Granada is the creation of the Moors. Its history is all of them—the
record of their glory and their fall. The Pomegranate, as its conqueror
styled it, ripened only in the warm sunshine of Islam, and withered with
its decline. Under the Christian, it fell from the rank of a splendid
capital to a poor provincial town. Now it subsists merely as a great
monument to a vanished race and a dead civilisation.
With Granada before it became the centre of an independent kingdom, we
need concern ourselves but little. Its real interest dates from the
establishment of the Nasrite dynasty in the first half of the thirteenth
century. It was the time when the great Almohade Empire was breaking up.
Probably all Andalusia would have shared the fate of Cordova and
Seville, and the conquests of the Catholic kings been anticipated by two
centuries, had not a young man of Arjona, Ibn Al Ahmar by name,
determined to fashion for himself a kingdom out of the fragments of
empire. With an ever-increasing following, he seized upon Jaen in 1232,
and obtained possession of Granada itself in 1237. City after city
opened its gates to him, including Malaga and Almeria, and in 1241 he
was recognised as Lord and Sultan of all the territory between the
Sierra Morena and the Pillars of Hercules, from Ronda to Baza.
A great man, in every sense, was this founder of the Nasrite dynasty.
His presence was fine and commanding, his manner bland and amiable, his
courage worthy of the heroic age. For all his valour and prowess on the
battlefield, no monarch prized peace more highly. He proved himself a
true national hero and the father of his people. He fostered industry
and agriculture, was a patron, like all his race, of arts and letters,
and encouraged immigration by every means in his power. A far-sighted
statesman, he perceived that a state so limited in area as his own could
only hope to exist by virtue of an unusual density of population, and he
offered every inducement to Muslims from the provinces conquered by the
Christians to settle within his dominions. Granada was the last hope of
Islam in Europe, and he resorted to all possible means to safeguard it.
He concluded alliances with the rulers of Morocco, Tlemsen, and Tunis,
and even of distant Baghdad. Above all, he neglected no means of
humouring and conciliating the irresistible Castilian. He negotiated an
alliance with Fernando III., binding himself to attend the Cortes (a
curious stipulation for a Mohammedan) and to attend the king in his wars
with 1500 lances. This latter part of the bargain he was speedily called
upon to fulfil, and against his own co-religionists of Seville. It
seemed an unnatural warfare, but, to palliate the iniquity, let it be
said that Ibn Al Ahmar probably looked upon the Almohade citizens of
Ishbiliah as heretics. At all events, whether his conscience approved
his action or not, he contributed in no small measure to Fernando’s
success, and was hailed enthusiastically as a conqueror upon his return
to Granada. That the assistance he rendered was not looked upon as
altogether voluntary by the people of Seville is shown by the fact that
thousands of them migrated to his dominions and settled there.
Ibn Al Ahmar dreaded the might of Castile. The only hope for the
Mohammedans of Spain lay, he knew, in rest and consolidation. Careful
not to give offence to his dreaded neighbour, he courteously received
the revolted and exiled Infante Don Enrique when he sought refuge at
Granada, but sent him on to Tunis with letters recommending him to the
Sultan of that country. All his diplomacy, however, could not avert a
war with Alfonso, and to add to his troubles, the Walis of Guadix,
Malaga, and Gomares revolted against his authority. But an insurrection
soon after broke out in Castile, and Alfonso was compelled to leave the
Walis to fight their own battles. Ibn Al Ahmar, an old man of eighty
years, wearily girded on his armour for another of the campaigns he had
learned to hate. But his time for rest had come at last. A few miles
beyond the gates of his capital, his charger threw him, as he rode at
the head of his army. He breathed his last at sundown, by the roadside,
surrounded by his weeping warriors. It was a dark night for Granada.
Al Ahmar’s son, under the style of Mohammed II., succeeded him at the
age of thirty-eight years, on January 21, 1273. Arabic historians have
lavished their encomiums upon him, as indeed upon most of his dynasty.
He is described as a warrior and a statesman, as a man of letters and a
poet of considerable ability. During his reign of twenty-nine years, he
was almost continuously at war. Soon after his accession he crushed the
rebel Walis at Antequera, and then paid a visit to Alfonso X. at
Seville, with a view to detaching the Castilian king from his alliance
with the defeated insurgents. In this he was successful. Queen Violante,
however, at the conclusion of his visit, asked of him a boon, which,
according to the custom of the times, as a true knight, he was bound to
grant. He then discovered, too late, that he had been tricked into
granting a year’s truce to the Walis. Smouldering with rage, he returned
to Granada and spent the year in maturing plans for the complete
overthrow of his enemies. This he effected with the aid of the Sultan
Yusuf of Morocco, whose army of 100,000 men landed at Tarifa in 1275.
The Africans, as on previous occasions in Moorish history, proved
dangerous allies. Mohammed found himself embroiled in a long and
absolutely unprofitable war with Castile, and had the mortification of
seeing the Africans possess themselves of Algeciras, Tarifa, and Malaga.
He recovered possession of the latter town by bribing the governor to
exchange it for the town of Salobreña, to be held as a personal
acquisition; and rid himself at last of the troublesome Africans by
means of an alliance with Sancho of Castile. But in 1302 we find him
again at war with the Christians, fighting against whom he died.
Mohammed III. was the worthy son of his father, and is specially
commended for his indefatigable energy. He took a short way with
traitors, even for those rough times. Ibn Nasr, the governor of Guadix,
having been removed from his office by the Sultan, exerted himself to
form a faction in his favour. Mohammed III., hearing of this, summoned
him to court, and had him slain there and then in his presence. A more
honourable exploit was his conquest of the town of Ceuta, opposite
Gibraltar, in the year 1306. With the rich spoils of the foray, he built
a magnificent mosque at Granada, resplendent with gold and silver,
jasper and marble. His success perhaps excited the jealousy of the
Catholic powers. Attacked on either side by the Kings of Castile and
Aragon, he was forced to conclude a humiliating peace. On his return to
his capital he was seized in the Alhambra itself by a band of
conspirators and forced to abdicate in favour of his brother, Muley
Nasr. The new Sultan began his reign with some military successes
(1309). He forced Jaime of Aragon to raise the siege of Almeria; but as
a set-off, he had to deal with conspiracies and rebellions at home, the
most formidable of these being headed by his nephew, Abu-l-Walid. In the
midst of these complications a curious incident occurred. Nasr was
stricken with apoplexy and left for dead. His deposed brother, Mohammed
III., was then released by some courtiers and brought to Granada, only
to find that the usurper had recovered his health and his crown. The
luckless Mohammed did not long survive his partisans’ mistake. But
retribution speedily overtook his brother. He was forced to yield to
Abu-l-Walid, and was glad to be allowed to retire to Guadix, the
sovereignty of which was allotted to him. Usurper though he was, Nasr
conducted himself with the dignity of a philosopher. His rival’s triumph
chagrined him not at all, and when invited by Pedro I. to join him in an
attack on Granada, he patriotically declined. He was a brave man, who
did not complain at meeting the fate to which he had subjected others.
The new monarch of Granada, Abu-l-Walid Ismail, was a fighter and a
fanatic. He was fond of saying that he believed only in God and his good
sword. His faith in the latter weapon was justified. He annihilated a
Spanish army which had approached Granada, among the slain being the
Infantes, Don Juan and Don Pedro; and carrying his victorious arms
eastwards, wrested Baza and Martos from the enemies of his race. But
others also reposed their faith in the sword. Like another Agamemnon, he
appropriated a beautiful captive, the prize of the young Mohammed of
Algeciras. Three days after his triumphal entry into his capital he fell
at the gates of the Alhambra, a victim to the poniard of the man he had
injured. Perceiving his sovereign to be at the point of death and
resolving to avert the horrors of a disputed succession, the Wizir
summoned the chief men of Granada to the palace, and announced that
Abu-l-Walid was recovering from his wounds. The royal order was that all
present should take the oath to the boy-prince, Muley Mohammed Ben
Ismail, as successor to the kingdom. When this command had been obeyed,
the wily Wizir announced the death of Abu-l-Walid and the accession of
Mohammed IV. This was in the year 1325.
When he had freed himself from the control of an unpopular regent, the
young Sultan displayed qualities of heart and mind in no way inferior to
those of his progenitors. It must be admitted that Arab historians have
been somewhat too partial to this line of kings, for there is hardly one
who is not described more or less explicitly as a paragon of all the
virtues. Mohammed IV. had to fight hard to hold his own against the
Spaniards on one side and the Africans on the other. He took Gibraltar,
and lost it again to Abu-l-Hasan of Fez. But the African king was soon
after obliged to ask his help to hold the fortress against the
Christians. Mohammed generously responded to the appeal, fell like a
thunderbolt upon the Spanish camp, and raised the siege. He was ill
repaid. In August 1333, he was imprudent enough to reproach his African
allies with their inability to hold the fortress; and a day or two
later, having sent his army home, made an excursion to the summit of
the Rock. He was followed by some among those he had reproached, and
quickly despatched by their poniards. His body, naked and mangled, was
found at the foot of the Rock, and conveyed to Malaga. No attempt seems
to have been made to identify or to punish his murderers.
The ill-fated Mohammed was succeeded by his brother, Yusuf I.,
Abu-l-Hejaj. While possessed, of course, of the virtues which seem to
have been inherent in the Nasrite dynasty, this prince was exceptional
in being an ardent, almost a passionate, lover of peace. He believed,
says Don Francisco Pi Margall, that it was more glorious to remedy evils
than to attempt perilous enterprises. Assisted by his able Wizir,
Redwân, he revised the laws and purified the administration of justice.
He built a magnificent palace at Malaga, and the great aljama or mosque
at Granada, of which no trace remains. Abandoning for once his settled
policy, he joined the Africans in a war against Castile. He was badly
beaten, and was glad to negotiate a truce of ten years. At the end of
that time, Alfonso of Castile died, and the Sultan of Granada was
stabbed to death by a madman, while at his prayers in the mosque, in the
year 1354.
Mohammed V. was as virtuous and as unfortunate as his father. He had
reigned but four years when he was attacked in his own palace by the
partisans of his half-brother, Ismail. Narrowly escaping death, he fled
to his harem, and in the disguise of a slave eluded his pursuers and
made his way to Guadix. Ismail II. ran a brief and inglorious career,
and was dethroned and slain (1360) by the “Red King,” Abu Saïd.
Meantime, Pedro I. of Castile espoused the cause of the lawful sultan
and invaded the territory of Granada. But the magnanimous Moor would not
consent to remount the throne at the cost of his people’s blood. Pedro
accordingly withdrew, but freed Mohammed from his enemies by murdering
Abu Saïd when the latter incautiously paid a visit to Seville. Mohammed
was reinstated on his throne, and mindful of the services rendered him
by Pedro, advanced to his support with a Grenadine army against Enrique
de Trastamara. The tragedy of Montiel made a continuance of the struggle
useless, and the Moorish sultan devoted the remainder of his reign to
improving the condition of his subjects. He founded charitable
institutions and asylums, and raised Granada to a high pitch of
prosperity. The city, according to the contemporary writer, El Khattib,
became the metropolis of the Mediterranean, the emporium of commerce,
and the common fatherland of all nations. Under Mohammed V., the kingdom
may be considered to have reached its zenith. Thence to its nadir we
count but a century of years.
Yusuf II., who succeeded his father in 1391, was so averse to war that
his subjects suspected him of Christian sympathies. His son rose against
him, and the pacific monarch was disposed to abdicate rather than draw
the sword. The exhortations of the Moroccan ambassador induced him to
take a manlier course, and putting himself at the head of the army
lately arrayed against him, he ravaged Murcia with fire and sword. It
was against this peace-loving sultan that Don Martin de la Barbuda, the
Quixotic Master of Calatrava, directed his wild expedition—defeated, of
course, and emphatically disavowed by Enrique III. of Castile. Yusuf’s
younger son and successor, Mohammed VII.,[A] was a prince of a very
different stamp. Accompanied by only twenty-five horsemen, he penetrated
to Toledo, and negotiated in the heart of Castile with Enrique III. The
peace thus concluded was soon interrupted, and Mohammed was quickly
waging war throughout the length and breadth of Andalusia. The war
continued with varying fortunes, and was carried on, as was usual in
those days, by a series of forays, neither side making any determined
effort to take the other’s capital or to secure his conquests. On
feeling his end approaching, the warlike Sultan bethought him of his
elder brother, Yusuf, whom he had confined in the castle of Salobreña.
