the Koran inscribed in
+their temples on every side in ornamented characters,--so admirably
+traced that they appear to form part of a perfected design proclaiming
+the power of Allah, and impressing upon the believer respect for the
+laws and the love of virtue;--produces an effect little short of
+magical. Still does that art accompany its religion in a lingering
+death. Crushed by the rapid strides which surrounding nations have made
+in the progress of civilization, and which have outrun and ruined it,
+yet do a few bright emanations appear, to show that as in religion they
+are faithful to their creed, so in art do their crumbling monuments
+preserve their shattered remains on which the observer still may see, in
+deep characters, the chronicles of the times.
+
+In the illustrations which accompany these brief notes, the Arab’s
+mastery of line in the composition of design may be studied, and its
+mystery revealed; but to reduce these geometrical intertwinings to their
+original elements demands patience, application, and very much time. At
+first sight these diagrams may appear monotonous, but each is
+constructed on a particular theme. Most of them spread
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIII.
+
+Blank Window.]
+
+throughout the Orient, and may be more particularly studied in the
+Moorish monuments in Spain, where they are employed indifferently in
+carvings, in mosaic and inlaid work, in application to chased bronze,
+and in compartments of decoration and embroidery. The infinite variety
+the artists are able to introduce while working on strict rules, which
+admit of no exception, is the result of instinct perfected by centuries
+of practice. That in their work was something to be learned, as well as
+to be felt, is evident from the Moorish poet’s exhortation to us to
+attentively contemplate the adornments of their palaces, and thereby
+reap the benefit of a commentary on decoration. It is, then, for the
+benefit of students who would know something more of Arabian
+ornamentation than can be derived from the sensation produced by broad
+effects, and for lovers of the fine arts who would understand the
+inwardness of Moorish refinement and reduce its mysteries to their
+primary bases, that the accompanying diagrams have been reproduced.
+
+At foot of each diagram is added a short explanatory note; but it is
+expedient for the student to give consideration to the _plan_ which is,
+in every case, set out in dotted lines. By this means, he will discover,
+if he approaches his subject with a free mind, that his task will offer
+less difficulty than would appear at the outset. To minutely describe
+the construction of each diagram, and, at the same time comply with the
+stringent rules of geometry, would occupy much too great a space; nor
+would the result, perhaps, be proportioned to the labour.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1 GREEK, RECTILINEAR.
+1’ GREEK, CURVILINEAR.
+2 CHINESE, RECTILINEAR.
+2’ GREEK, CURVILINEAR.
+3 and 4, GREEK, ALTERNATING
+ PATTERN.
+5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, GREEK, INTERCALARY PATTERNS.
+
+11 CHINESE.
+12 ASSYRIAN.
+13 POMPEIAN.
+14 GREEK.
+15 GREEK.
+16 GREEK.
+17 CHINESE, ALTERNATING PATTERN.
+
+18 GREEK, ALTERNATING PATTERN.
+19 CHINESE.
+20 CHINESE.
+21 ARABIAN.
+22 CHINESE.
+23 GREEK.
+24 RENAISSANCE.
+
+25 ARABIAN.
+26 CHINESE.
+27 CHINESE.
+28 PERSIAN.
+29 POMPEIAN.
+30 CHINESE.
+31 CHINESE.
+32 GREEK.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIV.
+
+Ornaments on the Walls, House of Sanchez.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1, 2, 3, 4, GREEK AND ALBANIAN.
+5, 6, 7, 8, RENAISSANCE.
+9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, ITALIAN.
+15, 16, GALLO-ROMAN.
+17, 18, 19, ITALIAN.
+20 ITALIAN.
+21, 22, ITALIAN FAÏENCE.
+23 PONDICHERY.
+24 ARABIAN.
+25, 26, GREEK.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, ARABIAN.
+9 CHINESE.
+11 RENAISSANCE.
+12 GREEK.
+13 ARABIAN.
+14 ARABIAN.
+15 GREEK, ALTERNATING PATTERN.
+16 GREEK.
+17 MEXICAN AND ARABIAN.
+18 GREEK.
+19 ARABIAN.
+20 AMERICAN, ANCIENT POTTERY.
+21, 22, ARABIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LV.
+
+Ornament in panels on the Walls.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1, 2, EGYPTIAN.
+3 EGYPTIAN NECKLACE.
+4 ASSYRIAN.
+5 POMPEIAN.
+6 ITALIAN.
+7 EGYPTIAN.
+8 FRIEZE. 18TH CENTURY.
+9 GREEK.
+10 UNCERTAIN.
+11 ARABIAN.
+12 FRIEZE. 18TH CENTURY.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1, 2, 3, 4, FROM PAINTED VASES.
+5 GREEK.
+6 ORIENTAL FILIGREE.
+7, 8, GREEK.
+9 PERSIAN.
+10 GREEK.
+11 CHINESE.
+12 ORIENTAL FILIGREE.
+13 INDIAN.
+14, 15, PERSIAN.
+16 ARABIAN.
+17 GREEK.
+18 PERSIAN.
+19 ORIENTAL CHASING.
+20 ARABIAN.
+21 PERSIAN.
+22 TURKISH.
+23 GREEK.
+24 PASSEMENTERIE.
+25 NEAPOLITAN.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1, 1´, DAMASCENE.
+2, 2´, 2´´, 2´´´, ARABIAN.
+3, 3´, ARABIAN.
+4, 4´, 4´´, DAMASCENE (ANALOGOUS TO FIGS. 1´, 2´´´, 3´).
+5, 5´, ARABIAN.
+6, 6´, ARABIAN.
+7, 8, 9, ARABIAN.
+10, 10´, 11, 11’, CHINESE.
+12, 12´, GREEK.
+13, 14, PERSIAN.
+15, 16, ANGLO-SAXON.]
+
+[Illustration: Ornament in spandrils of arches.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+1, 2, 3, GREEK.
+4 EGYPTIAN.
+5 STYLE “LABROUSTE.”
+5´ BYZANTINE.
+6 GREEK.
+7, 7´, GREEK.
+8, 9, 10, 10´, 11, 11´,
+GREEK (PARTHENON).]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+_Arabian Construction._
+
+1, 1´, ONE SPIRAL.
+2, 2´, TWO SPIRALS.
+3, 3´, THREE SPIRALS.
+4 CROSS QUARTERLY INDICATING POSITIONS ESSENTIAL TO THE _motif_ NUMBER 3.
+5, 6, 7, 8, REPETITIONS OF _motif_ NUMBER 3 VARIOUSLY TREATED.
+9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, ARRANGEMENTS BY ALTERNATING TREATMENT
+ OF _motif_ NUMBER 3.
+THESE ARRANGEMENTS AFFORD EXCELLENT EXAMPLES OF THE ENDLESS DIVERSITY
+OF GEOMETRIC FORMS.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVII.
+
+Centre Ornament of the Window.
+
+Dado. Dado.
+
+Pilaster. Pilasters.
+
+Mosaic Dado in a window.
+
+The recess or divan containing these beautiful Mosaics was, doubtless,
+the throne of the Moorish kings. The Mosaics are as perfect as when
+originally executed, and seem, indeed, to be imperishable. They are
+formed of baked clay squeezed into moulds of the different figures,
+glazed on the surface.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.
+
+Mosaic Dados on pillars between windows.
+
+The Mosaic Dados on the pillars present a great variety in their
+patterns, although the component parts are in each the same.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LIX.
+
+Mosaic Dados on pillars between windows.
+
+These Mosaics, though in appearance so different from those of the
+preceding plate, will be found on examination to be composed of the same
+pieces differently combined.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LX.
+
+Lining of one of Pilaster.
+the columns.
+
+Dado. Dado. Dado.
+
+The beautiful Mosaic in the centre of this plate is part of the Dado.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXI.
+
+Pavement of the Hall of the Baths.
+
+Mosaic Dado round the internal walls of the Mosque.
