The Story of Seville

Don Juan was ill and weak during the engagement. He was carried on a litter by his knights, and in the retreat, the King was put on a mule, and hurried from the scene of action to the Tagus. Here the monarch embarked in a small boat for Lisbon, whence he returned to Seville to mourn his defeat in the seclusion of the Alcázar.

Isabel and Fernando often sought the tranquil paths of this garden. The Catholic Queen and her Consort lived here in great state, in the palmy days of Seville, dispensing justice, listening to the counsels of Torquemada and the officers of the Holy Inquisition, and consulting with Columbus regarding the expansion of their realm and the development of trade with the New World. Many were the hours passed by the blue-eyed, fair-haired Queen in the private chapel.

The pious Philip II. came here, though he preferred his mountain palace of the Escorial. He ordered the portraits of the Kings of Spain to be painted in the Hall of the Ambassadors. As we have read, Philip incurred the resentment of the Sevillian merchants by his confiscation of their ingots. But the prelates and clergy of the city honoured the sovereign, who always supported the Church and favoured the priests. In his reign the Primate of Spain was almost as wealthy as the Pope. The Archbishop of Seville received an income of eighty thousand ducats a year.

Philip spent his time at the Alcázar in his usual daily labours, writing like a clerk in his private room until the small hours of the morning. Every morning he attended Mass. The King lived simply, for he feared the gout. But in spite of this form of frugality, Philip spent his revenue freely in maintaining a large household. In his retinue there were fifteen hundred persons, including forty pages, all of noble family.

In the Queen's train there were twenty-six ladies-in-waiting, and four physicians were in constant attendance on Her Majesty. We may picture Philip moodily roaming in the gardens, dressed in black velvet, with a plumed cap. From his neck was suspended the fine jewel of the Golden Fleece. He wore sober clothes, and changed his suits once every month for new ones. His wear, like the cast of his mind, was sombre. A dread of society possessed the King, and in his later days he became more taciturn and morose.

'I am absolute King,' was the boast of the despotic Philip. His ambition was to attain power, to extend his kingdom beyond the seas, and to crush out heresy. Yet Tennyson's love-dazzled Mary is made to ask, as she gazes upon the face of the Spanish King, in a miniature painting:

'Is this the face of one who plays the tyrant?Peruse it; is it not goodly, ay, and gentle?'

These gardens evoke reflections upon the ever-changing fate of Spain. We gaze at relics of the Moors, and remember the eight hundred years of that sanguinary history of the expulsion of the infidels. Yet everywhere there are traces of that mighty civilisation built up by Morisco knowledge and industry. The Mudéjar has touched the palace and the gardens with his magic wand. Fernando, Pedro, Philip, Carlos – all the Catholic sovereigns – preserved the Moorish style of decoration, and borrowed from the art of the hated race.

Passing under a handsome gateway, represented in one of our illustrations, we come to a fountain surrounded by a tiled pavement, and overshadowed by trees. Before us is the Pavilion of Carlos Quinto, with a fine ceiling and azulejos. This summer-house was built by Juan Hernandez in 1543. Turn to the left, and inspect the archway in the wall, and the curious mural paintings. We may then retrace our steps to the pavilion, and pass another tank and a grotto till we reach the maze and a tangled garden beyond it. This is the Garden of the Labyrinth. Further, we may not ramble.

In 1626 a theatre stood in the large patio near the Puerta del León, by which gate we must leave the Alcázar. The playhouse was of oval form, with three balconies, and one part of the theatre was reserved for ladies. The travelling actors who visited Seville preferred this theatre to any other in the city, as is shown by the archives of the palace. In the year 1691 the theatre was entirely destroyed by a great fire, and not a stone of the old building remains.

The singular mingling of Christian and Moorish architecture and adornment in the modern Alcázar is characteristic of Seville. We find the same mixture of styles in the Casa Pilatos and in other mansions of the city. Even the railway station at the termination of the Córdova line affords an example of the perpetuation of Morisco design and decoration. It is this Moorish influence that lends a strange interest to Seville. Some writers have declared that these mixed styles of architecture are anomalous. There is certainly an air of the grotesque in the combination of Mudéjar windows, cusped arches, columns, and azulejos, and Renaissance and Gothic features. But despite the element of incongruity, the effect is often pleasing, while the mingling of the styles is especially interesting from the historical point of view.