Fearing that the captive might now supplant his own son, Mohammed sent a
messenger to command his execution. Yusuf was playing chess with the
governor of the castle when the fatal mandate arrived. He asked leave of
the emissary to finish the game, and before he had made the final move,
the news arrived of the death of Mohammed and of his proclamation as
Sultan of Granada. Yusuf showed himself as calm and unmoved at his
accession to the throne as when he had stood upon the threshold of
death.
As peaceably disposed as his father, Yusuf III. had to withstand some of
the most determined assaults upon his doomed kingdom. In his reign took
place the celebrated siege of Antequera by the Castilians, the survivors
of which founded the suburb of Antequeruela adjacent to Granada. Yusuf
ultimately found peace and a valuable ally as the outcome of a strange
story of fraternal animosity. The people of Gibraltar revolted against
Granada and proclaimed themselves the subjects of Fez. The Sultan of
that realm sent his hated brother, Abu Saïd, to take possession of the
town, and treating him as David did Uriah, left him at the mercy of the
enemy. Yusuf, however, treated the captured prince with generosity, and
showed him a letter which he shortly after received from the Sultan of
Fez, requesting that he might be poisoned. Thirsting for vengeance, Abu
Saïd procured arms and soldiers at Granada, and, invading Morocco, drove
his perfidious brother from the throne. Thereafter he was the sworn ally
of the Sultan of Granada, whom Castile and Aragon no longer ventured to
trouble. Yusuf III. passed away in 1417.
The history of Granada is henceforward one of almost continuous
revolution and tumult. Mohammed VIII. was driven into exile by a
namesake reckoned as the ninth of his name, and then restored by a
counter-revolution. A Castilian army ravaged the Vega up to the walls of
the capital. Granada itself would have fallen, had not Juan II. and the
great Constable, Alvaro de Luna, been recalled to Castile by the
disorders which resulted in the latter’s overthrow. An earthquake
desolated the distracted kingdom; and we may suppose that Mohammed VIII.
was not altogether sorry when he abandoned his throne to a pretender and
fled to Malaga.
The new sultan, Yusuf IV., held his throne as a fief of Castile, the
support of which he had to purchase with humiliating concessions. He
anticipated inevitable assassination by dying after sixteen months of
authority; and for the third time, Mohammed VIII. was proclaimed at
Granada (1432). Hostilities with Castile were at once renewed. This time
the fortune of war was with the Moors, who routed their opponents at
Illora, Archidona, and Castril. But Mohammed VIII.’s star was never long
in the ascendant. He quarrelled with the powerful family of the
Abencerrages; and, deprived of their support, was finally expelled from
his kingdom, by his kinsman, Aben Osmin.[B] The usurper was victorious
over the Christians and took several strongholds, but his army suffered
at last a bloody defeat at Alporchones. This reverse seems to have
maddened Osmin, who henceforward conducted himself as a tyrant of the
old Roman type. Revolutions had now become as frequent in Granada as in
some South American states. The usurper ran his brief career, and was
then forced to make room for Mohammed VIII.’s cousin Saïd. Granada was
all for peace. Tribute was paid to Enrique IV. of Castile, Christian
captives released—all in vain. The intermittent warfare went on as
before. Jaen, Archidona, Gibraltar, were lost, despite the desperate
valour of the Prince, Muley Hassan, and of the Chieftain, Ibrahim, who,
on being vanquished, plunged on horseback into the depths of a ravine.
At last, however, the distracted Ibn Ismail obtained peace for his
wretched country by a personal interview with Enrique, outside the walls
of Granada. He devoted the remainder of his reign to the encouragement
of commerce, industry, and agriculture in his dominions—labour that did
not benefit even those who were to succeed him; and died at Almeria in
the year 1465. The knell of the Moorish Empire in Europe was sounded
over his bier.
The reigns of Ali Abu-l-Hassan, Mohammed XI. (Boabdil), and Mohammed
XII. (Az-Zaghal) covered the years 1465-1492, during which the downfall
and extinction of the kingdom were accomplished. The history of these
events has already filled many bulky tomes, and has been made familiar
to English readers by the works of Prescott. Even our brief survey,
however, cannot be concluded without a summary of the last chapter of
the story of Granada.
The character of Muley Ali Abu-l-Hassan was the reverse of his
predecessor’s. He was arrogant, impetuous, and warlike, a fanatical
hater of the Christians, and a zealous Muslim. In the first years of his
reign he gained some successes over the feeble Enrique IV., and proved
himself strong enough to quell a revolt at Malaga. But he let slip the
opportunity of attacking the new sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and
Isabel, when they were engaged in war with the partisans of “La
Beltraneja,” nor did he make any attempt to effect an alliance with
their numerous enemies. State-craft does not appear to have been
possessed to any great extent by the descendants of Al Ahmar. In 1476,
Abu-l-Hassan condescended to sue for a renewal of the alliance with the
Queen of Castile; but when Ferdinand of Aragon made the payment of the
tribute stipulated by Ibn Ismail a condition of the treaty, the Moor’s
proud nature revolted. “Return to your sovereigns,” he said to the
Spanish ambassadors, “and tell them that the sultans who paid tribute to
the Christians are dead; that here we manufacture only iron spear-heads
for our enemies.” These words sealed the fate of the Moors in Spain,
though the ruler who uttered them probably thought them merely the
prelude to just such a frontier war as had raged intermittently for so
many years.
The first act in the long-drawn-out drama was the capture of Zahara by
the troops of Granada, in 1481—provoked by the predatory incursions of
the Marquis of Cadiz. The Christian garrison was surprised during a
furious tempest, and put to the sword. The rest of the inhabitants were
carried off in captivity to Granada. Abu-l-Hassan, inflated with pride,
returned to his capital. There were popular rejoicings, but the wiser
Moors shook their heads and predicted that the ruins of Zahara would
fall upon their own city.
The fiery chivalry of Andalusia were not slow to retaliate. Two months
after the capture of Zahara, the more important Grenadine stronghold of
Alhama was taken by storm by the forces of the Marquis of Cadiz. The
news produced the utmost consternation in Granada. Abu-l-Hassan at once
set out with 53,000 men, and invested the place. Ferdinand the Catholic,
who had now conceived the idea of reducing the whole kingdom of Granada,
hurried to its relief; but he had only reached Lucena when tidings
arrived of the raising of the siege by the Marquis’s hereditary foe, the
Duke of Medina Sidonia. Abu-l-Hassan returned to the attack a few weeks
later, and Ferdinand resumed his advance, before which the Moors
retired. The Catholic sovereigns made their triumphal entry into Alhama
on May 14, 1482.
Great preparations were made throughout Castile and Aragon for the
prosecution of the war, but the army actually assembled before Loja on
July 1—16,000 men—fell far short of Ferdinand’s requirements and
expectations. The town was ably defended by one of the bravest Moorish
chieftains, Ali Atar, who repulsed the Christians with severe loss. The
King of Aragon narrowly escaped with his life, and was compelled to beat
a retreat. Abu-l-Hassan swept the country as far as the Rio Frio.
Such a success, if it had been followed up, might have turned the scale
in favour of the Moors. But at Granada, treason always followed closely
on the heels of victory. Years before, a beautiful Christian captive,
Doña Isabel de Solis, daughter of the Governor of Martos, had been added
to the Sultan’s harem. Under the name of Zoraya, in the course of time,
she bore him a son, Abu Abdullah, and rose to the rank of favourite
Sultana.[C] Now, jealous, it is said, of a Greek slave, or perhaps
antagonised by the first Sultana, Ayesha, she fomented a conspiracy
against her aged lord, and was imprisoned with her son in the Alhambra.
Thence they contrived to escape, and, exciting the populace in their
favour, obliged Abu-l-Hassan to seek refuge at Malaga. Abu Abdullah,
better known as Boabdil, or el Chico (the little), reigned in his stead,
but Baza, Guadix, and other eastern towns remained faithful to their old
allegiance.
These dissensions among the Moors, though ultimately benefiting the
Spaniards, contributed indirectly to one of the most serious disasters
that befell the latter during the campaign. For an expedition against
Malaga, headed by the Marquis of Cadiz and the Grandmaster of Santiago,
while threading its way through the passes of the Ajarquia, was attacked
by the lieutenants of the old lion, Abu-l-Hassan, and cut to pieces.
Eight hundred Spaniards were left dead on the field. Boabdil, emulous of
the glory his father had acquired, marched out of Granada with 9700 men,
and gave battle to the enemy under the Count of Cabra, near Lucena. The
Moors were totally defeated, their bravest general, Ali Atar, was slain,
and Boabdil himself captured by a private soldier, named Martin Hurtado.
Had this unlucky prince been left in the hands of his enemies, the war
might have had a different result, but his mother and followers at once
made proposals for his release. This was finally effected by a most
dishonourable treaty. Boabdil was accorded a two years’ truce, covering
all places that acknowledged his authority, and in return bound himself,
not only to pay a tribute of twelve thousand golden ducats, but to
assist with supplies the Spanish troops passing through his dominions to
attack his own father. Having thus exchanged his honour for his liberty,
the miserable Sultan returned to his capital, to find that the old King
had possessed himself of the Alhambra. A collision between the two
factions deluged the streets of Granada with blood. The alfakis and
ancients at length arranged an armistice, and Boabdil was suffered to
retire to Almeria, which was assigned to him as capital and residence.
For the next four years, the Catholic sovereigns abstained from any
important military demonstration, contenting themselves with ravaging
the wretched country and harrying its frontiers with incessant forays
and marauding expeditions. Meanwhile, a strong man appeared on the scene
in the person of Abu-l-Hassan’s brother, Abdullah Az-Zaghal. Determined
to put an end to the divisions which, more than the prowess of the
Spaniards, were bringing about the ruin of his country, this prince
swept down upon Almeria, slew the governor, took prisoner Zoraya, but
failed, alas! to secure the person of Boabdil, who fled to Cordova and
placed himself under Ferdinand’s protection. Not long after,
Abu-l-Hassan, aged and worn out, abdicated in favour of his warlike
brother, and died at Mondujar. This event strengthened Boabdil’s claims
upon the tottering throne; and he entered into a compact with his uncle,
whereby both were to reign in Granada, the one in the Albaicin, the
other in the Alhambra. Anxious to redeem his reputation, the newly
restored monarch attacked the Christians near Loja with vastly inferior
forces. He was soundly beaten and forced to take refuge in the Alcazar
of Loja, whence he was only allowed to emerge on renewing the
humiliating treaty he had concluded at Cordova. He was not, however,
disposed to yield the crown to his rival, and returning to Granada,
surprised and seized the Alcazaba. One of the most desperate conflicts
recorded in the history of the city then occurred between the partisans
of the rival sultans. Further bloodshed was at last averted by the
intervention of ambassadors sent by Ferdinand. The old dual arrangement
seems to have been temporarily resumed. Meanwhile, Ferdinand and Isabel
once more took the field, and, in 1487, they invested and captured
Velez-Malaga and the important city of Malaga, notwithstanding
Az-Zaghal’s efforts to relieve both places. The brave Sultan now
abandoned the capital to his nephew, and established his headquarters at
Almeria. He succeeded throughout the year 1488, in repelling an invasion
of his province; but in the following year, after the fall of the strong
city of Baza, he bowed, as he himself expressed it, to the will of
Allah, and surrendered all the places in his possession, including
Almeria and Guadix, to the Catholic sovereigns. Mohammed XIII., as he is
styled by Moorish historians, retired to Algeria, where he died, years
afterwards, in indigence and obscurity.
