Part 28 (1/2)

In 1520 Torralva went once more to Rome. Ere he left Spain he told Zuniga that he would be able to travel there astride a broomstick, the course of which would be guided by a cloud of fire. On his arrival at Rome he interviewed Cardinal Volterra, and the Grand Prior of the Order of St John, who earnestly begged him to abandon all commerce with his familiar spirit. Because of their exhortations, Torralva requested Zequiel to leave his service, but met with a stern refusal. The spirit, however, advised him to return to Spain, a.s.suring him that he would obtain the place of physician to the Infanta Eleanora, Queen-Dowager of Portugal, and later consort of Francis I of France. Acting upon this counsel, Torralva sailed once more for the land of his birth, and obtained the promised appointment.

In 1525 an incident occurred which greatly enhanced Torralva's celebrity as a seer. On the 5th of May of that year Zequiel a.s.sured him that the troops of the Emperor would take Rome on the following day. Torralva desired the spirit to carry him to Rome so that he might witness this great event with his own eyes. Zequiel gave him a stick full of knots, and commanded him to shut his eyes. Torralva obeyed the request of the famulus, and when after a s.p.a.ce the spirit told him to open his eyes once more, he found himself in Rome, standing on a high tower. The hour was midnight, and when day dawned he duly witnessed the terrible events which followed--the death of the Constable of Bourbon, the flight of the Pope into the Castle of St Angelo, the slaughter of the citizens, and the wild riot of the conquerors. Returning to Valladolid by the same means as that by which he had come, Torralva immediately made public all he had seen, and when, a week or so later, news arrived of the capture and sack of Rome, the Court of Spain was very naturally filled with unbounded surprise.

Many persons of high rank had been accomplices of the gifted doctor in his practice of the black art, and one of these, in a fit of remorse, notified the Holy Inquisition of his dealings with the supernatural. Zuniga too, who had benefited so greatly by the occult knowledge of Torralva, now turned against him, and denounced him to the Holy Office of Cuenca, which had him arrested and cast into prison. The terrified magician immediately confessed all his doings with Zequiel, whom he persisted in regarding as a beneficent spirit, and penned no less than eight declarations of his dealings with the supernatural, some of which contradicted statements made in others in a most ludicrous manner. In view of their unsatisfactory nature, the unhappy necromancer was put to the torture, and an admission of the demonic nature of his familiar was quickly extracted from him. In March 1529 the Inquisitors suspended his process for a year, a common practice of the Inquisition, which thus attempted to wear its victims down. But, to the dismay of Torralva, a new witness made his appearance, who testified that in his early days at Rome the imprisoned medico was p.r.o.ne to indulgence in occult arts, so that in January 1530 Torralva was once more put upon his trial. The Inquisition appointed two learned theologians to labour for his conversion, to whom Torralva promised amendment in everything, except the renunciation of the evil spirit with whom he had been a.s.sociated for so long, a.s.suring his mentors that he had not the power to dismiss Zequiel. At length, on his making a pretence to cast off his familiar and abjure his heresies, he was released, and entered the service of the Admiral of Castile, who had employed all his influence to obtain a pardon for him. Immortalized in the pages of Don Quixote, he remains for all time the archetype of the Spanish magician of the sixteenth century.

Moorish Magic

By no race was the practice of the occult arts studied with such perseverance as by the Moors of Spain, and it is strange indeed that only fragmentary notices of their works in this respect remain to us. The statement that they were famous for magical and alchemical studies is reiterated by numerous European historians, but the majority of these have refrained from any description of their methods, and the Moors themselves have left so few undoubted memorials of their labours in this direction that we remain in considerable ignorance of the trend of their efforts, so that if we desire any knowledge upon this most recondite subject we must perforce collect it painfully from the fragmentary notices of it in contemporary European and Arabic literature.

The first name of importance which we encounter in the broken annals of Moorish occultism is a great one--that of the famous Geber, who flourished about 720-750, and who is reported to have penned upward of five hundred works upon the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. In common with his fellow-alchemists, he appears to have failed signally in his search for those marvellous elements, but if he was unable to point the way to immortal life and boundless wealth, he is said to have given mankind the nitrate of silver, corrosive sublimate, and nitric acid. He believed that a preparation of gold would heal all diseases in both animals and plants, as well as in human beings, and that all metals were in a condition of chronic sickness in so far that they had departed from their natural and original state of gold. His works, all of which are in Latin, are not considered authentic, but his Summa Perfectionis, a manual for the alchemical student, has frequently been translated.

The Moorish alchemists taught that all metals are composed of varying proportions of mercury and sulphur. They laboured strenuously to multiply drugs out of the various mixtures and reactions of the few chemicals at their disposal, but although they believed in the theory of trans.m.u.tation of metals they did not strive to effect it. It belonged to their creed rather than to their practice. They were a school of scientific artisans and experimentalists, first and last. They probably owed their alchemical knowledge to Byzantium, which in turn had received it from Egypt; or it may be that the Arabs drew their scientific inspiration at first hand from the land of the Nile, where the 'great art' of alchemy undoubtedly had its birth.