+
+ Mosaics from the Mosque and the Hall of the Baths. The Mosaic Dados
+ round the walls of the Mosque appear to be the only portions of the
+ ancient private Mosque attached to the Palace which have been
+ preserved intact in their original situation. The motto of the
+ Kings of Granada, “_There is no conqueror but God_,” was replaced
+ by “_Nec plus ultra_” of Charles V., when the Mosque was converted
+ by him into a chapel. The beautiful Mosaic at the top of the plate
+ is placed round the fountain of the Chamber of Repose of the Baths.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXII.
+
+Azulejos. Painted Tiles.
+
+On the floor of one of the alcoves of the Hall of Justice are to be seen
+the painted tiles delineated in the centre of this plate.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXIII.
+
+Mosaics in the Baths.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXIV.
+
+Mosaic from the portico of the Generalife.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 2, 3, VARIATIONS ON A CHINESE _motif_.
+
+4, 5, 6, VARIATIONS ON A _motif_ HISPANO-ARABIAN.
+
+7, 8, 9, VARIATIONS ON A _motif_, SYRO-ARABIAN.
+
+10, 11, 12, VARIATIONS ON A _motif_, GALLO-ROMAN.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXV.
+
+Ornaments in Panels.]
+
+[Illustration: 1 SIMPLE PLAIT, UNDULATED.
+
+2 DOUBLE PLAIT.
+
+3 SIMPLE PLAIT, INTERSECTED.
+
+4 PLAIT, FROM A GREEK VASE.
+
+5 REDOUBLED PLAIT, GREEK.
+
+6 INFLECTED PLAIT, GREEK.
+
+7 INFLECTED PLAIT, GREEK.
+
+8 QUADRUPLED PLAITS, INTERLACED, SICILIAN.
+
+9 SICILIAN.
+
+10 TRIPLE PLAIT, GREEK.
+
+11 TRIPLE PLAIT, GREEK.
+
+12 DIVERSIFIED PLAIT, NEAPOLITAN.
+
+13 GREEK.
+
+14 GREEK.
+
+15 ARABIAN.
+
+16 PERSIAN (THREE PLAITS, INTERSECTED).
+
+17 GREEK.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXVI.
+
+Ornaments over Arches at one of the Entrances.]
+
+[Illustration: _Egypto-Arabian Knot, or Net-work._
+
+1 DERIVED FROM THE PENTAGON.
+
+2 VARIETY OF PROCEEDING.
+
+3, 4, TRIGONOMETRICAL.
+
+5 OCTAGONAL.
+
+6 HEPTAGONAL.
+
+7 QUADRILATERAL.
+
+8 OCTAGONAL.]
+
+[Illustration: _Indo-Syro-Arabian Knot, or Net-work._
+
+1 SQUARES AND OCTAGONS.
+
+2 DERIVED FROM SQUARES.
+
+3 DERIVED FROM THE SQUARE: FROM THE CENTRE A DODECAGON AND OTHER FIGURES
+ARE FORMED BY SUB-DIVISION.
+
+4 DERIVED FROM THE SQUARE: THE ANGLES BEING DIVIDED, THE RESULTING RAYS
+DETERMINE THE FIGURES BY INTERSECTION.
+
+5 ANALOGOUS TO FIGURE 2.
+
+6 TRIGONOMETRICAL.
+
+7 HEXAGONAL.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXVII.
+
+Ornaments on the Walls.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 1’, BRICK FACINGS FROM ROSETTA.
+
+2, 3, 4, ARABIAN.
+
+5 JAPANESE.
+
+6 GRECO-ASSYRIAN.
+
+7 ARABIAN.
+
+8 CHINESE.]
+
+[Illustration: 1 ARABIAN.
+
+2 ORNAMENTED BRICK, ROSETTA.
+
+3, 4, 5, 6, FOUR ANALOGOUS _motifs_, RESPECTIVELY CHINESE, ARABIAN
+(_bis_) AND GRECO-ASSYRIAN.
+
+7 ARABIAN.
+
+8 GRECO-EGYPTIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXVIII.
+
+Ornaments in Panels on the Walls.]
+
+[Illustration: 1 ARABIAN (DAMASCUS).
+
+2 CEILING, LOUIS XIII.
+
+3, 4, 5, ARABIAN (DAMASCUS)?
+
+6 INDIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, ARABIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: 1 INCRUSTATION ON POTTERY, FROM OIRON.
+
+2 RENAISSANCE.
+
+3 MEXICAN.
+
+4 CHINESE.
+
+5 EGYPTIAN.
+
+6 ARABIAN.
+
+7, 8, 9, EARLY TILES, FROM DAMASCUS, ROME, AND FLORENCE RESPECTIVELY.
+
+10 ITALIAN.
+
+11, 11’, EGYPTIAN.
+
+12 ITALIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXIX.
+
+Small Panel in Jamb of a Window.]
+
+[Illustration: 1 PERSIAN.
+
+2 ARABIAN CEILING, FROM CAIRO.
+
+3 CEILING, PAINTED BY DUBAN.
+
+4 BYZANTINE.
+
+5 CHINESE.
+
+6 POMPEIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXX.
+
+Small Panel in Jamb of a Window.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 2, LACE-WORK.
+
+3, 3’, EGYPTIAN.
+
+4, 4’, EGYPTIAN.
+
+5, 6, EGYPTIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 2, 3, ANGLO-SAXON.
+
+4 EGYPTIAN. STRANGELY ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 3.
+
+5, 6, 7, ANGLO-SAXON.
+
+8 EGYPTIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: 1 ARABIAN.
+
+2 ITALIAN.
+
+3 RENAISSANCE.
+
+4 ARABIAN.
+
+5 ARABIAN.
+
+6 ARABIAN.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 2, 3, FROM THE CHURCH OF ST. CROIX, JERUSALEM.
+
+4 SICILIAN.
+
+5, 6, 7, 8, ARABIAN.
+
+9, 10, CHISELLINGS ON STONE, JERUSALEM.
+
+11 MARBLE CHASING, JERUSALEM.
+
+12, 13, ARABIAN CHASINGS, ON COPPER.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXI.
+
+Panel in the Upper Chamber of the House of Sanchez.]
+
+[Illustration: 1, 2, 3, “PALMETTES” FROM THE PROWS OF _dahabiehs_ (NILE
+BOATS)
+
+4, 5, 6, 7, 8, GREEK, FROM EXAMPLES AT ATHENS.]
+
+[Illustration: 1-9. THIS PLATE IS DEVOTED TO CURVILINEAR FIGURES,
+CHIEFLY FROM ATHENS.
+
+FIGURE 7 IS FROM A MURAL DECORATION AT POMPEII.]
+
+DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES
+
+HEXAGONAL FAMILY
+
+[Illustration: 1 PLAN, TRIANGULAR. TO DESCRIBE THE HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 2 PLAN, TRIANGULAR. LARGE AND SMALLER HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 3 PLAN, TRIANGULAR. CURVILINEAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE
+PRECEDING FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 4 TRIANGLES CURTAILED; OR, TERNARY HEXAGONS
+INTERSECTED.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXII.
+
+Spandril from Niche of Doorway at one of the Entrances.]
+
+[Illustration: 5 INTERSECTIONS IN COMPARTMENTS. FIVE FIGURES--LARGE AND
+SMALLER HEXAGON; HEXAGON OF UNEQUAL LENGTH; DOVE-TAILED HEXAGON;
+HEXAGONAL STAR; TRIANGLE.]
+
+[Illustration: 6 HEXAGONS INTERSECTED CIRCULARLY BY THE SIX POINTS, THE
+APICES UNITED BY A TRIANGLE. FOUR FIGURES--STAR, PENTAGON, TRIANGLE,
+LOZENGE.]