There remained now, of all the Moorish dominions in Europe, but the
single city of Granada, of which Mohammed XII., Boabdil, was at last
undisputed sovereign. He formed the manly resolution to sell his
hard-won crown as dearly as possible. He sallied from Granada, took
Alhendin and Marchena by assault, and laid waste the country in
possession of the Christians. Summoned by Ferdinand and Isabel to
surrender the city in accordance with an alleged treaty, he replied, and
probably with truth, that his proud and exasperated subjects would not
permit him to do so. The population of Granada was swollen by refugees
from all parts of the kingdom to thrice its normal figure. The Spanish
king perceived that the surest method to reduce it was by blockade. With
20,000 men, including some of the first chivalry of all Europe, he
entered the Vega, and built the town of Santa Fé, almost at the gates of
the threatened city. This permanent establishment of the Infidels on
their native soil plunged the Moors into profound gloom. No ray of hope
remained to the unfortunate Boabdil. The city endured the horrors of a
famine. The Spanish fleet precluded all hope of supplies from Africa,
towards which country the wretched people still turned in expectation of
help. The negotiations for the capitulation which the Sultan most
reluctantly entered upon in October 1491, had to be conducted, through
fear of the populace, with profound secrecy. Indeed, at the last moment,
Boabdil, in danger of his life, besought Ferdinand to accelerate his
entrance into the city. On January 2, 1492, accordingly, the Moorish
king, attended by fifty horsemen, surrendered the keys to the Catholic
sovereigns on the banks of the Genil, passing on to the domain allotted
him by the conquerors in the rocky Alpujarras. The story of his stopping
to gaze for the last time on his former kingdom, and of the rebuke
administered to him by his mother, is well known. We are not told
whether his eye caught the gleam of the great silver cross hoisted over
the Alhambra by Cardinal Mendoza by way of signal to the Spanish host
that the occupation of Granada was completed and that the dominion of
Islam in Spain was for ever at an end.
It had endured seven hundred and eighty-one years—a period only sixty
years short of that which has elapsed since the Norman Conquest of
England. More remarkable still, the Sultanate of Granada had survived
the virtual break-up of the Saracen empire by over two centuries. When
we consider its limited area, its isolated position, the might and the
inveterate hostility of the neighbouring states, and the attacks to
which it was unceasingly subjected, we cannot but feel the liveliest
admiration for the valour and sagacity of its rulers and the
stout-heartedness of its people. Had not the Court been too often the
theatre of contending factions, had not those factions turned their
swords against each other, the Sultanate of Granada might have outworn
Spain’s military and national vigour, and have endured to our own day as
a western Turkey. For the spirit of Tarik, of Abdurrahman, and of
Almansûr was not altogether dead, even in the brave but ill-starred
sovereign to whom alone historians ascribe the downfall of the kingdom,
and whom they, strangely enough, accuse of effeminacy and weakness. The
Moors of Granada knew how to fight a losing fight; in gambler’s
parlance, when they had lost the tricks, they struggled to win the
honours. They proved themselves worthy of their ancestors; and the
finest, as it was also the latest, monument of the Mohammedan dominion
in Spain is Granada the noble and the memorable.
The Alhambra, or Red Palace, the Acropolis of Granada, is the finest
secular monument with which the Muslims have endowed Europe. It belongs
to the last period of Spanish-Arabic art, when the seed of Mohammedan
ideas and culture had long since taken deep root in the soil and
produced a style which might more properly be called Andalusian than
Moorish. If the Muslims left a deep impression upon Spanish thought and
art, it must not be supposed that they altogether escaped the influence
of their Christian neighbours. During the last two centuries of their
occupation the rigid puritanism of their creed was greatly relaxed,
especially as regarded art—always the reflection of the customs and
spirit of a people. The wave of the Renaissance did not leave untouched
the shrunken Moorish empire, and if Castilian kings did not hesitate to
employ Muslim artisans in the construction of their cathedrals, the
Sultans of Granada did not disdain the advice of Christian artists in
the embellishment of their palaces. The Alhambra remains a thoroughly
Mohammedan monument, but one which symbolises a phase of Mohammedan
culture and institutions almost peculiar to one country and epoch.
Nowhere else and never since has Islam reached such a pitch of
refinement. The Alhambra stands as the high-water mark of its art and
civilisation.
There will never be produced a new Alhambra, any more than a new
Parthenon or new Pyramids; for these great buildings were the
expressions of ideas and aspirations peculiar to societies which have
long ago perished. Thus, the Red Palace of Granada is not interesting
merely as a Mohammedan edifice left isolated in the far west of Europe,
but as the monument of a people and a civilisation long dead and gone. A
sadness, too, attaches to it, proceeding from the memory of the violent
extinction of that people with a mission unfulfilled—fraught, as it
seems to have been, with so much of light and beauty to the Christian
and the Muslim worlds.
The Sierra Nevada thrusts forward a spur which overlooks Granada on the
south-east, and is divided by two clefts or barrancos into three
eminences. The easternmost of these is crowned by the Generalife, the
westernmost by the ancient fortifications known as the Torres Bermejas
or Vermilion Towers. The hill between the two—in shape aptly compared
by Ford to a grand piano—is that on which the various buildings,
collectively styled the Alhambra, are reared. Here there existed a
settlement in remote Celtiberian days; and the later city of Illiberis
or Elvira stood here, and perhaps extended to the Torres Bermejas. When
the Moors came they erected a fortress—the Alcazaba—on the point of
the Alhambra hill, overlooking the Vermilion Towers. To this they gave
the name of Alhamra, “the red,” as Riaño thinks, to distinguish it
from the Alcazaba in the Albaicin quarter, or perhaps from some
confusion of the new building with the old. The builder, according to Al
Khattíb, was one Sawar Alcaysi, who lived in the second half of the
ninth century; though Contreras says it was known as the Tower of Ibn
Jaffir, and Ford names Habus Ibn Makesen as the founder. At all events,
the structure dated from the earliest period of the Arabic domination,
and Al Ahmar found here, on taking possession of Granada, a small town
girdled with walls and defended by a citadel.
Al Khattíb refers to the Citadel of Granada in these terms: “The
southern part of the city is commanded by the suburb of the Alhambra or
Medina Alhamra, the court of the sultanate, crowning it with its
turrets, its lofty towers, its strong bastions, its magnificent Alcazar,
and other sumptuous edifices, which by their splendour ravish the eye
and the soul. There is, too, such an abundance of waters that,
overflowing in torrents from the tanks and reservoirs, they form on the
declivity streams and cascades, whose sonorous murmurs are heard afar
on. At the foot of the walls are spacious gardens, the domain of the
Sultan, and leafy groves, through the dense greenery of which the white
battlements gleam like stars. There is, in short, around the circuit of
the walls, no spot that is not planted with gardens and orchards.” The
scene has not greatly changed since the Arab wrote. Gurgling brooks
still run down the slopes of the Alhambra Hill, and nightingales sing in
the thick woods of elm.
The Alcazaba, being the oldest part of the palace-fortress, should be
studied first. It is entered by the Torre and Casa de las Armas, through
a horseshoe arch in red brick, with fine azulejos or glazed tiles. To
the left is the Torre de Homenage, with which war and time have not
dealt too gently. It contains, it is interesting to note, a Roman votive
altar, embedded by the Moorish builders in the masonry, and inscribed by
“the grateful Valerius to his most indulgent wife, Cornelia.” At the
opposite extremity of the Alcazaba is the Torre de la Vela, or Watch
Tower. It is in two storeys, communicating by a dark and narrow
staircase, with loopholes in the wall.[D] In this tower is hung a
famous bell, to be heard, it is said, at Loja, thirty miles away. It is
rung on the anniversary of the Conquest of Granada, on which day it is
the custom, according to local superstition, for damsels, desirous of
husbands, to strike it with all their strength. On the summit of this
tower the cross was first planted by el tercer rey, Cardinal Mendoza.
The view from the platform, of city and snow-clad Sierra, luxuriant
Vega, and white-walled towns and villages, is as extensive as it is
beautiful. At the foot of the Torre de la Vela extends the place of
arms, defended by two towers, now styled de los Hidalgos and de la
Polvora, and formerly known as the Paniagua and Cristóbal del
Salto—names suggesting legends now forgotten.
An ancient document at Simancas names among the towers connecting the
Alcazaba with the rest of the fortress, the Torre del Adarguero, “the
Tower in which dwelleth the servant of Doctor Ortiz,” the Torre de
Alquiza, the Torre de Hontiveros (now the Torre de las Gallinas), and
the Tower and Room of Machuca. Of these remains exist, but of another
tower, referred to as the Torre de la Tahona, no trace remains.
The Alcazaba, according to the most recent researches, was separated
from the site of the palace by a ravine where, after the Conquest,
cisterns were constructed by order of the Conde de Tendilla and over
which the existing Plaza de los Algibes was formed. These works appear
to have necessitated the demolition of a wall which ran across from the
Torre de las Gallinas on the north to the beautiful Puerta del Vino on
the south. This gateway is now quite isolated from the wall of
circumvallation. Over the horseshoe arch is an inscription in stucco, of
the usual Moorish character, invoking the Divine protection for the
builder, Sultan Mohammed V. It appears to commemorate some striking
victory. Over the arch again is a fine double window or ajimez. On the
keystone is seen the key, so often figuring as a symbol in all parts of
the Alhambra, with a G in Kufic characters—perhaps the initial letter
of the city. The interior façade has a large horseshoe arch and the
twin-windows above. The Puerta del Vino was probably the entrance to the
courts and gardens of the palace.
Having crossed the Plaza de los Algibes, we leave behind us the early
Moorish works, and approach the buildings which owe their foundation to
the Nasrite or Grenadine dynasty. The story which credits Al Ahmar
(Mohammed I.) with the creation of the Red Palace in the middle of the
thirteenth century appears to be well-founded, for when the Alhambra is
referred to as existing in earlier times, it is undoubtedly the Alcazaba
that is meant. To the same hands may be safely attributed the great
outer wall of the Alhambra which girdles palace and fortress, following
the inequalities of the hill’s contour. Al Ahmar has left his device,
Wa ha ghalib ila Allah (There is no conqueror but God), in many parts
of the building. These words were uttered by him in mournful deprecation
of the acclamations of his subjects on his return from assisting the
Christians in the Conquest of Seville. During the two and a half
centuries of the Nasrite rule, the palace underwent many radical
transformations and renovations, so that it is difficult to distinguish
between the works of the various sultans. Ford infers, rightly as it
seems to us, from the frequent repetition of their names upon the walls,
that Yusuf I. and Mohammed V. had the largest share in the embellishment
and restoration of the edifice. Since the Reconquest many changes and
additions have been made—notably the Palace of Charles V., to which
detailed reference will be made later.
The summit of the Alhambra hill was probably peopled in Al Ahmar’s time,
and it continued to be so during the reigns of his successors. The
population thus dwelling at the foot of the throne was mainly composed,
in later times at least, of hangers-on at the Court, ex-favourites and
discarded sultanas, ulemas and doctors of the law, soldiers of fortune,
and ambassadors, permanent and extraordinary. Such powerful tribes as
the Beni Serraj, which exercised so much influence in the last stages of
Nasrite rule, would also have had quarters for their leaders here. The
little town—which seems to have had no parallel before or
since—extended from the eastern extremity of the hill to within as near
the doors of the palace as the temper of the monarch for the time being
may have permitted.
The precise limits of the palace, even at the time of the Conquest of
the Catholic sovereigns, have never been ascertained. Portions of it
were undoubtedly demolished to make room for the palace of Charles V. On
the other hand, it is recorded in the archives of the Alhambra that
various private houses were acquired for the purpose of enlarging the
older building. But making due allowance for demolitions, extensions,
and restorations since the fifteenth century, we have before us in the
Palace of the Alhambra a magnificent example of the last or third period
of Hispano-Arabic architecture.
On the general plan of the edifice, the remarks of Contreras are worth
quoting in extenso: “We penetrate into every Arabic monument through
an outlying tower, or between two towers, except in the dwelling-houses
of the people, in which case the entrance is by a small, square opening,
a portal useless among us, though seen with frequency in the ancient
houses of Andalusia. A long, narrow hall cuts the axis perpendicularly,
thus determining the distribution into two wings of the edifice. By the
meeting of the two axes is found the entrance, before which we find
those effects of perspective which are so fantastic in these buildings.