In our inspection of the Sevillian monuments we are able to estimate the enormous sway that the Moors exercised upon the Andalusian mind. That influence will probably endure for very many centuries to come. Spaniards may abhor the faith of Allah, and detest the children of Mahomet; but they have never refused to learn the arts of the Moors, nor to apply them to the building of sacred and secular edifices. In the poorest villages of Southern Spain we rarely fail to notice some trace or another of the Moorish builder.

The Orientalism of the Alcázar remains in spite of the pseudo-Moorish restorations and the Renaissance additions. It is perhaps an atmosphere, a suggestion, rather than the reality. Still, the pile is a very remarkable monument, and every stone of it has its tale to tell of memorable scenes and great events. One is tempted to linger hour after hour in the dreamy gardens, watching the gaudy butterflies and the peering, green lizards, and thinking of the bygone greatness of Seville.

Let us conjure one more illustrious figure to the view before we quit the palace grounds. Here the Emperor Charles V. roamed with his young bride, Isabella of Portugal. The portraits of Charles show a well-knit figure, and a good forehead, with the projecting lower jaw characteristic of his family. He was fond of music, and was accounted well cultured. Mr. Edward Armstrong tells us, however, in his Emperor Charles V., that the sovereign was a 'singularly bad linguist.' He knew only a few words of Spanish after he had ruled Castile and Aragon for two years. 'French was his natural language, but he neither spoke nor wrote it with any elegance.' The Emperor's knowledge of theology was scanty; and though he was a stern defender of the Catholic faith, he could scarcely read the Vulgate.

Isabella was but twenty-three years of age at the time of her marriage with Charles. She was, however, no child. Her intelligence was quick. The Princess was short, spare in body, with a clear white skin. The wedding was celebrated in Seville, in March 1526. For the honeymoon the Emperor and his bride visited Córdova and Granada.

Charles liked the seclusion of his palace in Seville. 'Not greedy of territory, but most greedy of peace and quiet,' was the description of the monarch by Marcantonio Contarini, in 1536. He was strongly attached to his wife; he was fond of children, and kept pet animals, 'including a parrot and two Indian cats.' The Emperor was interested in gardening, and he introduced the carnation into Spain. At table he was a glutton, and unable to exercise self-control over his greedy appetite. It was said that Charles five times drained a flagon, containing nearly a quart of Rhenish wine, during a single meal. We need not be surprised that he suffered from severe attacks of gout. Yet he would not forego the pleasures of the table, and when his physician warned him that beer was injurious to his constitution, the Emperor refused to give up drinking it.

In dress Charles was economical. He went to Italy in a shabby suit, hoping by his example to check the tendency to extravagance displayed by his courtiers and the nobles of Spain. His servants were sometimes in tattered clothes.

'A fine taste for art seemed inborn in Charles,' writes Mr. Armstrong. 'Before he ever set foot in Italy he had summoned Italian architects and sculptors to build the splendid Renaissance palace at Granada, which was destined to remain unfinished… Music was a passion from boyhood. The Emperor's choir was the best in Europe. To his choristers he was most generous, for when their voices broke he would educate them for three years, and afterwards, if they recovered voice, he would give them the preference for places in his chapel.'

CHAPTER VII

The Literary Associations of the City

'Among no other people did the spirit and character of the middle age, in its most beautiful and dignified form, so long continue and survive in manners, ways of thinking, intellectual culture, and works of imagination and poetry, as among the Spaniards.' – Schlegel, Philosophy of History.

WE have noted that in the Visigoth and Moorish periods Seville was a centre of literature and the arts. The Christians had their St. Isidore, a famed historian and theological writer, and the Moriscoes acclaimed the sagacious El Begi, 'whose knowledge was a marvel.' Many Moorish scribes laboured in the city before San Fernando regained it for the Spaniards; but very few of their names have lived through the stress of turbulent times, when every man was for fighting, and art and letters languished.

When we reach the fifteenth century, we find that certain enterprising German printers set up presses in Seville, and that books, such as Diego de Valera's Cronica de España, were printed and published.