+
+[Illustration: 7 HEXAGONS, INTERSECTED BY THE APICES. THREE
+FIGURES--STAR, LOZENGE, DODECAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 8 TRIANGULAR PLAN. FROM THE APICES OF THE TRIANGLES OF
+DIVISION DRAW HEXAGONAL STARS. THE PLAN IS INTERSECTED BY DETACHED
+HEXAGONS ENCLOSING THE STARS.]
+
+[Illustration: 9 TRIANGLES ENCLOSED, AND LEAVING HEXAGONAL STARS, THE
+STARS BEING JOINED BY ZIG-ZAG BANDS.]
+
+[Illustration: 10 HEXAGONAL STAR, OF WHICH A SIDE FROM EACH APEX IS
+EXTENDED IN REVOLVING; THREE STARS THUS REVOLVED ARE JOINED BY A BAND.]
+
+[Illustration: 11 BANDS ENVELOPING A HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 12 RECTANGLES INTERSECTING REGULARLY BY THREES, AND
+INTERLACED BY THEIR SMALLER SIDES, THEIR EXTREMITIES, PENETRATING,
+FORMING THREE PAIRS OF PENTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXIII.
+
+Lintel of a Doorway.]
+
+[Illustration: 13 FROM THE APICES OF TRIANGLES OF DIVISION DESCRIBE
+CIRCUMFERENCES; DIVIDE THE CIRCUMFERENCES IN TWELVE EQUAL PARTS, AND
+TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF FIVE IN FIVE DIVISIONS; THUS STARS OF SIX POINTS
+ARE OBTAINED. THESE STARS CONTAIN IN THE ENCLOSURE A HEXAGON OF TERNARY
+SYMMETRY, WITH ANGLES ALTERNATELY RIGHT AND OBTUSE.]
+
+[Illustration: 14]
+
+[Illustration: 15 FROM THE APICES OF THE TRIANGLES OF DIVISION DESCRIBE
+A CIRCUMFERENCE. WITH A RADIUS EQUAL TO THAT OF THE TRIANGLE. INSCRIBE A
+DODECAGON; THEN TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF THREE IN THREE DIVISIONS FROM THE
+OTHER DIAGONALS WHICH FORM THE SQUARES.]
+
+[Illustration: 16 FIGURE ANALOGOUS TO FIGURE 8. _q.v._]
+
+[Illustration: 17 FROM THE APICES OF THE TRIANGLES OF DIVISION DESCRIBE
+CIRCUMFERENCES HAVING A RADIUS EQUAL TO ONE-THIRD OF A SIDE; SUB-DIVIDE
+THEM INTO TWELVE EQUAL PARTS, THEN TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF THREE IN THREE
+DIVISIONS. THE RADIUS OF THE CIRCUMFERENCES WOULD BE SMALLER OR LARGER
+THAN THE ONE-THIRD OF THE SIDE; AND THEN, BY MEANS OF AN ADJUSTMENT, THE
+SQUARES BETWEEN THE APICES WOULD HAVE A SIDE EQUAL TO THAT OF THE
+STARS.]
+
+[Illustration: 18 DODECAGONS INTERSECTED BY EACH OTHER, WHICH ARE
+OBTAINED BY SUB-DIVISION OF THE ANGLES OF THE TRIANGLES INTO FOUR EQUAL
+PARTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 19 DODECAGONS CONTAINING SIX-POINTED STARS SUB-DIVIDED BY
+BANDS. THE RADIUS OF THE DODECAGONS IS EQUAL TO HALF A SIDE OF THE
+TRIANGLES OF DIVISION.]
+
+[Illustration: 20 FROM THE APICES OF THE TRIANGLES DESCRIBE A
+CIRCUMFERENCE, WITH ITS RADIUS EQUAL TO HALF A SIDE OF THE TRIANGLES.
+THE SIX-POINTED STARS AND BANDS WHICH ARE DERIVED FROM THEM COULD BE OF
+DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 21 DISTRIBUTION PROCEEDING FROM HEXAGONS AND TRIANGLES.]
+
+[Illustration: 22 SIX-POINTED STARS AND HEXAGONS, FROM WHICH PROCEED
+BAND-WORK AND LOZENGES.]
+
+[Illustration: 23 HEXAGONS, TRIANGLES, AND SIX-POINTED STARS.]
+
+[Illustration: 24 SUBJECT SIMILAR TO NUMBER 21.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXIV.
+
+Capital of Columns.]
+
+[Illustration: 25 LARGE HEXAGONS CROSSED AND CUT BY FIGURES QUARTERED BY
+EIGHT SIDES; HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL BANDS PROCEEDING FROM SIX-POINTED
+STARS.]
+
+[Illustration: 26 FROM THE APICES OF THE TRIANGLES OF DIVISION DESCRIBE
+THE CIRCUMFERENCES, AND DIVIDE THEM INTO TWELVE EQUAL PARTS. BY THE
+POINTS OF THE STAR THUS MADE, DESCRIBE SIX HALF-CIRCLES, IN EACH CASE
+FORMING A ROSETTE. SMALL INTERCALARY CIRCLES UNITE THE ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: 27 EACH SIX-POINTED STAR IS SURROUNDED BY A ROSETTE OF
+SIX HEXAGONS, WHICH, IN THEIR TURN, DISTRIBUTE THEIR LINES TO FORM
+LARGER HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 28 EACH SIX-POINTED STAR IS SURROUNDED BY A ROSETTE OF
+SIX HEXAGONS, WHICH ARE SUPPLEMENTED BY PERPENDICULAR LINES, WHICH, BY
+INTERSECTING OCTAGONS THEMSELVES, ARE THE MEANS OF COMPLETING SMALL
+HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 29 FROM THE UPPER ANGLES OF THE SQUARES OF DIVISION TRACE
+STARS SIX-POINTED, ROTATING ALTERNATELY AS SHOWN IN DIAGRAM. THE
+JUNCTION OF THE LINES OF DIVISION DETERMINE THE POINTS OF THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 30 ALTERNATING DISPOSITIONS OF SIX-POINTED STAR, WITH
+EXTERIOR ROSETTE OF SIX HEXAGONS. THE ANGLES OF THE SQUARE BEING DIVIDED
+INTO THREE EQUAL PARTS BY A FIRST AND SECOND RADIUS, A CIRCUMFERENCE IS
+MADE, WITHIN WHICH IS INSCRIBED THE STAR OF SIX POINTS. THE REST
+FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 31 SUBJECT ANALOGOUS TO NUMBERS 28, 29.]
+
+[Illustration: 32 ALTERNATING DISPOSITION OF SIX-POINTED STAR,
+SURROUNDED BY SIX HEXAGONS. SUB-DIVIDE THE ANGLES OF THE SQUARE INTO
+THREE EQUAL PARTS. THE CONJUNCTION OF THE RADII WITH THEM, AND WITH THE
+MEDIALS OF THE SQUARE, MAKE THE FIGURE. IN THE CENTRE OF THE SQUARE A
+LINEAL SUBJECT, ALTERNATING.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXV.
+
+Capital of Columns.]
+
+[Illustration: 33 HEXAGONAL AND OCTAGONAL DISTRIBUTION.]
+
+[Illustration: 34 HEXAGONAL DISTRIBUTION. PENTAGONAL STARS AND
+HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 35 HEXAGONAL STAR INSCRIBING A SECOND SIX-POINTED STAR.
+THE INTERSECTIONS GIVE LOZENGES AND HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 36 SQUARE PLAN. DIVIDE OPPOSITE LINES INTO THREE, AND BY
+THE CENTRE OF THE SQUARE CARRY TWO CROSS LINES.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXVI.
+
+Capital of Columns.]
+
+[Illustration: 37 TRIANGULAR PLAN. HEXAGONAL STAR AND HEXAGONAL ROSETTE
+ENCLOSED BY REGULAR HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 38 HEXAGONAL, SQUARE, AND TRIANGULAR PLAN. HEXAGONAL
+DISTRIBUTION. DODECAGON STAR IN CENTRES.]
+
+[Illustration: 39 TRIANGULAR PLAN. HEXAGONAL DISPOSITION.]