Following the ingress we find a court with tanks and fountains, with
light and graceful arcades. Behind the second gallery, following the
same central axis, are oblong naves which cross each other at right
angles to the extreme end of the building, where the cupolas or turrets
of the innermost dwelling apartments rise majestically above the level
of the edifice and are reflected in the waters of the basins. The halls
of a house of this kind, according to its rank or grandeur, were
arranged in little pavilions on the long sides of the courts, as various
in their style of decoration as the tents of a Turkish camp, where the
quarters of an Amir may be found beside those of the common soldiers.
And if these rows of chambers are now found disposed according to the
strict alignment of Mudejar eaves, it is an indication that the severe
genius of the Christian conquerors has transformed them, not permitting
those crests, cupolas, or steeples which disturb the symmetry of the
decoration.
“Outside this plan, absolutely classical, which we may compare to a
cross with the transverse arm prolonged and cut at various distances by
perpendicular arms parallel to each other, but of different length, the
Spanish Arabs found no other easy method of building, so that, while
diminishing or prolonging the arms of the axis as much as the
dependencies of the largest palaces might require, they never departed
from the system, wherever they might build.... This, then, is the true
scheme of the Alhambra, and it is quite other than that conceived by the
classicists of the eighteenth century, with its façades, angles, and
squares.”
It must, however, be admitted that order is much more conspicuous in the
decoration than in the ground plan of the palace. All Moorish
ornamentation is based on a strictly geometrical scheme, and every
design may be resolved into a symmetrical arrangement of lines and
curves at regular distances. The intersection of lines at various angles
is the secret of the system. All these lines flow from a parent stem,
and no figure or ornament is introduced at random. Moslem ornamentation
abhors irregularity and rejects symbolism. The law of Islam which
forbade the delineation of living objects was not, however, always
observed in this palace of half-Europeanised Arabs.
Simplicity and a love of the elementary characterise also the colouring
of the decorations. On the stucco work only the primary colours were
used: blue, red, and yellow. The secondary colours occur only in the
dados of mosaic. The green groundwork of much of the ornamentation as it
is to-day was formerly blue, time having changed the tint of the
metallic pigment employed. The decoration of the surfaces seems to have
been planned with strict regard to the colouring they were to receive.
Both as regards decoration and colour, allowance must always be made for
innovations since the Alhambra passed into Christian hands.
“Let us look for a moment,” writes Mr. John Lomas, “at some points of
detail—more especially of the ornamentation. Wherever the eye falls, it
may rest upon some fine bit of arcading or peristyle, so delicate in the
transparent tracery of its spandrils, in the rich work of its capitals,
and its slenderness of pillar, that one marvels at first how such
fairy-like construction could stand for even a single generation.
‘Lovers’ tears’ they call this lace-work, and they tell one to stand
just within the dim hall or vestibule, and get a vision of the blue sky
that appears beyond as a little cloud of sapphires. But it is surely
better—an insight into a piece of truer art—to stand outside the
eastern kiosk of the Lion’s Court and looking through spandril,
vestibule, and sala, catch the light glinting through the distant
opposite windows. That is transparency of effect, indeed! One would like
to meet with the architect who thought it out.
“Some of the irregularities which obtain here seem almost incredible.
What could be more satisfactory than this range of exquisite arcading,
its slender palm-like stems, its gracefully stilted arches, and the
fairy filigree-work of the spandrils? There seems to be not one single
point that can offend the justest eye, and yet there are nearly a dozen
different archings, differing in form, or height, or width; the cloister
varies in breadth at every turn; the upper galleries are uneven; the
doorways are the personification of self-will; the columns are placed,
sometimes singly, sometimes grouped, and the numbers of them on the
respective sides in no way correspond.... And, nevertheless, there is an
all-prevailing symmetry—and harmony. The whole is a triumph of
accurately judged effect.”
In a foot-note Mr. Lomas adds: “As an instance of the careful way in
which the architects of these olden days went to work, it may be
mentioned that the exact relation between the irregular widths of
cloistering on the long and short sides of the court is that of the
squares upon the sides of a right-angled triangle. This obtaining of
beautiful symmetry through irregularity is a strangely lost art.”
We will now proceed to a more detailed description of the Palace of Al
Ahmar.
Recent researches have shown that the ancient ingress to the Palace of
the Alhambra was by a doorway leading into what is now the chapel. It is
square in shape and has long been walled up. Above it may be deciphered
the following inscription: “O place of the high kingdom and asylum of
prodigious aspect! Thou hast achieved a great victory, and the merits of
the work and of the artificer [are] the glory of the Imam Mohammed. The
Shadow of the Most High [be] upon all!” This text is believed to refer
to Mohammed III. (1302-1309).
The chapel, which had been established by Ferdinand and Isabel adjacent
to the Patio de los Leones, was transferred to this part of the Palace
of Philip IV. in 1621. At that time a fine chimney-piece in the
Renaissance style was converted into an altar. The apartment contains
but few remains of its Moorish builders. Without, is the Patio de la
Mezquita, with an exquisite façade, much disfigured by a modern
gallery. The walls are adorned with the oft-recurring device, “God alone
is Conqueror,” and with sentences extolling the sultans, in various
sorts of arabesques. The inscription round the central window refers to
Mohammed V. (1354-1391).
The grand Mosque of the Alhambra was built in 1308 by Mohammed III., and
was in good preservation until the occupation of the French, who,
according to Gayangos, entirely destroyed it. An account of it has been
left to us by Ibn-ul-Khattíb, the Wizir of Yusuf I.: “It is ornamented
with mosaic work and tracery of the most beautiful and intricate
patterns intermixed with silver flowers and graceful arches, supported
by innumerable pillars of polished marble; indeed, what with the
solidity of the structure which the Sultan inspected in person, the
elegance of the design, and the beauty of the proportions, the building
has not its like in this country, and I have frequently heard our best
architects say that they have never seen or heard of a building which
can be compared with it.” Little more remains of this superb temple than
the small oratory entered through a door in the wall opposite the altar
of the chapel. Here the mihrab is still to be distinguished. Before
it, Yusuf I., in the act of prayer, fell a victim to the poniard of an
assassin in the year 1354.
Adjacent to the mihrab is the ruined tower of Puñales, which presents
many architectural points of difference from the rest of the palace, and
has features which may have suggested these characteristics of the
Mudejar style seen in other parts of Andalusia. The principal window of
the tower was furnished with a wooden balcony with lattices similar to
those seen in Constantinople and Cairo.
Retracing our steps across the Patio de la Mezquita, we reach the
spacious Court of the Myrtles or of the Fish-pond (Patio de los
Arrayanes, or de la Alberca). This is the court first entered by the
visitor through the modern entrance. It is one of the most beautiful
parts of the palace, and gives a foretaste of the glories that lie
beyond. One feels immediately transported to the East. “The originality
of the architecture [says Don Francisco Pi Margall], the airy galleries,
its rich alhamis or alcoves, the splendid apartments of which glimpses
are obtained through its arches, the fountains and foliage, the
reflection of its stuccoed walls in the waters of the pond, the murmur
of the breezes that agitate the dense myrtles, the transparency of the
sky, the silence that reigns all about—all oppress the soul at the same
time, and leave us for some moments submerged in a sea of sensations
which reveal to us little more than the harmony of the whole scene.”
The court forms an oblong, bounded at the north and south by two
galleries supported on eight columns of white marble, and to the east
and west by walls pierced with doors and twin-windows covered with
arabesques, but differing in degree of ornamentation. At each angle we
find an alhami or alcove, where the Moors were accustomed to laze away
the day, extended on rich carpets and divans. The walls of these little
places are encrusted with reliefs in stucco, their roofs are of the
stalactite pattern. Along the middle of the court extends the alberca
or fish-pond, its margins hidden by orange trees and myrtles. The clear
water gushes up into two round basins at either end. To the north, the
prospect is closed by the battlemented Tower of Comares, to the south by
the walls of the Palace of Charles V. Through one of the entrances can
be seen the fountain in the Patio de los Leones. The court is redolent
of the languor, voluptuousness, and splendour of the East.
Each arcade is composed of seven semicircular arches, the central one
reaching up to the cornice, while the others, much lower, are closed
with perforated woodwork or lattices. The roof of the southern gallery
is of artesonado or troughed form, and bears seven small cupolas; over
the central arch of the northern gallery is a single cupola painted with
little gold stars on a blue ground.
In this court there are numerous inscriptions, of which the following
are the most important.
“Go and tell true believers that Divine help and ready victory are
reserved for them.”
“I am like the nuptial array of a bride, endowed with every beauty and
perfection.”
“Truly Ibn Nasr is the sun, shining in splendour.”
“May he continue in the noontide of his glory even unto the period of
his decline.”
In the Patio de la Alberca is an arch differing altogether from all
others in the Palace. Only one surface is decorated, and that with a
principal or guiding figure made out by colours. The ornaments
approximate more closely than is usual in Moorish architecture to
natural forms, and the arch has very much of a Persian character.
This court is believed to have constituted the division between the male
apartments, frequented by the general public, which we have already
described, and the Harem, or private quarters, including the Patio de
los Leones, &c.
We pass through a beautiful arch decorated with tasteful floral designs,
into the Sala de la Barca, or ante-room of the Hall of Ambassadors. This
fine apartment, formerly radiant with colours, was seriously damaged in
the fire of 1890. The ceiling of this hall, says Owen Jones, “is a
wagon-headed dome of wood of the most elaborate patterns, receiving its
support from pendentives of mathematical construction so curious that
they may be rendered susceptible of combinations as various as the
melodies which may be produced from the seven notes of the musical
scale; attesting the wonderful power and effect obtained by the
repetition of the most simple elements.”
Beyond this hall rises the Tower of Comares, appearing to rest on the
slenderest pillars and almost to be balanced in the air. The real
supports have been purposely kept out of sight. The view from the summit
of the massive battlemented tower is magnificent. From this platform,
Washington Irving remarks, the proud monarchs of Granada and their
queens have watched the approach of Christian armies, or gazed on the
battles in the Vega. The walls of the tower are of surprising thickness.
The interior, which is a square of 37 ft. by 75 ft. high up to the
centre of the dome, is occupied by the Sala de Embajadores, the
reception-room of the Sultans. It is the largest and perhaps the most
imposing of the halls of the Alhambra. Lifting our eyes, we behold a
glorious, airy dome, of artesonado work, with stars and painted angles.
Owen Jones is of opinion that the present ceiling replaced an earlier
one, which was supported by an arch of brick. The hall lacks its former
pavement of marble, its central fountain, and the lattices that filled
in its twin-windows. But it is still adorned by a beautiful mosaic dado
(known as sofeisfa) reaching to the wooden cornice. Numerous are the
Kufic and African inscriptions introduced into the decoration, the motto
of Al Ahmar being frequently repeated. Opening on to the hall are nine
alcoves, each with twin-windows, which have replaced balconies. The
alcove opposite the entrance was the site of the Sultan’s throne, as the
long poetical inscriptions testify. What gorgeous assemblies must have
filled this saloon in bygone years—and what tumultuous scenes and
fateful decisions must have been here enacted!
The Patio de los Leones (Court of the Lions) occupies, with the chambers
opening on to it, the south-eastern quarter of the Palace. “There is no
part of the edifice that gives us a more complete idea of its original
beauty and magnificence than this,” says Washington Irving, “for none
has suffered so little from the ravages of time. In the centre stands
the fountain famous in song and story. The alabaster basins still shed
their diamond drops; and the twelve lions, which support them, cast
forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The
architecture, like that of all other parts of the palace, is
characterised by elegance rather than grandeur; bespeaking a delicate
and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one
looks upon the fairy tracery of the peristyles, and the apparently
fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much
has survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes,
the violence of war, and the quiet, though no less baneful, pilferings
of the tasteful traveller: it is almost sufficient to excuse the popular
tradition, that the whole is protected by a magic charm.”