The printing press gradually destroyed the wonderful art of the illuminated missal, in which the monks excelled, and letterpress began to supersede manuscript. In the Cathedral Library of Seville is the great Bible of Pedro de Pampeluna, in two volumes. It was transcribed for Alfonso the Learned, and the work is perhaps unmatched. Rich illuminations abound in the pages, testifying to the skill and the patience of the artist.

But this industry, followed with such zeal by the clergy, was soon lost. With the advent of machinery more books were produced, and they came into the hands of the people, who in the pre-printing days were unable to purchase the costly volumes of manuscript.

At this time also secular dramas began to take the place of mystery plays. The theatre has remained one of the favourite recreations of the Spanish people, and on the modern stage serious plays, dealing with social problems, are often produced. Among the playwrights of Spain the name of Lope de Rueda is held in reverence, for it was he who opened the way for them. 'The real father of the Spanish theatre' was a native of Seville, and by trade a goldsmith. From 1560 to 1590, the dramas of Lope de Rueda were performed in Seville. Cervantes may have been influenced by this pioneer of dramatic art, for, as a youth, he saw Lope de Rueda act.

In his zenith, the player's stage consisted of half-a-dozen planks, laid upon four benches. There was no scenery. Old blankets served as curtain and 'back sheet.' Between the acts a few singers sang without any instrumental accompaniment. With such primitive paraphernalia this Thespian travelled about with his company of mummers, writing his own dramas, and acting in them. He died about the year 1567.

Contemporary with Lope de Rueda and Cervantes was Domingo de Bercerra, who was born in the city in 1535. During the campaign with the Turks, he was seized by Moorish pirates and taken prisoner with Cervantes to Algiers. De Bercerra is known for his translation of Giovanni della Casa's Il Galateo. Hieronimo Carranza, who wrote Philosophia y destreza de las Armas, and Juan de la Cueva, writer of plays and poems, lived in Seville at this time.

We now enter upon an era memorable in the literary annals of the city. This is the period when Seville could boast of her scholars, poets, dramatists and historians, and lay claim to distinction as possessing the most cultured circle of writers and artists in the whole of Spain. Fernando de Herrera, born in 1534, in Seville, holds a high position among Spanish poets. His Canción á Lepanto, a poem in celebration of the victory of Lepanto, 'deserves,' says Mr. Butler Clarke, 'to be placed side by side with the first eclogue of Garcilaso as one of the noblest monuments of the Spanish tongue.'

Rodrigo Caro, the historian, and one of the Sevillian authors, says in his Illustrious Men, Natives of Seville, that Herrera 'understood Latin perfectly, and wrote several epigrams in that language, which might rival the most famous ancient authors in thought and expression. He possessed a moderate knowledge of Greek.' The prose writings of 'the divine Herrera' are marked with the same beauty as his poetry. He wrote a great general history of his country, up to the reign of Carlos V., and earned from Lope de Vega the title of 'the Learned.'

We learn that Fernando de Herrera was a tall man, with a handsome countenance, thick curling hair, and a beard. The love of his life appears to have been 'spiritual'; he was enamoured of Eliodora, Countess of Gelves. This adoration was of the nature of that manifested by Dante for Beatrice. The poet calls his divinity 'Love,' 'Sun,' and 'Star,' but there is an unreality in his odes to the Countess. We read, too, that Herrera was well read in philosophy, and expert in mathematics.

At this time there were two resorts in Seville for authors, artists, and men of culture. One was the house of the refined and versatile Pacheco, Canon of the Cathedral; the other was the Casa Pilatos, the mansion of the Duques de Alcalá. In the circle of Francisco Pacheco we shall find all the notable painters and poets of Seville; Céspedes, Cervantes, and Velazquez, who married Pacheco's daughter, were frequenters of the Canon's hospitable house. It was Pacheco who collected and published Herrera's poems, under the patronage of the Condé d'Olivarez, and to him we owe the preservation of some wonderful fragments of a poem on the art of painting, composed by Pablo de Céspedes. These selections were quoted by Pacheco in his treatise on art, and one of the finest passages is that of counsel to an artist in painting a horse. Except for these portions, nothing remains of the poem of Céspedes, which was a work of high merit, written in the purest form of the Castilian language. The author was a man of conspicuous ability. He painted, wrote, carved statuary, and designed buildings.