+
+[Illustration: 40 TRIANGULAR PLAN. HEXAGONS AND TRIANGLES; INTERSECTED
+HEXAGONS; HEXAGONAL CURVILINEAR ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXVII.
+
+SEVILLE.
+
+Socle of the Entrance Arch to the Antechapel.]
+
+[Illustration: 41 TRIANGULAR PLAN. DODECAGONAL STARS; HEXAGONAL STARS
+ENCLOSED BY REGULAR HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 42 SQUARE PLAN. FROM THE CENTRE DESCRIBE A CIRCUMFERENCE;
+DIVIDE CIRCUMFERENCE INTO EIGHT EQUAL PARTS, STARRED OCTAGONS ARE THUS
+OBTAINED, THE PROLONGED SIDES OF WHICH DETERMINE QUADRILATERAL STARS.]
+
+[Illustration: 43 CURVILINEAL TRANSFORMATION OF FIGURE 42.]
+
+[Illustration: 44 OCTAGONAL STARS; INTERSECTING LOZENGES, SQUARES,
+TRILATERALS.]
+
+[Illustration: 45 DIVIDE THE SQUARE INTO FOUR EQUAL PARTS. THE MEETING
+OF THE FIRST LINE WITH THE MEDIAN OF THE SQUARE GIVES THE RADIUS OF A
+CIRCUMFERENCE. THE DIAGONAL LINES GIVE AN OCTAGONAL STAR.]
+
+[Illustration: 46 SQUARE PLAN. FROM THE CENTRE A CIRCUMFERENCE, AND BY
+DIAGONALS A STARRED OCTAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 47 CURVILINEAR AND UNDULATING OCTAGONS AND PENTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 48 DISTRIBUTION OF STARRED AND REGULAR OCTAGONS, WITH
+STARRED PENTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 49 OCTAGONAL ROSETTES FOLLOWING ISOCELES TRIANGLE WITH
+PENTAGONAL STARS AND REGULAR OCTAGONS INTERCALARY.]
+
+[Illustration: 50 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS SHOWN IN PLAN, IN WHICH ARE
+CARRIED DIAGONALS. FROM THE CENTRE INSCRIBE A SQUARE. THE INTERSECTIONS
+OF THE LINES OF THE STAR COMPLETE THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 51 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES EQUAL AND TANGENT, AND DIVIDE
+INTO SIXTEEN EQUAL PARTS. BY THE ANGLES OF DIVISION DESCRIBE A PENTAGON
+STARRED. BY THE CENTRE OF THE SQUARE AN OCTAGON STARRED, FROM WHICH
+EMANATES AN OCTAGON ROSETTE. HEXAGONS REGULAR AND STARRED.]
+
+[Illustration: 52 DIVIDE TANGENT CIRCUMFERENCES INTO SIXTEEN EQUAL
+PARTS. SIMILAR DISPOSITION TO FIGURE NUMBER 49, BUT WITH DIFFERENT
+TREATMENT.]
+
+[Illustration: 53 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN; INSCRIBE THEREIN
+BY THE DIAGONALS A STAR, THE SIDES OF WHICH, PROLONGED AND INTERSECTED
+BY THE OCTAGONAL STAR, DETERMINE THE ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: 54 DIVIDE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN INTO THIRTY-TWO EQUAL
+PARTS. FROM THE CENTRE OF THE SQUARE INSCRIBE A STAR OF SIXTEEN POINTS,
+THE PROLONGATION OF ITS LINES FORMING THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN.]
+
+[Illustration: 55 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. FROM THE CENTRE OF
+THE PLAN BY RADIATING LINES INSCRIBE A STARRED OCTAGON; THE PROLONGATION
+AND MEETING OF ITS LINES IN REPETITION COMPLETE THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 56 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. IN THE CENTRE OF
+FOUR EQUAL SQUARES TRACE AN OCTAGONAL ROSETTE, AFTER HAVING TAKEN IN THE
+LARGE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS, WHICH LENDS ITS LINES TO THE FORMATION
+OF EIGHT SURROUNDING CRUCIFORM FIGURES.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXVIII.
+
+SEVILLE.
+
+Socle of the Entrance Arch to the Chapel.]
+
+[Illustration: 57 FROM THE CENTRE OF FOUR EQUAL SQUARES DESCRIBE
+CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. INSCRIBE THEREIN THE STARRED OCTAGON, THE
+PROLONGED SIDES OF WHICH DETERMINE THE QUADRILATERAL ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 58 THE SQUARE OF DISTRIBUTION IS A RECTANGLE LENGTHENED,
+FROM WHICH OCTAGONS ARE TRACED. TERNARY STARS, YET WITH SIX POINTS, AND
+PAIRED STARS WITH FIVE POINTS FILL IN THE RECTANGLE.]
+
+[Illustration: 59 DESIGN OF FOUR FIGURES. AN OCTAGON, A HEXAGON PAIRED,
+A STARRED PENTAGON, AND A STARRED HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 60 ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 58, WITH CLOSER DEVELOPMENT.]
+
+[Illustration: 61 A STARRED OCTAGON, THE PROLONGED LINES OF WHICH FORM
+AN OCTAGONAL ROSETTE, SEPARATED BY A REGULAR HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 62 DIVIDE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN INTO SIXTEEN EQUAL
+PARTS. THE DIAGONALS WILL GIVE A STAR OF SIXTEEN POINTS, THE LINES OF
+WHICH, EXTENDED, FORM A ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS WITHIN A SQUARE. THE
+ANGLES OF THE SQUARE INTERSECT REGULAR HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 63 DESCRIBE THE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN. INSCRIBE
+FROM A CENTRE A STARRED OCTAGON ENCLOSED WITHIN A REGULAR OCTAGON, A
+STARRED HEXAGON WITHIN ALTERNATE HEXAGONS, AND A CRUCIFORM FIGURE WITHIN
+A FOUR-POINTED STAR.]
+
+[Illustration: 63’ DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN, AND FROM A
+CENTRE INSCRIBE A STARRED OCTAGON; FROM THE EXTENDED LINES IS FORMED A
+CRUCIFORM FIGURE. FROM OTHER CENTRES INSCRIBE STARRED AND REGULAR
+HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: SEVILLE.
+
+Detail of the Tiles of the Altar.]
+
+[Illustration: 64 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN. FROM A CENTRE
+INSCRIBE A STARRED OCTAGON OF WHICH THE SIDES ARE PROLONGED. BY THESE
+PROLONGATIONS, AND BY OCTAGONAL FIGURES IN PAIRS, THE TRACING IS
+COMPLETE.]
+
+[Illustration: 65 DIVIDE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN INTO TWENTY-FOUR
+EQUAL PARTS, AND INSCRIBE FROM A CENTRE A STARRED DODECAGON, THE
+EXTENDED LINES OF WHICH DETERMINE THE INTERSECTING LINES OF THE
+ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 66 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN. FROM A CENTRE
+INSCRIBE A STARRED DODECAGON ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 65.]
+
+[Illustration: 67 TRIANGULAR PLAN. DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE
+PLAN. FROM A CENTRE INSCRIBE A STARRED DODECAGON, THE EXTENDED LINES OF
+WHICH FORM THE UNEQUAL LIMBS OF A ROSETTE, AND A CRUCIFORM FIGURE WITHIN
+A SQUARE.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXX.
+
+SEVILLE.
+
+Socle in the Interior of the Chapel.]
+
+[Illustration: 68 DIVIDE AS IN THE PLAN. INSCRIBE A STARRED DODECAGON,
+THE SIDES OF WHICH PROLONGED INSCRIBE THE LINES OF THE ROSETTE. FOUR
+ROSETTES PENETRATE EACH OTHER, AND ARE EACH INVADED BY A STAR HAVING
+TRIANGULAR WEBS.]
+
+[Illustration: 69 FROM A CENTRE AS IN THE PLAN DESCRIBE A STARRED
+DODECAGON, THE SIDES OF WHICH PROLONGED FORM THE LINES OF THE ROSETTE.