The court is an oblong measuring 116 ft. by 66 ft. On each side is a
peristyle or portico, and at either end a graceful pavilion with a fine
dome. The supporting marble columns are 124 in number and 11 ft. high.
They are placed irregularly, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs—an
arrangement which does nothing to mar the general impression of harmony.
The arches exhibit a similar variety of curve, and spring from capitals
decorated with rich foliage of various designs. The space above the
arches is filled in with the usual arabesque work, and adorned with
verses from the Koran. The ceilings of the porticos are enriched with
delicate stucco work, and the walls are covered to a height of five feet
with a dado of blue and yellow azulejos, bordered with blue and gold
enamelled escutcheons bearing an Arabic motto on a bend.
In the centre of the court is the fountain from which it derives its
name. This is composed of two basins (in Moorish times there was but
one) supported by twelve marble lions. These Arabian sculptures, remarks
Ford, are rudely but heraldically carved, and closely resemble those to
be seen supporting Norman-Saracenic tombs in Apulia and Calabria. “Their
faces are barbecued, and their manes cut like the scales of a griffin,
and their legs like bedposts, while a water pipe stuck in their mouths
does not add to their dignity.” Indeed, the consolatory reminder
contained in the tremendously long inscription round the basin, that
there is nothing to be feared from these creatures, for “life is wanting
to enable them to show their fury,” seems ludicrously unnecessary. As
specimens of Arabian sculpture they are in all probability unique; the
builders of the Alhambra were evidently not over-strict in the
observance of their religion. The inscription referred to has been
versified by Valera, and runs into forty-four lines of Castilian.
On the south side of the Patio de los Leones is the Sala de los
Abencerrages (Hall of the Beni Serraj), so called because it is believed
to be the scene of the massacre of thirty-six chiefs of that tribe by
order of Boabdil. A reddish vein in the marble flooring is pointed out
as the victims’ indelible bloodstains. The story has only the slenderest
historical foundation, and was first circulated by a writer of the name
of Ginés Perez de Hita, who lived in the sixteenth century. According to
some, the usurper Aben Osmin (1446) was beheaded here by order of the
prince Muley Hassan; but others, writing of that confused period of
Granadine history, say the tyrant fled to the mountains. This chamber,
perhaps the most elegant in the Alhambra, does not seem a likely place
for deeds of blood. It is entered through a wonderfully graceful arch,
growing out of, rather than springing from, marble shafts. The chamber
is a square, prolonged on the east and west by two alhamis or alcoves,
which are entered through exquisitely-curved arches. But the glory of
the Sala de los Abencerrages is its roof—its plan like that of a star,
with pendants or stalactites, and sixteen windows in its vaultings.
“Its thousand stalactites,” writes Don Francisco Pi Margall, “its
colours, its innumerable archings, its crowns of stars, its complicated
depressions and projections, its cones, its polygons, its accidents of
light, the effects of chiaroscuro, present it at first sight as
something confused, indefinable, indecipherable, resplendent, and vague,
like that broad band, the Milky Way, which crosses the pavilion of the
heavens. Yet in reality it is most regular, although irregular in
appearance; the compass of the geometrician had more to do in planning
it than the genius of the artist; but its lines are so many, and their
combinations change so rapidly, that the scheme is only to be
comprehended after a long and patient study.”
The azulejos which face the walls date from the time of Charles V. In
the centre of the hall is the marble basin beside which the Beni Serraj
are fabled to have been slain.
Opposite this hall, on the north side of the Lions’ Court, is the Sala
de las Dos Hermanas (or, of the Two Sisters), so called after two twin
slabs of marble let into the pavement. An exquisite arch gives
admittance from the court to a narrow corridor, which communicates on
the right with the upper storey, and with the mirador or latticed
balcony, from which the ladies of the Harem would gaze into the patio
below. The hall is as rich, as graceful, as suggestive of Eastern luxury
and repose as that which we have just left. In each wall is an arched
opening, two being entrances, the others admitting to alcoves somewhat
more shut off than in other parts of the Alhambra. Above each arch is a
window corresponding to the apartments in the upper storey, now
vanished. The roof exhibits the same marvellous combinations of
geometrical forms, the same confused symmetry, as are seen in the Sala
de los Abencerrages. Indeed, this hall is generally (but not
universally) considered the more admirable of the two. The surface of
the walls is hidden beneath costly reliefs of stucco and azulejos.
Inscriptions on the sixteen medallions and cartouches have been
deciphered into a long poem by Ibn Zamrek, composed in honour of
Mohammed V., and translated into eleven verses of Spanish by Valera. One
verse exhorts us “to look attentively at my elegance and reap the
benefit of a commentary on decoration; here are columns ornamented with
every perfection, the beauty of which has become proverbial.”
In this magnificent apartment formerly stood the famous vase (el
jarron), which tradition says was discovered in one of the subterranean
chambers of the Palace, full of gold. It is now in the little Alhambra
Museum. The vase, which dates from the fourteenth century, and is
beautifully enamelled in white, blue, and gold, is described by Baron
Davillier in his work on Spanish Pottery.
Beyond the Hall of the Two Sisters is a long, narrow apartment called
the Sala de los Ajimeces (Hall of the Twin Windows). Its ceiling and
decorations are little inferior to those of the larger hall. On the
north side opens the exquisite Mirador de Lindaraja, or
prospect-chamber, affording a delightful view of the garden beyond. In
wealth of detail and ornamentation, this little bower of fifteen by ten
feet surpasses all other parts of the Palace. In Moorish days the
Sultanas could look from behind the lattices of the three windows across
the town and the plain of the Vega. When their eyes wearied of the
prospect they could scan the numerous poetical effusions traced upon the
walls.
Returning to the Patio de los Leones, we enter, at its eastern
extremity, the Sala del Tribunal, or de la Justicia. This hall consists
of seven chambers opening on to a common vestibule. The four small rooms
are square, and are separated by three larger oblong apartments. The
same gorgeous colouring, the same profusion of geometrical
ornamentation, here as elsewhere in the Alhambra! The arch over the
central small chamber, or divan, is perhaps the finest in the whole
Palace. But what renders this hall the most remarkable in the edifice is
that it contains what are probably the only existing specimens of
mediæval Muslim figure painting. The ceiling of the central alcove or
alhami is adorned by a painting representing ten personages, who were
formerly supposed to be judges, whence the name given to the hall. They
were intended, more probably, to represent the first ten sultans of the
Nasrite dynasty. The painting, like those in the other alcoves, is done
in bright colours (gold, green, red, &c.) on leather prepared with
gypsum. The designs appear to have been sketched in brown. The paintings
in the other alhamis are of an even more interesting character. In the
first, a castle with square towers and battlements is seen; outside it
is a lion led in chains by a maiden, whose hands are rudely grasped by a
savage with shaggy hair and beard. A rescuer hurries to her assistance
in the person of a Christian knight, armed cap-à-pie. On the other
side of the picture, the same knight is shown attacked by a Moorish
cavalier, who plunges a lance into his breast. The Moor is evidently out
hunting, for beneath the combatants’ horses his dogs are chasing the
wild boar and fox. From the towers of the castle two fair ladies
observe, with evident pleasure, the Christian’s overthrow. In another
part of the picture both knights are shown, following the chase; and a
page is seen, leaning against a tree, with sword and shield, presumably
awaiting his master’s return.
The second painting is entirely devoted to hunting scenes. Moors are
seen chasing the wild boar, while the Christians occupy themselves with
bears and lions. The huntsmen are also seen returning and offering the
spoils of the chase to their ladies. The Moor greets his sultana with a
benign and condescending air; the Christian warrior kneels to the lady
and offers his prize.
The most competent critics have now arrived at the conclusion that these
paintings are of the fourteenth century, and therefore executed under
the Muslim sovereigns, in defiance of the precepts of the Koran. Whether
they were the work of a Mohammedan it is not so easy to say. Gayangos
has pointed out remarkable similarities between these paintings and
those in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and on the whole it is probable that
they were executed by an Italian artist, whom the Muslims may not have
scrupled to employ to do a thing for them unlawful. A parallel instance
of casuistry is that of London Jews, who on certain feasts employ
Christians to perform forbidden menial offices. It should also be said
that in the opinion of some modern Muslim doctors the prohibition of
sculpture and painting is not to be taken as absolute.
In the Sala de la Justicia was found a basin for ablutions, now in the
Museum, on which are interesting reliefs of lions, deer, and eagles.
According to the inscription, this was designed in 1305 for the service
of the mosque, a fact which seems to support the view of the authorities
just mentioned.
It was in this hall that Ferdinand and Isabel caused Mass to be
celebrated after the Reconquest, and here that the cross was set up by
Cardinal Mendoza. The devices of the Catholic sovereigns—the Yoke and
Sheaf of Arrows—have been introduced into the decoration of the
alcoves.
The ruinous tower and apartment to the south of the Hall of Justice,
called the Rauda, appears to have been the mausoleum of the Sultans. The
niches in which the turbehs were placed may still be distinguished,
and the long, narrow trough used for the purification of the corpse. In
the Museum may be seen three tablets with the epitaphs of the Sultans
Yusuf III. and Mohammed II. and of a prince Abu-l-Hejaj, probably the
former’s son.
Of the few remaining apartments of the Alhambra, the most interesting
perhaps is the Tocador, or Queen’s Dressing-room, at the side of the
Patio de Lindaraja, opposite the Mirador de Lindaraja. This was the
apartment occupied by Washington Irving, according to his own showing:
“On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one end of a suite of empty
chambers of modern architecture, intended for the residence of the
governor, was fitted up for my reception. It was in front of the
Palace.... I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern
apartment.... I found, in a remote gallery, a door communicating
apparently with an extensive apartment locked against the public.... I
procured the key, however, without difficulty; the door opened to a
range of vacant chambers of European architecture, though built over a
Moorish arcade.... This fanciful suite of rooms terminated in an open
gallery with balustrades, which ran at right angles with a side of the
garden.... I found that it was an apartment fitted up at the time when
Philip V. and the beautiful Elizabeth of Parma were expected at the
Alhambra, and was destined for the Queen and the ladies of her train.
One of the loftiest chambers had been her sleeping-room, and a narrow
staircase leading from it ... opened on to the delightful belvedere,
originally a mirador of the Moorish sultanas, which still retains the
name of the tocador. I determined at once to take up my quarters in
this apartment. My determination occasioned great surprise, but I was
not diverted from my humour.”
This exquisite apartment is adorned by four sixteenth-century paintings,
representing the legend of Phaëton. On the artesonado ceiling, painted
and gilded, may be read the invocation: “The help and protection of God
and a glorious victory for our Lord, Abu-l-Hejaj, Amir of the Muslims!”
Round the boudoir runs a gallery of nine arches on Arabic pillars,
painted and decorated with the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity,
Justice, Strength, and Temperance, Jupiter, Neptune, Plenty, and the
Vestals’ Fire. These paintings were the work of two Italians, Giulio
Aquila and Sandro Mainere, both pupils of Raphael.
The charming little garden or patio of Lindaraja or Daraja, which
intervenes between this regal boudoir and the Moorish mirador, appears
to have been originally called Jin Dar Aja, or garden of the palace of
Ayesha. The old Moorish garden that used to extend as far as the Tower
of Comares is now confined by the walls of the Sala de las Ajimeces and
three arcades of modern construction. The fountain in the centre dates
from the seventeenth century. An enchanting spot is this, with its
cypress, orange, and citron-trees rising from trim hedges of myrtle and
rose.
Between this garden and the court of the Alberca lie the baths—those
indispensable adjuncts to the Muslim household—most skilfully and
artistically restored by Contreras. The plan is that usually followed
throughout the East. Passing through the Sala de las Cámas or Unrobing
Room, where, from a high gallery the songs of the odalisques were wafted
down to the sultan reclining in one of the alcoves, we enter the Sala de
Baños, with its white marble bath and pavement of glazed tiles. This
corresponds with the apartment called by the Arabs, the hararah, or
vapour-bath, and described in Lane’s “Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians”; and it was under the graceful arcades which support the
dome that the bathers underwent the kneading and rubbing processes
lately introduced among us. The chamber is lighted from above through
star-shaped apertures. The inscriptions refer to the felicity awaiting
men in this palace of delight. The bathing-apartments consist of three
halls and two smaller chambers, vulgarly called the Infantas’ Baths.