The genial Pacheco is perhaps better known as a writer upon painting, and a maker of Latin verse, than as an artist with the brush. His great book on art, Arte de la Pintura, was published in 1649. It is anecdotal, technical and historical, and displays the credulity of the writer in regard to the miraculous. He had the honour of training Velazquez, his future son-in-law, and the satisfaction of discovering the power of his young pupil.

We will now take our way to the Casa Pilatos, which stands in the plaza of that name. Passing under a gateway, we enter a court. On the right is a very beautiful ironwork door in the Mudéjar form. An attendant opens it, and we pass into an inner patio, surrounded by busts, portions of antique sculpture, and two statues of Athena. In the centre is a fountain. The casa was designed by Moorish artists, early in the sixteenth century, for Don Pedro Enriquez, and his wife Doña Catalina de Ribera. A descendant, Don Fadrique, who had travelled in Palestine, added the so-called Prætorium, and probably named the mansion after Pontius Pilate. There are unlettered persons in Seville who will assure you that Pilate lived in the house.

The third Duke of Alcalá, Fernando Enriquez de Ribera, established a great library here, and the Casa Pilatos was the rendezvous of a polished coterie. The Duke collected pictures, procured Roman relics from Italica, and had cabinets of coins and medals, and cases containing manuscripts. He was an amateur painter, a patron of the fine arts, and the encourager of struggling genius. Pedro de Madrazo, in his Sevilla y Cadiz, states that 'the Casa Pilatos is an august representation of the architectural genius of the sixteenth century; memorable for the reunions of Pacheco, Céspedes, the Herreras, Góngora, Jauregui, Baltasar de Alcázar, Rioja, Juan de Arguizo, and Cervantes.'

Other writers describe the architecture of the palace as pseudo-Moorish. It is indeed a mixture of Gothic, Moorish, and Renaissance designs, adorned with azulejos, the decorations being Mudéjar for the greater part. Pacheco, the friend of the Duke de Alcalá, painted the salon.

Mr. M. Digby Wyatt, in his valuable work, An Architect's Note Book in Spain, describes the Casa Pilatos as possessing two special 'points of architectural value,' i. e., 'the entirely Moresque character of the stucco work at a comparatively late date, and the profuse use of azulejos or coloured tiles. It is … in and about the splendid staircase that this charming tile lining, of the use of which we have here of late years commenced a very satisfactory revival, asserts its value as a beautiful mode of introducing clean and permanent polychromatic decoration.'

In the principal garden there are remains from Italica. The orange, lemon and jasmine grow profusely in this sunny, sheltered corner of the city. Here the cultured Duke Fernando Enriquez de Ribera discoursed with his illustrious guests, when the stars twinkled and the air was sweet with the odour of the jasmine and rose. No doubt Francisco Pacheco brought his pupil Velazquez to the symposia. We can picture Cervantes relating the story of his imprisonment in Algiers, or diverting the company with anecdotes of the thieves and sharpers of Seville, whose exploits are recorded in his novel of Rinconete y Cortadillo. Góngora, the poet, whose affectations and 'Gongorisms' offended George Henry Lewes, probably read his verses to a critical audience in the salon. Wit vied with wit, scholar discussed with scholar, and artists discoursed upon the new methods of painting. This was the intellectual centre of Seville, where kindred souls uttered their deepest thoughts, assured of sympathy and of comprehension. When the courtly owner of the palace died, his library, his treasures and curiosities were removed to Madrid, and Sevillian men of letters and painters lost a true friend.

In 1588, Miguel de Servantes Saavedra, otherwise Cervantes, lived in the city. In his twenty-first year, while at Madrid, he had written a pastoral poem called Filena, some sonnets and canzonets. A few years later he obtained a position as chamberlain to Cardinal Julio Aquaviva at Rome; but he was not long in Italy. The love of adventure inspired him to enlist in the expedition force sent by Philip II. against Selim the Grand Turk. At the famous battle of Lepanto the young soldier received a wound in the left hand, which necessitated amputation. The surgeons bungled, and Cervantes lost the use of his arm. Still, he continued to serve as a private soldier in the ranks.