+THE ROSETTE, BY EXTENDING LINES, IS SURROUNDED BY TWELVE HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 70 DIVIDE AS IN THE PLAN. DESIGN ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 69.
+BY EXTENSION OF LINES OF THE ROSETTE HEXAGONS ARE GROUPED.]
+
+[Illustration: 71 DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. DESIGN ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 70.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXXI.
+
+SEVILLE.
+
+Socle in the Interior of the Chapel.]
+
+[Illustration: 72 DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. THE CIRCUMFERENCES DIVIDED INTO
+TWENTY-FOUR EQUAL PARTS DETERMINE THE ROSETTE, THE EXTENDED LINES OF
+WHICH DESCRIBE THE STARRED PENTAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 73 CURVILINEAR TRANSFORMATION OF NUMBER 72 BY THE
+SUBSTITUTION OF ARCS FOR RECTILINEAL FEATURES.]
+
+[Illustration: 74 DIVIDE THE CIRCUMFERENCES INTO TWENTY-FOUR EQUAL
+PARTS. INSCRIBE THE STARRED DODECAGON, THE EXTENDED LINES OF WHICH
+DESCRIBE THE ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 75 DESCRIBE THREE CONCENTRIC CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN.
+THE ROSETTE BECOMES ENTIRE BY LINES EXTENDED FROM THE STARRED DODECAGON.
+CROSSED LINES FROM THE ROSETTE DETERMINE THE SQUARE.]
+
+[Illustration: 76 TRANSFORMATION OF NUMBER 75. ROSETTE IDENTICAL. IN THE
+CENTRE OF A SQUARE DESCRIBE AN OCTAGON, THE PROLONGED SIDES OF WHICH
+INVADE THE SQUARE WHICH FIGURES AROUND THE ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 77 DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. FROM A CENTRE TRACE A STARRED
+HEXAGON, THE EXTENDED LINES OF WHICH CUT THE PROLONGED LINES OF THE
+ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 78 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. FROM A CENTRE
+TRACE A STARRED DODECAGON. THUS ARE DETERMINED ROSETTES PLACED END TO
+END, EACH IN A REGULAR HEXAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 79 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. THE ROSETTE IS
+DETERMINED BY THE STARRED DODECAGON. THIS DESIGN IS MOST DIVERSIFIED,
+AND CAPABLE OF EXHAUSTIVE FORMS OF ORNAMENT.]
+
+[Illustration: 80 FROM A CENTRE DRAW A STARRED DODECAGON, WHICH
+DETERMINES THE ROSETTE, THE CROSSED LINES AT THE POINTS OF THE ROSETTE
+DETERMINING THE MANY REGULAR HEXAGONS AND _tricèles_.]
+
+[Illustration: 81 HEXAGONAL DISTRIBUTION. FROM A CENTRE DRAW A STARRED
+DODECAGON DETERMINING THE ROSETTE, THE ALTERNATELY CROSSED LINES OF
+WHICH FORM A _tricèle_, WITHIN A SECOND CIRCUMFERENCE, AS IN THE PLAN,
+DRAW A STARRED HEXAGON, THE EXTENDED LINES FORMING SIX REGULAR
+HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 82 FROM A CENTRE A STARRED DODECAGON. THE LINES EXTENDED
+FORM AN OUTER STARRED DODECAGON, AND BY CROSSING DESCRIBES A STARRED
+HEXAGON AND A LOZENGE, WITHIN WHICH IS A CRUCIFORM FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 82’ THE RADIUS OF THE CIRCUMFERENCE IS EQUAL TO A THIRD
+OF THE HEIGHT OF THE TRIANGLE, AND THE SQUARE MAKES A STAR OF FOUR
+POINTS AT EACH ANGLE.]
+
+[Illustration: 83 DRAW CIRCUMFERENCES AND DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. THE STARRED
+DODECAGON DETERMINED BY INTERTWINED SQUARES. THE LINES OF THE DODECAGON,
+EXTENDED AT INTERVALS, FORM A STAR OF FOUR POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 84 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. FROM A CENTRE AN
+INNER AND OUTER STARRED DODECAGON, THE LINES OF WHICH EXTENDED FORM A
+STARRED AND REGULAR HEXAGON, INCLUDING A STARRED OCTAGON WHICH MERGES
+INTO A CRUCIFORM FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 85 TRACE THE NET-WORK OF THE DODECAGON, THE HEXAGON, AND
+THE FOUR-POINTED STARS. FOLLOW DIAGONALS AS IN PLAN.]
+
+[Illustration: 86 DRAW CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. FROM A CENTRE AN INNER
+AND OUTER STARRED DODECAGON. EXTENDED LINES OF THE INNER DODECAGON FORM
+SIX SQUARES WHICH INVADE A REGULAR DODECAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: Mosaics from Various Halls.]
+
+[Illustration: 87 SQUARE PLAN. AN INNER AND OUTER STARRED DODECAGON, AND
+A REGULAR DODECAGON BY DIAGONALS.]
+
+[Illustration: 88 SQUARE PLAN. DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AND DIVIDE THEM
+INTO TWENTY-FOUR EQUAL PARTS, AND DRAW THE DIAGONALS OF EIGHT IN EIGHT
+DIVISIONS. THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 89 NET-WORK OF THE DODECAGON AND THE TRIANGLE ASSEMBLED.
+BY EXTENDED LINES OF THE STARRED DODECAGON AN IRREGULAR POLYGON, AND A
+ROSETTE OF TWELVE LIMBS ARE FORMED.]
+
+[Illustration: 90 ISOCELES PLAN. A CIRCUMFERENCE IS DRAWN IN A SQUARE
+AND DIVIDED INTO TWENTY-FOUR EQUAL PARTS. A CIRCUMFERENCE, CONCENTRIC TO
+THE FIRST, COMPLETES THE ROSETTE BY MEANS OF DIAGONALS. THE SMALL
+HEXAGON AND THE OCTAGON ARE TRACED.]
+
+[Illustration: 91 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCE AND DIVIDE INTO TWENTY-FOUR
+EQUAL PARTS. THE REGULAR DODECAGON IS DRAWN. THE INNER AND OUTER STARRED
+DODECAGONS ARE DESCRIBED BY RADIATING LINES.]
+
+[Illustration: 92 NET-WORK OF THE HEXAGON AND THE TRIANGLE. THE ROSETTE
+OF TWELVE POINTS SPRINGING FROM A STARRED DODECAGON IS ENCLOSED BY A
+HEXAGON, TRELLISED, FROM WHICH THE _tricèles_ ARE DRAWN.]
+
+[Illustration: 93 OF SIMILAR INTENTION TO NUMBER 92, BUT AN IRREGULAR
+HEXAGON RECEIVES INTERCALARY LOZENGES.]
+
+[Illustration: 94 TRIANGULAR PLAN. TRACED BY TRELLISED NET-WORK. THE
+HEXAGON ENVELOPED IN SPIRALS.]
+
+[Illustration: 95 TRIANGULAR PLAN. HEXAGON ENVELOPED IN SPIRALS.
+ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 94.]
+
+[Illustration: 96 NET-WORK OF THE OCTAGON, HEXAGON, AND CIRCLE,
+ASSEMBLED. FROM THE STARRED OCTAGONS A CURVILINEAL ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 97 SQUARE PLAN. STARS AND ROSETTES. DESCRIBE
+CIRCUMFERENCES AS INDICATED. THE OCTAGONAL STARS RECEIVE THE EXTENDED
+LINES OF THE HEXAGONAL AND PENTAGONAL STARS. THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 98 DIVIDE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN. FROM THE CENTRE
+OF THE HEXAGONAL ROSETTE DESCRIBE A CIRCUMFERENCE TANGENT TO THE FIRST,
+AND DIVIDE INTO TWELVE PARTS. BY THE AID OF THE PENTAGON COMPRISED
+COMPLETE THE ROSETTE; THEN, DEPENDING ON THE PENTAGON--WHICH, THOUGH
+IRREGULAR, RULES ALL--TRACE THE PENTAGONAL FIGURE WHICH STANDS ON THE
+POINTS OF THE ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIII.