“The wall of the Nasrites,” writes Señor Fernández Jiménez, “of which
scarcely a patch remains unimpaired, measured about 1400 metres from one
extremity to the other, and was defended by twenty-six towers, counting
as one the two buttresses that defended the gate of the Siete Suelos. To
this number should properly be added the Torre de las Armas, which is
pierced by a gate common to the Alcazaba and Alhambra, and is therefore
also a Nasrite work. The citadel was fortified, moreover, by five
bastions, corresponding to as many gates, and by various external
defences, of which traces remain in the modern alamedas. The thickness
of the towers varies according to their situation and purpose, the
distance between them ranging from 34 to 64 metres approximately.” At
the present day we can count only fifteen towers, the names of which
are: las Aguas, los Siete Suelos, las Cabezas, la Justicia, la Polvora,
los Hidalgos, la Vela, las Armas, las Gallinas, los Puñales, las Damas,
los Picos, del Candil, de la Cautiva, and las Infantas.
The Puerta de la Justicia is the principal entrance to the Alhambra. It
was built, as the inscription over the arch relates, by the Sultan Yusuf
Abu-l-Hejaj, in 1348. Here justice was administered in Moorish days
after the old patriarchal fashion. Above the arch is carved an open
hand, the signification of which is a matter of controversy. The most
probable explanation is that it is a religious symbol, the five fingers
typifying Faith in God and the Prophet, and the commandments, to pray,
to fast, to give alms, and to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The inner
arch is beautifully decorated with arabesques, and with the symbol of
the key. The entrance is continued through another gate, with winding
passages contrived so as to embarrass an enemy. The arch which gives
egress from the tower shows some fine enamelling and festoons.
Just outside this gate is the Pilar de Carlos V., a fountain in the
Greco-Roman style, erected by the Alcaide Mendoza in 1545. It is
ornamented with the Imperial arms, and sculptured heads of the river
gods, Genil, Darro, and Beiro.
The double Torre de los Siete Suelos flanks a gateway, now walled up,
which was formerly the principal entrance to the fortress. Through it
the unfortunate Boabdil is said to have passed on his way to exile and
obscurity. The tower is so called because it is believed to descend
seven storeys underground. Four subterranean chambers have been
investigated. Here tradition places the site of much buried treasure,
and fables are told of phantom guards and enchanted sentries.
At the south-eastern angle of the enceinte is the ruinous Torre del
Agua, which derives its name from the aqueduct that at this point spans
the ravine. On the north-eastern side we reach the Torre de las
Infantas, the interior of which is a perfect model of the smaller
Oriental dwelling-house. Through a small vestibule we reach a covered-in
patio with a fountain in the centre, and alcoves opening out on three
sides. The ornamentation is graceful and original. The tower is one of
the most interesting parts of the fortress. Somewhat less complete and
regular in its plan, but even more elegantly decorated with
rose-coloured tiles, is the adjoining Torre de la Cautiva (Captive’s
Tower). Here the inscriptions resound the praises of Abu-l-Hejaj and
refer to the Lion residing within these walls—a very different
occupant from a captive!
The Torre de los Picos seems to have been so styled from the peaked
battlements which crown it. It evidently underwent extensive remodelling
about the time of the Spanish Reconquest, but some relics of the Nasrite
rule remain in the shape of some beautifully moulded twin windows.
The Torre de Ismaïl, or de las Damas (Ladies’ Tower), was given by
Mohammed V. to his son Ismaïl, and has a richly decorated belvedere and
a hall very tastefully ornamented. The ruined tower of Puñales has some
curious stucco decorations, differing from those found in other parts of
the palace.
Between the Torres de los Picos and de las Damas is a little mihrab or
oratory built on the wall. At the Reconquest it was appropriated to the
private use of one Astasio de Bracamonte. Though it has undergone
deplorable “restorations,” the kiblah or easterly niche and other
indications of the Muslim rite can still be made out. Strangely enough,
the portal is guarded by two Moorish lions brought from the old
Mint—the injunctions of the Mohammedan religion being thus ignored in
its own temple!
The parish church of Santa Maria, erected in 1581, occupies the site of
the Mosque of which Al Khattíb appears to speak, writing of the deeds
of Mohammed III. (1302-1309). “And among his great actions, the greatest
and most remarkable was the construction of the great Mosque or Aljama
of the Alhambra, with all that it contained of elegance and decoration,
mosaics, and cements; as well as lamps of pure silver and other great
marvels. In front of the Mosque were the baths, erected with the money
levied from the Christians in his dominions. With the receipts from
these baths the Mosque and its ministers were maintained.” The modern
church is of brick, and contains nothing of note, except a Visigothic
inscription, referring to the construction of three temples, dedicated
to St. Stephen, St. John, and St. Vincent, in the years 594 and 607.
The forlorn, roofless palace in the classical style, which seems so out
of place amid these Oriental buildings, was begun by order of the
Emperor Charles V. in 1538. It was never completed. The Flemish Cæsar’s
intention seems to have been to establish a permanent residence here,
whence he could contemplate the beauties of the Moorish palace. The
building is a quadrangle of four façades, each seventeen metres high.
The lower storey is of the Tuscan order, the upper, Ionic. Some of the
marble portals are very fine. In the decoration appear allusions to the
campaigns, on sea and land, directed by the Emperor, his motto, Plus
oultre, and the emblem of the Golden Fleece.
The interior of the palace is occupied by an imposing circular court,
with a gallery supported by thirty-two columns. The staircase is loftily
designed, and altogether the palace, if it had been completed and built
almost anywhere else, would have been a dignified memorial of Charles’s
reign.
Across an ivy-draped ravine—a perfect study in green and red—the
Palace of Recreations, the Generalife, overlooks the rugged walls of the
Alhambra. The name is believed to have been derived from Jennatu-l’arif,
“the garden of the architect.” The palace appears to have been built by
a Moor called Omar, from whom it was purchased by the Sultan
Abu-l-Walid. At the Reconquest it became the property of a renegade
prince, Sidi Yahya, who adopted the name of Don Pedro de Granada, and
whose descendants, the family of Campotejar, are to this day the actual
owners.
The Generalife cannot be regarded as an important monument of Moorish
architecture. Through the central court, which measures 48.70 by 12.80
metres, runs the conduit which irrigates the whole estate, and connects
with the Acequia (or canal) de la Alhambra. The arcaded southern façade
and the spacious hall adjoining have been altered in order to make a
large vestibule. The arcade resembles that of the Court of the
Fish-pond, and exhibits a poetical inscription declaring that
Abu-l-Walid restored the palace in the year 1319.
The halls of the Generalife are of little interest in themselves, and
contain several portraits of doubtful authenticity. Those of Ferdinand
and Isabel, of Juana la Loca and her husband, and of the fourth wife of
Philip II., are the most important. Among the portraits of the Granada
family is one supposed to be that of Ben Hud Al Mutawakil, the rival of
Al Ahmar, and ancestor of Sidi Yahya. This seems to be the portrait
which English travellers persist in mistaking for that of Boabdil.
But if the palace is in no way remarkable, the gardens are a veritable
bower of beauty and delight. Water bubbles up everywhere and moistens
the roots of myrtles, cedars, and tall cypresses, the finest trees in
all Spain. The legend of the Abencerrage discovered in dalliance with a
Sultana, beneath one of these cypresses, is absolutely destitute of any
sort of foundation. The nature of the spot—so eminently fitted for love
and lovers’ trysts—may have suggested the story. But the garden is
ill-kept, and many of the magnificent trees have been cut down.
In the city of Granada itself the memorials of the Moorish domination
are scanty and fast disappearing. In the Zacatin, which was in old
times the chief bazaar, is a building formerly styled the Casa del Gallo
de Viento (Weathercock House), and now known by the commonplace
designation of Casa del Carbon (Charcoal House), owing to its having
been appropriated to the storage of that useful product. Tradition avers
that the palace (for such the house at one time was) was built by Badis
Ibn Habus, a governor of Granada, who ruled about 1070 A.D., by whose
direction a vane was made in the shape of a warrior, mounted and armed
with shield and spear. In later years the building served as a corn
exchange. The only notable features are the entrance with its horseshoe
arch and twin-windows, and vestibule with dome and alcoves. Adjacent to
the Casa del Carbon is the house of the Duque de Abrantes. Beneath it is
said to be a subterranean passage communicating with the
Alhambra—blocked up, oddly enough, by the present owner of the site,
without any exploration or examination.
Entered from the Carrera de Darro is the once handsome Moorish bath
house, now in the last stages of dilapidation and neglect. It is
believed to date from the earliest period of Mohammedan rule. The arches
are of the old horseshoe type, and the columns and capitals of a
primitive order. An inscription beginning, “In the Name of God, the
Merciful, the Compassionate ...” may still be made out.
The bath itself, the various chambers of repose and disrobing, the usual
alhamies, can also be traced.
The old Moorish mint was demolished in 1643, and the famous Gate of
Bivarrambla can no longer be described in any sense as a Mohammedan
work.
The effacement of the Moorish character of Granada, as compared with its
survival in Seville, serves to show how much more intense the religious
and racial bias became in Spain during the two hundred and odd years
that elapsed between the conquests of the two cities. The spirit in
which St. Ferdinand, Alfonso el Sabio, and Pedro I. approached the works
of their Mohammedan foes and subjects presented a very favourable
contrast to that manifested by the Catholic sovereigns, Charles V. and
Philip II.
Almost the first act performed by a Spanish king on his entry into a
conquered Mohammedan city was to convert the chief mosque (aljama) into
a Christian church. This was also done at Granada, but the chapel of the
Alhambra remained for some time the cathedral of the new See. The mosque
in the city, afterwards elevated to that rank, is described by the Abbé
Bertaut of Rouen (quoted by Valladar), writing in 1669, as “square, or
rather longer than wide, without vaults, and the roof covered with
tiles, which for the most part were not even joined. The whole was
supported by a number of small stone columns, harmoniously arranged.”
Jorquera says the mosque was composed of five low naves. Whether or not
it was originally a Visigothic church, as some writers pretend, the
temple probably dated from the earliest centuries of the Muslim
occupation, and the tower which contained the mihrab was long famous as
the Torre Turpiana.
The building, after serving the purposes of the Catholic rite for two
centuries, disappeared between 1705 and 1759 to make room for the
present sacristia (sacristy). As a cathedral, it had been superseded by
the adjoining and existing edifice, dedicated on August 17, 1561.
Older by about a quarter of a century than the foundations of the
cathedral is the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real), which is the most striking
and interesting memorial of the Conquest of Granada. It was begun in
1505 as a mausoleum for the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella,
under the direction of the famous Enrique Egas, and completed in the
year 1517—a year after the king’s death and thirteen years after the
queen’s. The chapel is shaped like a Latin cross, and is one of the
latest specimens of the Spanish Gothic style. It is a comparatively
modest and simple building, contrasting strongly with the ornate and
elaborate structures of the succeeding age. The decoration of the
interior consists almost entirely in a frieze bearing a long inscription
in gilt letters which reads: “This chapel was ordered to be built by the
most Catholic Don Ferdinand and Doña Isabella,” &c. &c. There is a
suggestion of Gothic influence in the magnificent railing or grille,
partly of iron, partly gilt, which divides the nave from the transept,
and was made in 1522 by Maestre Bartolome. The kneeling figures of the
Catholic sovereigns are seen on either side of the high altar. These,
says Ford, “are very remarkable, being exact representations of their
faces, forms, and costumes: behind Ferdinand is the victorious banner of
Castile, while the absorbing policy for which both lived and died—the
conquest of the Moor and the conversion of the infidel—are embodied
beneath them in singular painted carvings; these have been attributed to
Felipe Vigarny, and are certainly of the highest antiquarian interest.