In 1575, Cervantes was aboard a galley called the Sun, and when journeying from Naples to Spain, he and the entire crew were captured, and borne to Algiers as prisoners. For five years he lay in a dungeon until a sum was paid in ransom. Upon returning to his native land, he joined his mother and sister at Madrid, and there he led a studious life for three years. His fighting days were at an end. He had seen strange things in foreign lands, and greatly enriched his store of experience of life. Henceforward he gave of his knowledge of the world, and toiled as a writer of poetry, dramas and marvellous romances. His struggle with fortune was severe. He wrote thirty comedies without gaining recognition. At this time he married Doña Catalina de Solazar y Palacios y Vozmediano.

In Seville there lived two relatives of the soldier-dramatist. They were merchants, with a large business, and it is said that they offered Cervantes employment. Mr. J. Fitz-Maurice Kelly tells us that the author obtained a post in the Real Audencia in Seville, probably that of tax-gatherer. Cervantes himself relates that 'he found something better to do than writing comedies.' Whether he sat on a stool in the mercantile office of his relations, or travelled as a tax-collector in Andalasia, is perhaps not quite certain. At anyrate, the dramatist continued to produce plays. He sought an appointment as Accountant-General of the new kingdom of Granada, or as Governor of Secomusco in Guatemala, or as Paymaster of the galleys at Cartagena, or as Corregidor in La Paz. His application was unnoticed, and it was not until 1808 that the document was unearthed. It is a story of hardship, neglect and disappointment. The soldier who had lost an arm in combat with his country's foes, the genius whose name was to reach the far ends of the civilised world, was forced to go begging for situations, which were refused to him. He still plied his pen for poor returns in the way of money. For Rodrigo Osorio he agreed to write six comedies at fifty ducats each. The price was not to be paid unless each play was 'one of the best ever presented in Spain.' Was there ever a more arbitrary contract? It is doubtful whether Cervantes received anything for this work. Then came the quarrel between the Church and the Stage. Playwrights and actors were banned, and four months before the death of Philip II. all the theatres were closed.

The clouds lifted slightly. In 1595 'Miguel Cervantes Saavedra of Seville' won the prize offered by the Dominicans of Zaragoza for a series of poems in honour of St. Hyacinthus. He appears to have earned his living at this period as a tax-gatherer. Sometimes he was to be found at Pacheco's house, and at the Casa Pilatos. Cervantes discerned the genius of Herrera, and the two poets became friends. A sonnet in praise of Herrera was written by Cervantes.

Fresh trouble beset the unfortunate author. 'About this period Cervantes fell into the first of his money troubles,' writes Mr. Watts, in his Miguel de Cervantes, 'in connection with his office. Having to remit a sum of 7,400 reals from Seville to Madrid, he entrusted it to the hands of one Simon Freire, as his agent. Freire became bankrupt, and fled from Spain. This involved Cervantes in a debt to the crown, for which, being unable to pay, he was thrown into prison. Having reduced the amount by what he recovered from the bankrupt estate of Freire to 2,600 reals, Cervantes was released after a detention of three months. Neither then, nor at any time afterwards – although the affair hung over him to trouble him for many years – was there any charge implicating his own personal rectitude.'

Cervantes' pictures of the seamy side of Sevillian life were drawn vividly in his picaresco novels. The tales contain phrases in Germania, or thieves' argot, showing that the author closely observed his types of low life. It was not until he had reached his fifty-seventh year that he finished the first part of Don Quixote de la Mancha. The great romance was partly written during Cervantes' imprisonment in La Mancha. There are three versions of the circumstances that brought about his confinement. One account is that Cervantes made himself unpopular as a tax-gatherer. But could that be made a felony or misdemeanour meriting gaol? Another story relates how he became a factory-owner, and polluted the Guadiana with waste matter; while a third report ascribes his punishment to the offence of uttering satires upon a lady.

In 1605 Don Quixote was published, in a quarto volume, by Juan de la Cuesta of Madrid. Within seven months the book had reached its fourth edition. W. H. Prescott, in his essay on 'Cervantes,' states that two editions were issued in Madrid, one in Valencia, and one in Lisbon. Yet the author was not relieved of the burden of poverty. Fame sounded his name far and wide. But he had sold the copyright of his romance. And although his reputation was established beyond all doubt, he does not appear to have been in a position to obtain worthier remuneration for his labours. What is perhaps more strange, the leading incidents of his life were scarcely known in Spain when his first biographer, Mayans y Siscar, essayed a history of the great writer's career. Seven towns claimed him as a native when Tonson, in London, issued the first English edition in 1738.