+
+Mosaics from Various Halls.]
+
+[Illustration: 99 ISOCELES PLAN. DIVIDE THE SPACE SURROUNDING THE ACUTE
+APICES OF THE LOZENGE INTO TWENTY EQUAL PARTS, AND OF THE OBTUSE APICES
+INTO SIXTEEN. IN THE ONE DRAW A STARRED DECAGONAL, AND IN THE OTHER A
+STARRED OCTAGONAL ROSETTE. THE ADJUSTMENT OF TWO TYPES SO DIFFERENT IS
+NOT CONSIDERED SUCCESSFUL.]
+
+[Illustration: 100 DIAGRAM OF THE DODECAGON, HEXAGON AND SQUARE. IN THE
+CENTRE OF THE SQUARE A REGULAR OCTAGON, WHICH IS SUPREME. THEN FROM THE
+STARRED DODECAGON INSCRIBE A ROSETTE OF TWELVE POINTS; LASTLY, FROM THE
+STARRED HEXAGON INSCRIBE A ROSETTE OF SIX POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 101 DIVIDE THE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN, THE ONE
+INTO TWENTY-FOUR AND THE OTHER INTO TWELVE EQUAL PARTS. FOR THE REST,
+THE CENTRES BEING INDICATED, IT IS EASY TO TRACE THE ARCS, AND SO
+COMPLETE THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 102 THE LOZENGE AND TRELLISED ROSETTE EMANATING FROM
+STARRED HEXAGON, ALTERNATING ROW BY ROW WITH DODECAGONAL ROSETTE
+SPRINGING FROM STARRED DODECAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIV.
+
+Part of Ceiling of a Portico.]
+
+[Illustration: 103 DESCRIBE THE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN. BY THE POINTS
+OF THE STARRED HEXAGON DESCRIBE A REGULAR HEXAGON. BY LINES EXTENDED
+FROM THE STARRED HEXAGON THE TWELVE-POINTED ROSETTE IS FORMED,
+CONSTRUCTING AT THE SAME TIME THE STARRED DODECAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 104 DESIGN ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 103, BUT WITH CHANGE OF
+_motif_.]
+
+[Illustration: 105 SQUARE PLAN. DIVIDE AS INDICATED AND INSCRIBE A
+STARRED DODECAGON, THE EXTENDED LINES OF WHICH FORM AN OUTER STAR ALSO
+OF TWELVE POINTS; THE STARRED OCTAGON IS CONSTITUTED BY POINTS PROLONGED
+FROM THE DODECAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 106 SQUARE PLAN. SIMILAR GROUND-WORK TO THAT OF NUMBER
+105. THE DODECAGONAL AND OCTAGONAL ROSETTES ARE DESCRIBED BY CONCENTRIC
+CIRCUMFERENCES.]
+
+[Illustration: 107 SQUARE PLAN. SIMILAR GROUND-WORK TO NUMBERS 105 AND
+106. THE TREATMENT CONSIDERABLY CHANGED.]
+
+[Illustration: 108 SQUARE PLAN. SUB-DIVIDE AS INDICATED. INSCRIBE THE
+PENTAGON, THE EXTENDED LINES OF WHICH ESTABLISH THE OCTAGONAL STAR AND
+ROSETTE, AS WELL AS THE DODECAGONAL ROSETTE AND STAR.]
+
+[Illustration: 109 SQUARE PLAN. DIVIDE AS INDICATED. THE FLOWER-WORK
+WHICH ACCOMPANIES THE IRREGULAR OCTAGON, THOUGH INDEPENDENT OF GEOMETRIC
+CONSTRUCTION, IS YET WITHIN THE PROPULSION OF THE LINES.]
+
+[Illustration: 110 GROUND-WORK ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 108, BUT ON A
+TRIANGULAR PLAN. THE EXTENDED LINES OF THE PENTAGON GOVERN THE
+ENNEAGONAL AND DODECAGONAL STAR AND ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 111 CURVILINEAR TRANSFORMATION OF NUMBER 110.]
+
+[Illustration: 112 TRIANGULAR PLAN. DISTRIBUTION OF ENNEAGONAL AND
+DODECAGONAL STARS AND ROSETTES. [THE DODECAGON ONLY PARTIALLY
+DISPLAYED.]]
+
+[Illustration: 113 TRIANGULAR PLAN. SIMILAR CONSTRUCTION TO NUMBER 112.
+THE DODECAGONAL STAR, ROSETTE, AND OUTER STAR, WHICH ARE IN THE DIAGRAM
+NUMBER 112 ONLY PARTIALLY SEEN, ARE HERE DISPLAYED.]
+
+[Illustration: 114 TRIANGULAR PLAN. FROM A CENTRE AS IN PLAN DESCRIBE
+CIRCUMFERENCES, WHICH RULE THE DODECAGONAL STAR, ROSETTE, AND OUTER
+STAR. MANY OF THE FIGURES ARE DRAWN INDEPENDENTLY, THOUGH GOVERNED BY
+DIVISIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 115 DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. INSCRIBE A DECAGONAL ROSETTE, FROM
+THE PROLONGED LINES OF WHICH PROCEED THE PENTAGONAL STAR, THE REGULAR
+OCTAGON, AND OTHER FIGURES.]
+
+[Illustration: 116 DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. TWO DIFFERENT ROSETTES, ONE OF
+TWELVE AND THE OTHER OF FIFTEEN POINTS. [THE DODECAGONAL ROSETTE IS,
+HOWEVER, ONLY PARTIALLY SHOWN HERE.]]
+
+[Illustration: 117 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AND TRACE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN
+POINTS. THE LINES EXTENDED WILL COMPLETE THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 118 CURVILINEAR TRANSFORMATION OF NUMBER 117.]
+
+[Illustration: 119 DIVIDE AS INDICATED, AND THE RESULTING ROSETTE OF
+SIXTEEN POINTS, WHICH WOULD NATURALLY BE RECTILINEAR, MAY BE EASILY
+TRANSFORMED TO CURVILINEAR; WHILE THE PENTAGONAL STARS, TREATED IN
+UNDULATING FORM, BECOME FLOWER-WORK OR FOLIAGE.]
+
+[Illustration: 120 SAME GROUND-WORK AS NUMBER 119. BUT HERE THE ROSETTE
+IS STARRED, END ON END, ABOUT THE POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 121 SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. THE CIRCUMFERENCE GOVERNING
+THE HEPTAGON IS DIVIDED INTO EQUAL PARTS; BY PROLONGING THE SIDES OF THE
+HEPTAGON THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS IS INSCRIBED.]
+
+[Illustration: 122 CIRCUMFERENCES TANGENT TO THOSE OF THE PENTAGON
+INSCRIBE THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 123 TRANSFORMATION OF THE RECTILINEAL ROSETTE NUMBER 122.
+THE FIGURES IN OTHER RESPECTS IDENTICAL.]
+
+[Illustration: 124 DIVIDE AS INDICATED. THE EXTENDED LINES OF THE
+HEXAGON INSCRIBE THE ROSETTE OF EIGHTEEN POINTS AND THAT OF NINE POINTS.
+THE REST IS BUT A MATTER OF ADJUSTMENT.]