In that which illustrates the surrender of the Alhambra, Isabel is
represented riding on a white palfrey between Ferdinand and the great
Cardinal Mendoza, who sits on his trapped mule, like Wolsey. He alone
wears gloves; his pinched aquiline face contrasts with the chubbiness of
the king and queen. He opens his hand to receive the key, which the
dismounted Boabdil presents, holding it by the wards. Behind are ladies,
knights, and halberdiers, while captives come out of the gates in pairs.
Few things of the kind in Spain are more interesting. The other
basso-relievo records the ‘Conversion of the Infidel’; in it the
reluctant flock is represented as undergoing the ceremony of wholesale
baptism, the principal actors being shorn monks. The mufflers and
leg-wrappers of the women—the Roman fasciæ—are precisely those still
worn at Tetuan by their descendants.”
These reliefs are unquestionably more vigorous and artistic, and also
more in harmony with the structure generally, than the gorgeous
Renaissance cenotaphs of Ferdinand and Isabella—most probably the work
of the Spanish sculptor, Bartolome Ordoñez. The two great sovereigns are
shown lying side by side, the faces expressing infinite dignity and
repose. At each corner of the sepulchre is seated one of the four
Doctors of the Church, below whom is a Sphinx. Medallions on two of the
four sides represent respectively the Baptism and Resurrection of Jesus,
and St. George and St. James. Beautifully done are the figures of the
Twelve Apostles, the escutcheons, and, in fact, all the details of this
grandiose but unimpressive monument.
The adjacent sepulchre of Ferdinand and Isabella’s daughter, the unhappy
Queen Juana, and of her husband, Philip I., the Handsome, is inferior in
design and execution. The heads of the recumbent figures are not
faithful portraits. The reliefs represent the Nativity, the Adoration of
the Magi, the Agony in the Garden, and the Entombment. In the niches are
figures of the Cardinal Virtues (not conspicuous in Philip during life),
and at the corners the statues of Saints Michael, George, Andrew, and
John the Divine. Very beautiful are the figures of children, and much of
the heraldic decoration. The whole is in the most florid style of the
Renaissance, and was carved at Genoa by order of Juana’s son, Charles
V.
Very different are the actual resting-places of the sovereigns so
gorgeously commemorated in stone above. Descending to a narrow vault
beneath the cenotaphs, we find five rude coffins, with iron bands.
Herein repose the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Juana and
Philip, and of their son, Prince Juan. Ferdinand’s coffin may be
identified by the letter F. “Here,” writes Pi Margall, “lie together in
the dim light fathers and sons, monarchs of three dynasties united in
less than a century for the greater glory of the fatherland; here lie
the last princes of the Mediæval Age, and those who at its close
inaugurated the Modern Era. Here they lie—heroes and fathers of
heroes—kings who never retreated before the face of danger, and queens
whose lives were consumed in the fire of profound love; fortunate ones
who, returning from the battle, found rest and refreshment in the arms
of their beloved; and unhappy souls who drained the cup of suffering,
without finding in the dregs even that lethargy which the excess of
grief procures for some. Who can enter this murky precinct without
feeling his heart swayed by contrary emotions—without inclining with
reverence before the lead which covers the men who rescued the nations
from the anarchy of feudalism? While a tear may drop on the bier of that
great princess [Isabella], who can restrain his pity for that unhappy
queen [Juana] who, intoxicated with love, passed the night waiting for
the dawn to break that she might go forth, alone, to the ends of the
world, in search of her adored husband, and would not leave his coffin
till the tomb had closed upon it?”
We leave these great and unhappy ones of a bygone age, passing away to
nothingness in their last dark palace, and ascend to the chapel. There
is not much more to see. In the sacristy are preserved the crown and
sceptre of the Catholic queen, the sword of Ferdinand, and some rich
Gothic vestments. Over an altar on the south side is a Descent from the
Cross, of which Ford speaks highly. The Chapel Royal communicates with
the cathedral by a noble portal in the Late Gothic style. The pillars on
each side are adorned by the statues of kings-at-arms. Above the
entrance an eagle upholds the Arms of Spain. Heraldic devices, religious
emblems, and reliefs of saints and cherubim are mingled in the
decoration, which is beautiful and not over-elaborate.
The Chapel Royal, though architecturally forming part of the cathedral
building, has an entirely independent ecclesiastical organisation of its
own, with its own chapter and clergy. Amusing instances are recorded of
the bad blood existing between the cathedral canons and the royal
chaplains. This enmity (says Valladar) was carried so far that once,
when the Archbishop Carrillo de Alderete wished to visit the chapel,
attended by his canons, the chaplains refused to admit them. The
archbishop accordingly caused the disobliging priests to be arrested,
whereupon a long lawsuit ensued. The chaplains had the right of passage
across the cathedral transept to the Puerta del Perdon, which is the
official or state entrance to the royal mausoleum—a privilege which
seems to have galled the canons to the quick. Strange that such
ludicrous bickerings should have arisen out of a foundation which
commemorates the grandest and most epoch-making events in the national
history. Truly from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.
The Cathedral of Granada was built adjoining and connecting with the
Chapel Royal and sacristy or old mosque, between the years 1523 and
1561. Charles V. preferred the Gothic style, but at last consented to
the adoption of the designs of Diego de Siloe. The church is described
by Ford as one of the finest examples of the Græco-Roman style, but the
plan is distinctly Gothic, nor can the edifice be said to deserve the
description, “the most magnificent temple in Europe after the Vatican.”
It is impressive in its severity and vastness, and may be described as
dignified rather than beautiful.
The façade, said to have been designed by Alonso Cano, is flanked by
towers (one unfinished) and divided by four huge stone columns which
support a cornice. On this rest four pillars, sustaining three deep,
gloomy vaultings. At the foot of these pillars, on the cornice, are
statues of the Apostles. The principal door is adorned with a high
relief of the Incarnation by Risueño, the side-doors with reliefs of the
Annunciation and Assumption. The tower on the left rises seventy-five
metres above the level of the present floor; its three stages are in the
three styles of Grecian architecture respectively.
The walls of the Cathedral are, to a great extent, hidden, as is so
often the case on the Continent, by adjoining buildings. The Puerta del
Perdon, which, as we have said, officially belongs to the Chapel Royal,
is Diego de Siloe’s masterpiece, and is elaborately sculptured. Over the
arch two allegorical figures uphold a tablet on which is inscribed a
dedication to the Catholic monarchs. The great flanking columns of the
portal are decorated with huge escutcheons. The introduction of heraldic
symbols into religious architecture is nowhere more conspicuous than at
Granada.
The interior of the church, which is paved with black and white marble,
is composed of five naves with a cross-vaulting in the Gothic style,
supported by five piers, each of which is composed of four Corinthian
pillars. Above the high altar at the east end of the structure rises a
noble dome, 220 ft. high, resting on eight pillars, and opening with a
bold main arch, 190 ft. high. The expansion of the Capilla Mayor
(principal chapel) at this point into the segment of a circle is a
clever feat of architecture. Lafuente says, “The daring of the main arch
is admirable, the way it is contrived creating a wonderful effect:
looking at it from the elliptical arches it appears to be extended and
on the point of falling away through having sunk below its level.”
The Capilla Mayor is a handsome, profusely ornamented fabric, supported
on twenty-two Corinthian columns in two courses. Between the lower
columns are the elliptical arches referred to, and on the upper course
are the seven beautiful paintings of scenes from the Blessed Virgin’s
life, by Alonso Cano. Between the courses are interesting paintings by
Juan de Sevilla and Bocanegra. Much of the statuary is good, and the
Flemish stained glass in the fourteen windows is beautifully rich in
colour and well executed. The high altar itself, the work of José de
Bada, is in a depraved style; but its badness is redeemed by the two
kneeling statues of Ferdinand and Isabella on either side by Mena and
Madrano, and by the bold, great heads of Adam and Eve, above the
pulpits, carved and painted by Alonso Cano.
In the centre of the middle nave, separated from the Capilla Mayor by
the transept, is the choir, in that debased Churrigueresque style of
which every one speaks ill. The only things notable within it are the
fine organs, and the crucifix by Pablo de Rojas. Beneath the choir is
entombed Alonso Cano (died 1667), one of the greatest of Andalusian
painters, and a minor canon of the Cathedral.
One of his most characteristic pictures—the Virgén de la Soledad—is
to be seen over the altar of the Capilla de San Miguel (the first chapel
on the right on entering the church). It was stolen in 1873, and
recovered in the city shortly after. The chapel is beautifully adorned
with red marbles and serpentine. It was built by that high-minded,
beneficent prelate, Archbishop Moscoso, in 1804. His tomb is by the
sculptor Folch. In the chapel are placed—we do not know why—two
elegant Chinese vases.
Between this and the next chapel is the entrance to the sacristy or old
mosque, and to the left of it a small picture, before which that really
saintly saint, St. John of God, was accustomed to pray. The Capilla de
la Trinidad has some good paintings, among them a Trinity by Cano, two
miniatures on copper by the same artist, a Death of St. Joseph by
Maratta, and copies of works by Raphael and Ribera. There are genuine
Riberas (The Child Jesus, St. Laurence, and St. Mary Magdalene)
and more works by Cano in the extravagant eighteenth-century chapel of
Jesus Nazareno. After this comes the handsome Gothic door of the Chapel
Royal, by Enrique Egas; and beyond that the Chapel of Santiago, with a
fine equestrian statue of the Patron Saint of Spain, presented to the
Cathedral by the City in 1640. The old painting of the Virgen del Perdon
was given to Isabella the Catholic by Innocent VIII., and used to be
carried about by the queen. It is publicly venerated (not worshipped or
adored, please note) on the anniversary of the Reconquest, January 2.
Passing the Cathedral sacristy with its handsome door by Siloe, we pause
before the Puerta del Colegio. Behind the sculptured Ecce Homo, it is
said Maeda carved a Lucifer of extraordinary beauty. He applied to Siloe
for permission to give a proof of his skill, and was told by the testy
architect to sculpture the Devil himself if he wanted to. Maeda was wag
enough to take him at his word.
The chapel of Santa Ana covers the vault intended for the archbishops,
and contains a good sixteenth-century altar-piece, and a St. Jean de
Matha (a Frenchman, not a Spaniard) by Bocanegra. The six chapels that
follow present no features of interest. The fourth chapel on the left
side of the Cathedral is named La Virgen de la Antigua, after a Gothic
image greatly venerated by Ferdinand the Catholic, and regarded with
great reverence by the devout of Granada. Here are two portraits by Juan
de Sevilla of Ferdinand and Isabella at prayer; the king is clad in
armour. The paintings are in the Venetian style. Of the retablo by
Cornejo, the less said the better. Cano’s realistic heads of Saints John
and Paul reflect the fondness of the pietists of his day for the
morbid—they are in the Chapel of the Virgen del Carmen. The first
chapel, or baptistry, was erected by Adam and Aguado, at the expense of
Archbishop Galvan, who is buried here near another occupant of the
episcopal throne, Don Bienvenido Monzón. The fine reliefs of Saints
Jerome and Isidore are by Mora. We have now reached the entrance doors,
on each side of which hangs a good painting. The three pictures over the
doors represent mystic allegories.
The most interesting feature of the chapter room, or Sala Capitular, is
the noble porch, with its figures of Justice and Prudence, which, with
the group of the Trinity, may be safely attributed to Maeda.
Before leaving the Cathedral, the sacristy should be visited. It
contains Cano’s Assumption and two small statues by him; a Crucifix
by Montañez; a Holy Family, by Juan de Sevilla; and a Mary
Immaculate by Bocanegra. The treasury contains some wonderfully
embroidered vestments, and good, but not extraordinary, examples of the
silversmith’s craft. The signet ring of Sixtus III., and the monstrance
presented by Isabella, have of course, an historical interest.