+
+[Illustration: 125 DESIGN ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 124. IN THIS ARRANGEMENT,
+TWO SIDES OF THE HEPTAGON PROLONGED DETERMINE THE ROSETTE OF EIGHTEEN
+AND THAT OF TWELVE POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 126 SQUARE PLAN. DIVIDE AS INDICATED. INSCRIBE A ROSETTE
+OF TWENTY POINTS (THE HALF OF WHICH IS SHOWN IN THE DIAGRAM). IN A
+TANGENT CIRCUMFERENCE INSCRIBE THE ROSETTE OF TWELVE POINTS. THE REST
+FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 127 DISTRIBUTION OF THE DODECAGON, HEXAGON, AND SQUARE
+ASSEMBLED. BY THE MIDDLE POINTS OF THE SIDES OF THE DODECAGON INSCRIBE A
+STAR AND A ROSETTE OF TWENTY-FOUR POINTS. WITHIN THE HEXAGON INSCRIBE
+TWO TRIANGLES FROM A TANGENT CIRCUMFERENCE. A LOZENGE IS INSCRIBED
+BETWEEN OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE SQUARE. LASTLY, BY _tricèles révolvés_,
+ALL THE PROLONGED LINES ARE RECONCILED.]
+
+[Illustration: 128 DISTRIBUTION OF THE DODECAGON, HEXAGON, AND SQUARE
+ASSEMBLED. IN THE DODECAGON INSCRIBE A ROSETTE OF TWENTY-FOUR POINTS; IN
+THE HEXAGON A ROSETTE OF TWELVE POINTS; AND, LASTLY, IN THE SQUARE A
+ROSETTE OF EIGHT POINTS. A LITTLE PENTAGONAL STAR RECONCILES THE
+PROLONGED LINES.]
+
+[Illustration: 129 SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. DODECAGON, HEXAGON, AND SQUARE
+ASSEMBLED. IN THE DODECAGON A ROSETTE OF TWELVE POINTS. IN THE TANGENT
+CIRCUMFERENCE SIX HEXAGONS. THE SQUARE GOVERNS THE PROLONGED LINES.]
+
+[Illustration: 130 THE ROSETTES ARE AS IN NUMBER 129. THE SMALLER
+HEXAGONS GOVERN THE PRINCIPAL FIGURES.]
+
+[Illustration: 131 SQUARE PLAN; DISTRIBUTION FOLLOWS THE NET-WORK OF THE
+OCTAGON AND SQUARE. THE ROSETTE IS LINKED BY THE SMALLER OCTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 132 ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 131.]
+
+[Illustration: 133 OCTAGONS AND SQUARES ASSEMBLED. THE OCTAGONAL ROSETTE
+GOVERNS.]
+
+[Illustration: 134 SUB-DIVIDE AS INDICATED. DESCRIBE A CIRCLE IN WHICH
+IS INSCRIBED A STAR WITH SIDES PROLONGED, DETERMINING AN OCTAGONAL
+ROSETTE. BY CONCENTRIC CIRCLES, SOMEWHAT ARBITRARY, THE ROSETTE OF
+SIXTEEN POINTS IS DETERMINED.]
+
+[Illustration: 135 SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. IN A CIRCLE IS INSCRIBED AN
+OCTAGONAL ROSETTE, AND TAKE A TANGENT CIRCUMFERENCE IN WHICH TO INSCRIBE
+THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS. THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 136 DISTRIBUTION OF THE OCTAGON AND SQUARE. A CONCENTRIC
+CIRCLE CONTAINS ARCS COMPOSING A CURVILINEAR ROSETTE, WITHIN WHICH IS A
+ROSETTE OF FIVE POINTS. IN THE CENTRE OF THE SQUARE PLAN A CURVILINEAR
+ROSETTE ENCLOSING AN OCTAGONAL ROSETTE WITH SIDES PROLONGED, BRINGING
+INTO ACCORD THE PENTAGONAL ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: 137 SUB-DIVIDE THE MAIN CIRCLE INTO THIRTY-TWO EQUAL
+PARTS, AND INSCRIBE THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS. OTHER CIRCLES ARE
+INSCRIBED, EACH CONTAINING A PERFECT OCTAGON.]
+
+[Illustration: 138 NET-WORK OF OCTAGON AND SQUARE. INSCRIBE A ROSETTE OF
+EIGHT POINTS, AND IN A CIRCUMFERENCE TANGENT INSCRIBE A ROSETTE OF
+TWENTY-FOUR POINTS. THE ROSETTES ARE BROUGHT INTO ACCORD BY THE
+HEXAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 139 IN A CIRCUMFERENCE INDICATED IN THE SQUARE PLAN
+INSCRIBE THE OCTAGONAL ROSETTE. EXTENDED SIDES DETERMINE THE PERFECT
+OCTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 140 SQUARE PLAN. OCTAGONAL AND SQUARE DISTRIBUTION. TWO
+ROSETTES, ONE OF SIXTEEN AND ONE OF EIGHT POINTS. THE DIAGONALS FROM THE
+ANGLES OF THE PENTAGON COMPLETE THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS, AND THE
+EXTENDED SIDES OF THE PENTAGON DETERMINE THE OCTAGONAL ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 141 SQUARE PLAN. NET-WORK OF THE OCTAGON AND SQUARE
+ASSEMBLED. DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN. IN JOINING THE POINTS
+OF DIVISION, THERE IS ON THE ONE PART THE HEXAGON, AND ON THE OTHER PART
+THE ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS. THE _tricèle révolvé_ ASSISTS IN
+ELUCIDATING THE NET-WORK.]
+
+[Illustration: 142 CURVILINEAR NET-WORK COMPOSED OF STARS OF FIVE, SIX,
+AND EIGHT POINTS. DESCRIBE THE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN THE PLAN. ONE CIRCLE
+DESCRIBES THE STAR OF FIVE POINTS; ANOTHER CIRCLE INSCRIBES A
+CURVILINEAR IRREGULAR HEXAGON; STILL ANOTHER CIRCLE INSCRIBES A STAR OF
+EIGHT POINTS, AND THE LAST CIRCLE A STAR OF SIX POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 143 SUB-DIVIDE AS INDICATED. THE PROLONGED LINES OF THE
+PENTAGONAL STAR DETERMINE THE DECAGONAL STAR AND ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 144 DIVIDE AS IN THE PLAN. BY TANGENT CIRCUMFERENCES
+INSCRIBE THE ROSETTES. BY SIDES EXTENDED THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 145 OCTAGONAL, DECAGONAL, AND DODECAGONAL STARS AND
+ROSETTES. BY SIDES PROLONGED THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 146 OCTAGONAL, DECAGONAL, AND DODECAGONAL STARS AND
+ROSETTES. BY EXTENDED LINES AND THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE REGULAR OCTAGONS
+THE DIAGRAM IS COMPLETED.]
+
+[Illustration: 147 IN A CIRCUMFERENCE AS INDICATED INSCRIBE A STAR OF
+NINE POINTS, AND BY SIDES PROLONGED A ROSETTE OF NINE POINTS; IN A
+SECOND A STAR AND ROSETTE OF TWELVE POINTS; AND IN A THIRD CIRCUMFERENCE
+A STAR AND ROSETTE OF TEN POINTS. THE REST FOLLOWS BY EXTENSION.]
+
+[Illustration: 148 THE CENTRAL CIRCUMFERENCE DIVIDED INTO THIRTY-TWO
+EQUAL PARTS PRODUCES A STAR AND ROSETTE OF SIXTEEN POINTS. DIVIDE OTHER
+CIRCUMFERENCES TO PRODUCE STARS AND ROSETTES OF TWELVE AND TEN POINTS.
+THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 149 CIRCUMFERENCES DIVIDED AS INDICATED. INSCRIBE STARS
+OF NINE, TEN, AND TWELVE POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 150 NET-WORK ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 148. THE LINES OF THE
+HEPTAGON, EXTENDED, JOIN THE LINES OF THE ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: 151 THIS EXAMPLE EXHIBITS THE MARVELLOUS INGENUITY OF THE
+ARABIAN DESIGNER IN COMPOSITION, ROSETTES OF FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, AND EIGHT
+POINTS BEING ADJUSTED. THE DESIGN IS EVIDENTLY THE PRODUCTION OF AN
+ART-WORKMAN. IF THE NET-WORK IS NOT ACTUALLY PERFECT, IT APPROACHES
+PERFECTION SO NEARLY THAT IT MAY BE CONSIDERED EXACT.]
+
+[Illustration: 152 ISOCELES OR LOZENGE PLAN. THE ROSETTE OF FOURTEEN
+POINTS RESULT FROM THE EXTENDED LINES OF THE HEPTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 153 ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 152, BUT WITH DIAGONALS SOMEWHAT
+DIFFERENTLY TREATED.]
+
+[Illustration: 154 ROSETTE OF FOURTEEN POINTS GOVERNED BY HEPTAGONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 155 ROSETTE OF FOURTEEN POINTS FROM EXTENDED LINES OF THE
+HEPTAGONS. THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 156 PENTAGONAL ADJUSTMENT. A CIRCUMFERENCE TANGENT TO
+THOSE OF THE PENTAGON INSCRIBES A STARRED ROSETTE OF FOURTEEN POINTS.]
+
+[Illustration: 157 BY A CONCENTRIC CIRCUMFERENCE IS INSCRIBED THE
+ROSETTE OF FOURTEEN POINTS. THE PENTAGON WHICH GOVERNS HAS ONE OF ITS
+SIDES EXTENDED TO GREATER LENGTH THAN THE SIX OTHERS.]
+
+[Illustration: 158 BY THE AID OF A CIRCUMFERENCE, INDICATED, IS
+INSCRIBED THE HEPTAGONAL STAR FROM WHICH THE OTHER FIGURES PROCEED.]
+
+[Illustration: 159 DECAGONAL STARS AND ROSETTES, WITH INTERCALARY
+PENTAGONS. ALSO WITH INTERCALARY MESHES, WHICH ARE EQUAL TO THOSE OF THE
+ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: 160 ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 159.]
+
+[Illustration: 161 SUB-DIVIDE THE SPACE SURROUNDING THE ISOCELES
+TRIANGLE AS INDICATED. THE CIRCUMFERENCES BEING DESCRIBED. THE DIAGONALS
+EXTENDED COMPLETE THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 162 PLAN AND CIRCUMFERENCES THE SAME AS NUMBER 161. THE
+AID OF A CONCENTRIC CIRCUMFERENCE IS CALLED IN TO FORM THE ROSETTE OF
+TEN POINTS. THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 163 DESCRIBE EQUAL AND TANGENT CIRCUMFERENCES TO FORM A
+STAR OF TEN POINTS, AND TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF SIX IN SIX DIVISIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 164 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AS INDICATED, AND TAKE THE
+DIAGONALS OF SIX IN SIX DIVISIONS. DRAW A HORIZONTAL LINE AT THE HIGHER
+LINE OF THE LITTLE PENTAGON, AND REPEAT THE CONSTRUCTION BELOW THE
+LINE.]
+
+[Illustration: 165 DIVIDE CIRCUMFERENCES AND DRAW PARALLEL LINES AS
+INDICATED. TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF SIX IN SIX DIVISIONS, AND THE REST
+FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 166 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES EQUAL AND TANGENT, AND TAKE
+THE DIAGONALS OF FOUR IN FOUR DIVISIONS; THEN IN THE CONCENTRIC
+CIRCUMFERENCES TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF SIX IN SIX DIVISIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 167 SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. INSCRIBE THE ROSETTE OF TEN
+POINTS; THE LITTLE PENTAGONS AND LOZENGES FOLLOW, AND THE REST FOLLOWS.]
+
+[Illustration: 168 ANALOGOUS TO NUMBER 167, BUT IN PLACE OF THE ROSETTE
+STARS ARE FORMED.]
+
+[Illustration: 169 CURVILINEAR TRANSFORMATION OF NUMBERS 167 AND 168.
+THE POINTS OF CENTRAL DISTRIBUTION ARE MARKED BY MINUTE CROSSES.]
+
+[Illustration: 170 SIMILAR GROUND WORK TO THE THREE FOREGOING DIAGRAMS.
+THE LITTLE PENTAGONS GOVERN THE DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: 171 DESCRIBE THE CIRCUMFERENCES AS IN PLAN, AND INSCRIBE
+THE DECAGONAL STAR. THE SMALL DECAGONS IN THE CENTRE OF THE TRIANGLES OF
+THE PLAN, BY EXTENDED LINES, FORM THE ROSETTE.]
+
+[Illustration: 172 DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. UPON THE LESSER SIDE TRACE AN
+ISOCELES TRIANGLE. BY THE APEX OF THE TRIANGLE TRACE A CIRCUMFERENCE, IN
+WHICH TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF THREE IN THREE DIVISIONS.]
+
+[Illustration: 173 LOZENGE PLAN, WITH COMBINING LINES. THE LOZENGE IS
+IMAGINARY, AND DOES NOT INDICATE THE RADII IN EXTENSION ONE WITH THE
+OTHER, BUT ONLY THE ORDER OF SUB-DIVISION OF THE PENTAGONAL AND
+DECAGONAL ROSETTES.]
+
+[Illustration: 174 SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN THE SPACE SURROUNDING A POINT
+INTO TWENTY EQUAL PARTS. AT THE MEETING OF THE HORIZONTAL WITH THE
+VERTICAL LINE DRAW A CONCENTRIC CIRCUMFERENCE IN WHICH IS INSCRIBED THE
+STARRED DECAGONAL ROSETTE. THE SMALL PENTAGON IS DOMINANT.]
+
+[Illustration: 174 SAME GROUND-WORK AS NUMBER 172, BUT WITH A GREATER
+INTERVAL BETWEEN THE ROSETTES. ONE OF THE ROSETTES, INSTEAD OF BEING
+RECTILINEAR, IS CURVILINEAR.]
+
+[Illustration: 175 SUB-DIVIDE AS INDICATED. DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES
+EQUAL AND TANGENT, AND TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF FOUR IN FOUR DIVISIONS.
+LASTLY, THE ROSETTES ARE EFFECTED.]
+
+[Illustration: 175’ DRAW CIRCUMFERENCES AND SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. TAKE
+THE DIAGONALS OF FOUR IN FOUR DIVISIONS, WHICH, PROLONGED, COMPLETE THE
+DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: 176 DESCRIBE CIRCUMFERENCES AND TAKE A PERPENDICULAR LINE
+TO THE BORDER OF THE RADIUS; TAKE THE DIAGONALS OF FOUR IN FOUR
+DIVISIONS, WHICH PROLONGED, COMPLETE THE FIGURE.]
+
+[Illustration: 176’ RECTANGLE PLAN OF DIAGONAL SYMMETRY. TAKE THE
+DIAGONALS OF FOUR IN FOUR DIVISIONS. THEN BY A CONCENTRIC CIRCUMFERENCE.
+SET OUT THE ROSETTE. THERE ARE, IN FACT, THREE ROSETTES OF TEN POINTS
+EQUAL AND TANGENT.]
+
+[Illustration: 177 LOZENGE PLAN, WITH COMBINING LINES A CONCENTRIC
+CIRCUMFERENCE DESCRIBES A STAR THE ROSETTE IS THEN DRAWN. THEN
+GRADUALLY, BY THE AID OF THE PENTAGONAL ADJUSTMENT, THE NET-WORK IS
+DESCRIBED.]
+
+[Illustration: 178 LOZENGE PLAN, WHERE THE GREAT AXIS IS THREE TIMES
+THAT OF THE LESSER AXIS. SUB-DIVIDE AS IN PLAN. TRACE CIRCUMFERENCES
+EQUAL AND TANGENT, IN WHICH ARE INSCRIBED REGULAR PENTAGONS. THE REST IS
+EASILY FOLLOWED. THE NET-WORK IS COMPOSED OF FIVE SERIES OF LINES.]
+
+[Illustration: FINIS.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Moorish Remains in Spain, by Albert F. Calvert
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOORISH REMAINS IN SPAIN ***
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