A casket is also shown to visitors, who are assured it is that in which
were placed the jewels pawned by Isabella to provide funds for
Columbus’s first voyage. If this is true, Pandora’s box was as nothing
compared to this one! The Queen’s Missal, the work of Francisco Flores,
is beautifully illuminated. It is placed on the high altar on the
anniversary of the Reconquest. Those interested in arms will handle with
curiosity the sword of Ferdinand the Catholic; the hilt has a spherical
pommel and drooping quillons with branches towards the blade, which is
grooved for about two-thirds of its length. Other relics of the Catholic
sovereigns are their sceptre, Isabella’s crown, the royal standards used
at the Reconquest, and a chasuble said to have been embroidered by the
Queen.
By the door next to the Capilla de San Miguel we pass into the Sagrario
(sacristy) occupying the site of the old mosque, which it replaced in
1705. It was designed by Don Francisco Hurtado and Jose de Bada, and it
is well that the responsibility for so meretricious a piece of
architecture should be divided. It may be dismissed as Churrigueresque.
It is not, fortunately, devoid of interest. In one of the chapels is
buried “the magnificent cavalier, Fernando del Pulgar, Lord of El
Salar,” as the inscription records. This valiant knight and true, during
the last campaign against Granada, rode into the city with fifteen
horsemen, and set a lighted taper on the floor of the mosque, and, as
others say, nailed a paper bearing the Ave Maria on the door. This
exploit earned for him and his descendants the extremely valuable
privilege of wearing their hats in the Cathedral. De Pulgar’s bones have
fared better than those of the good Archbishop de Talavera, which were
scattered when the old mosque was demolished. The Sagrario possesses
several good paintings, including a San José by Cano, of whose works the
Cathedral buildings, as may have been noticed, contain a fine selection.
By the door next to the Capilla de Pulgar, and a darkish passage, the
Chapel Royal may be entered.
The oldest purely Christian building in Granada is the convent and
chapel of San Jeronimo, a foundation transferred here from Santa Fé
immediately after the Reconquest. The convent is now a cavalry barracks,
and is not to be inspected by the curious. The church, built by Diego de
Siloe, is in the form of a Latin cross—stern, plain, dignified. The
walls are adorned with frescoes representing scenes from the Passion,
portraits of the Fathers of the Church, and angels playing on the harp
and singing. They were executed in 1723 by an obscure painter called
Juan de Medina. Eight chapels open on the aisles and nave, one
containing a fine retablo, with the Entombment as subject. The principal
chapel exhibits Siloe’s skill at its best. He is said to have realised
in its construction “his lofty ideal of effecting a truly Spanish
Renaissance; an ideal which bore little fruit, since some of his
followers confined themselves to the strictest classicism, others to the
development of the plateresque.” Very much in the spirit of the
Renaissance is the decoration of the chapel with the statues of the
worthies of the classic world, Cæsar, Pompey, Hannibal, Homer, and
others, side by side with Old Testament characters. Strange, this
admiration for a pagan civilisation co-existent with violent religious
fanaticism against all contemporary non-Catholics!
The whole church was practically dedicated to the memory of Spain’s
greatest soldier, the Great Captain, Gonzalo de Cordova, who was buried
here, but whose ashes have been transferred to Madrid. The hero and his
duchess are shown, sculptured, kneeling in prayer on either side of the
high altar, over which rises a magnificent retablo, divided into several
compartments filled with reliefs and statues. The horizontal sections
are in the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and composite Orders respectively.
The lowest central compartment is occupied by the Tabernacle, the
subjects of the three compartments immediately above being the
Immaculate Conception, St. Jerome, and the Crucifixion. Over all is
shown the figure of the Eternal Father. This splendid work, the best of
its kind in Spain, seems to have been executed by a variety of artists,
among them Juan de Aragon, Pedro de Orea, and Pedro de Raxis. The
beautiful shell-like vaulting above is adorned with figures of the
Apostles, of Saints Barbara, Katharine, Magdalen, and Lucy, and the
warrior-saints, George, Eustace, Martin, Sebastian, and Francis. The
sword given by the Pope to the Great Captain, formerly one of the
treasures of the chapel, was carried off by Sebastiani during the
Peninsular War.
There are a great many beautiful things in this old church which seem to
escape the ordinary traveller’s notice. The seats in the choir were
designed by Siloe. The frescoes, representing the Triumph of the
Church, of the Virgin, and of the Eucharist, the Assumption, &c., are
very well done. The restoration of the fabric has often been denounced,
but it is difficult to see how it could have been better carried out.
In the neighbourhood of the Great Captain’s chapel is a monument to a
hero and a great Spaniard of a very different type. Juan de Robles
devoted himself to the sick and the suffering with a zeal which earned
for him confinement in a madman’s cage. His virtues were recognised
after his death, and procured him canonisation as St. John of God in
1669. A tribute to his memory which he would have no doubt appreciated
better is the large hospital founded two years after his death, that is,
in 1552. The saint’s ashes, in a silver coffin, repose in the hospital
chapel, a gorgeous structure, characterised by costliness and bad taste.
The trail of the serpent of Spanish architecture—Churriguera—is over
all. All that is interesting in it is the portrait of the saint, a copy
of one in Madrid.
The name of the Great Captain is associated with the Cartuja, or
suppressed Carthusian monastery, the site of which was his gift. The
monastery, begun in 1516, was pulled down in 1842. A small portion of
the buildings, however, remains, together with the church. The single
nave is disfigured by over-elaborate ornamentation in the plateresque
style. The doors of the choir are richly and tastefully inlaid with
ebony and mother of pearl, cedar and tortoise-shell, and were the work
of a friar, Manuel Vazquez, who died in 1765. The sanctuary, in the
baroque style, is enriched with precious marbles, some richly veined
with agates. On some of the slabs the hand of Nature has traced the
semblances of human and animal forms. In the adjoining sacristy, various
marbles have been combined so as to produce an effect dazzling and
gorgeous in the extreme. The hall is certainly one of the most
remarkable in Spain. Scarcely less marvellous are the exquisitely inlaid
doors and presses. The generally bad style of the church is also
redeemed by a statue of St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order,
ascribed to Alonso Cano, and some pictures by Bocanegra, Giaquinto, and
Cotán. The last named, a friar, was responsible for the pictures in the
cloister, representing the martyrdom of Carthusian monks in London by
the tyrant Henry VIII. and the brigands who acted as his officers.
The Cartuja was formerly much richer in works of art, but, like San
Jeronimo, it was ransacked by the French under Sebastiani, who
exhibited, as on all occasions, the discrimination of a dilettante
coupled with the rapacity of a bandit.
In front of the church of Santos Pedro y Pablo is a very handsome
mansion built in 1539 for Hernando de Zafra, secretary of the Catholic
sovereigns. The portal is in three stages: the first contains the
entrance, a square doorway, between Doric columns; the second bears the
escutcheons of the family, above them being sculptured griffins and
lions; the third, a balcony between pilasters, carved in delicate
relief. In a line with this is another balcony, bearing the curious
inscription, Esperandola del Cielo—“Looking for it from Heaven.”
These words are explained by a tragic legend. De Zafra is said to have
suspected his daughter of a clandestine attachment. To satisfy his
doubts, he burst into her room one day, and found her page assisting the
lover to escape by the window. Baulked of his prey, the father turned,
with death in his face, upon the boy. “Mercy!” shrieked the page. “Look
for it in Heaven!” answered the Don, as he hurled his daughter’s
accomplice from the balcony into the street below. So runs the legend.
De Zafra does not appear, according to the records, to have left any
children; but his daughter may not have survived the terrible
consequences of her amour. “After all,” remarks Valladar, “nothing was
easier in the sixteenth century than to throw a page out of the window
without attracting the attention of the police or magistrates.”
Granada is by no means as rich in ancient churches and houses as
Seville. The house of the Great Captain now forms part of the convent of
Carmelite nuns. On the façade a tablet sets forth that “In this house
lived, and on December 2, 1515, died, the Great Captain Don Gonzalo
Fernandez de Aguilar y de Cordoba, Duke of Sessa, Terranova, and
Santangelo, the Christian hero, and conqueror of the Moors, French, and
Turks.”
The early sixteenth-century Casa de los Tiros—the property, like the
Generalife, of the Marques de Campotejar—seems to occupy the site, if
it did not actually form part, of a Moorish fortified dwelling. Some
think it was an advanced work of the fortifications known as the Torres
Bermejas. The interior certainly shows Arabic influence. The staircase
was probably built by Moors, and there are rich azulejos and a splendid
artesanado hall. This is adorned with busts of various Spanish
celebrities, with the graven heads of Moors and Christians, and with
reliefs of Lucretia, Judith, Semiramis, and Penthesilea.
In this house is preserved an Arabic sword with a magnificent hilt and
scabbard, said to have belonged to Boabdil. The scabbard, at all events,
is unquestionably of workmanship posterior to the Reconquest; and it is
well to be a little on one’s guard in the matter of the numerous relics
ascribed to the last Moorish king.
Of old Granada, in truth, not much more remains than the buildings we
have already named. We may glance at the tower of San Juan de los Reyes,
so badly restored that its peculiar Moorish architecture, more markedly
Eastern than that of any other Grenadine monument, has been almost
entirely effaced. And in the old Casa de Ayuntamiento there are some
historical curiosities, notably the original draft of the charter
granted to Granada by the Catholic sovereigns, and the handsome official
shield of the city. Many sites, such as the Plaza de Bibarrambla,
commemorated in the songs and stories of old Spain, have been completely
modernised. But there is a monument—a simple column surmounted by an
iron cross—more deeply interesting than any reared by the Moors. The
inscription on the pedestal records that on this spot, on May 26, 1831,
Doña Mariana Pineda was publicly garroted at the age of thirty-two
years. She died a martyr for liberty and a victim of the strange
absolutist frenzy which did much to ruin Spain in Ferdinand VII.’s
reign. Doña Mariana’s house had been a centre for liberal gatherings,
and when raided by the police was found to contain a tricolour flag.
She met her death with a courage worthy of her cause. Five years later,
when the nation had recovered its sanity, her ashes were carried in
state to the Ayuntamiento. The magistrate who had condemned her was in
his turn executed. On the same site many Spanish patriots were shot by
the French—their labour and their lives being given to replace
Ferdinand VII. on the throne. The square, formerly called the Campillo,
is now named after Mariana Pineda. You may see there her statue in
marble, sculptured by Marna and Morales.
The hill called the Sacro Monte is a curious memorial of human
credulity. In 1594 one Francisco Hernandez reported to the Archbishop
Don Pedro Vaca de Castro that he had discovered the relics of several
local martyrs in the caves here. A church of no architectural merit was
raised on the spot, and became a place of pilgrimage—the evidence that
the martyrs referred to had ever existed being meanwhile wanting. Within
the church are preserved some leaden books, inscribed in Arabic
characters, and supposed to contain the acts, of the saints. These works
were the subject of a furious controversy in the seventeenth century.
The caves are interesting on account of their natural peculiarities, and
were quite probably catacombs used by the early Christians of
Illiberis. Some rocks may be noticed, in parts worn away by the repeated
kisses of devotees. There is a superstition that the person who kisses
the stone the first time will marry within the year, and that a second
kiss will ensure to those already married an early dissolution of the
conjugal tie.
On the opposite side of the city, also in the outskirts, is a little
Mohammedan oratory, now disfigured and restored beyond recognition. It
is called the Ermita de San Sebastian, and was the place where Boabdil
gave up the keys of Granada to Ferdinand and Isabel.
When we walk through the streets of the modern Granada, with its tawdry
churches and commonplace private houses, it does not seem that the city
has gained much by its change of masters. But its decline was not at
least very marked till many years after the Reconquest. The French
invasion, and still more the ruin of the silk industry, completely
undermined the prosperity of the place. During the last century it lost
its rank as the seat of a Captain General. But a new day is dawning for
the proudest city of the Moor, as for all Spain. Granada is content no
longer to brood over its splendid past; indeed, its citizens seem to
prize but lightly the monuments of those days. There is a general
appearance of wealth and elegance about the promenaders on the broad,
well-lighted paseos; and, thanks to the newly introduced manufacturing
industry of beetroot sugar, the Vega has already resumed the flourishing
smiling aspect it wore when a Mohammedan amir called it his and the cry
of the muezzin was heard from a hundred minarets.
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