Astrology

Astrology was also an important branch of occult study with the Moors of Spain, whose consideration of it greatly a.s.sisted the science of mathematics, especially that branch of it which still retains its Arabic name--algebra (al = the, jabara = to set, compute). It is probable that the Arabs first received an insight into the practice of foretelling events by the position of the planets at a given time from the Chaldeans, who undoubtedly were its earliest students. References to astrology are plentifully encountered in Spanish story, as the reader will have observed. But high as it stood in the estimation of the Moorish sages, it was still subservient to the grander and more mysterious art of magic, whereby the spirits of the air could be forced to do the will of the magus, and carry out his behests in four elements. Most unfortunately, we are almost entirely ignorant of the tenets of Moorish magic, owing probably to the circ.u.mstance that it was averse to the spirit of Islam. But we know that it was founded upon Alexandrian magic, and therefore recognized the principles of that art as laid down by the great Hermes Trismegistus, who was none other than the Egyptian Thoth, the G.o.d of writing, computation, and wisdom.

About the end of the tenth century the learned men of Europe began to resort to Spain for the purpose of studying the arts, occult and otherwise. Among the first to do so was Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester II, who spent several years in Cordova, and who introduced into Christendom the knowledge of the Arabic numerals and the no less useful art of clock-making. Strange that he did not apply his knowledge of the one to the other, and that even to-day our timepieces are burdened with the old and c.u.mbrous Roman numerals! William of Malmesbury a.s.sures us that Gerbert made many discoveries of treasure through the art of necromancy, and relates how he visited a magnificent subterranean palace, which, though dazzling to the sight, would not remain when its splendours were subjected to the test of human touch. Ignorant Europe took Gerbert's mathematical diagrams for magical signs, and his occult reputation increased as his moral character withered. It was said that the Devil had promised him that he should not die until he had celebrated high ma.s.s at Jerusalem. One day Gerbert celebrated his office in the Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem at Rome, and, feeling ill, asked where he was, observed the double entendre of the Evil One, and expired. Such was the tale that benighted ignorance cast round the memory of this single-minded and enlightened man, much in the same spirit as it bedevilled the recollections of our own Michael Scot and Roger Bacon.

The Dean of Santiago

In the Conde Lucanor, a Spanish collection of tales and homilies of the fourteenth century, already alluded to, is a story of the Dean of Santiago, who went to Illan, a magician of Toledo, to be instructed in necromancy. The magus raised a difficulty, saying that as the Dean was a man of influence, and would attain a high position, he would probably forget all past obligations. The Dean, however, protested that no matter to what eminence he attained he would not fail to remember and a.s.sist his former friends, and particularly his tutor in things supernatural. Satisfied with the churchman's promises, the necromancer led his pupil to a remote apartment, first requesting his housekeeper to purchase some partridges for supper, but not to cook them until she had definite orders to do so.

When the Dean and his instructor had settled themselves to the business before them, they were interrupted in their labours by a messenger, who came to inform the Dean that his uncle, the Archbishop, had summoned him to his death-bed. Being unwilling, however, to forgo the instruction he was about to receive, he excused himself from the duty. Four days later, another messenger arrived, informing the Dean of the Archbishop's death, and later he learned that he had been appointed Archbishop in his uncle's place. On hearing this, Illan requested the vacant deanery for his son. But the new Archbishop preferred his own brother, inviting, however, Illan and his son to accompany him to his see. Later the deanery became vacant once more, and once again the magician begged that his son might be appointed to it. But the Archbishop refused his suit, in favour of one of his own uncles. Two years later the Archbishop became a cardinal, and was summoned to Rome, with liberty to appoint his successor in the see. Once more Illan was disappointed. At length the Cardinal was elected Pope, and Illan, who had accompanied him to Rome, reminded him that he had now no excuse for not fulfilling the promises he had so often made to him. The Pope, in anger, threatened to have Illan cast into prison and starved as a heretic and sorcerer. ”Ingrate!” cried the incensed magician, ”since you would thus starve me, I must perforce fall back upon the partridges I ordered for to-night's supper.”

With these words he waved his wand, and called to his housekeeper to prepare the birds. Instantly the Dean found himself once more in Toledo, still Dean of Santiago, for, indeed, the years he had spent as Archbishop, Cardinal, and Pope were illusory, and had existed only in his imagination at the suggestion of the magus. This was the means the sage had taken to test his character, before committing himself to his hands, and so crestfallen was the churchman that he had nothing to reply to the reproaches of Illan, who sent him off without permitting him to sup upon the partridges!

It is strange that physicians and priests figure most notably as the heroes of Spanish magical story--strange, until we reflect upon the manner in which the learned cla.s.ses were regarded by an illiterate and illiberal commonalty. Torquemada tells a story of a youth of his acquaintance, a young man of great ability, who was afterward physician to the Emperor Charles V. When he was a student at Guadalupe, and was travelling to Granada, he was invited by a traveller, dressed in the garments of a churchman, whom he had obliged in some manner, to mount behind him on his horse, and he would carry him to his destination. The horse seemed a sorry jade, unable to carry the weight of two able-bodied men, and at first the student refused the mount, but, on pressure, at length accepted a seat behind the seeming ecclesiastic. The horseman requested his companion not to fall asleep in the saddle, and they jogged on, without any appearance of their going at an extraordinary rate. At daybreak, to the student's surprise, he found himself near the city of Granada, where the horseman left him, marvelling that the distance between two places so widely separated could have been covered in a single night.

Spectres and Apparitions

As might be imagined, the strong vein of superst.i.tion in the Spanish character, if subdued to some extent by the harsh dictates of the Holy Office, yet rose triumphant in other spheres of occult belief. We find, for example, a widely diffused belief in the power of the dead to return to the scenes of previous existence, and this superst.i.tion is well ill.u.s.trated by a weird pa.s.sage in the thrilling and mysterious pages of Goulart, who in his Tresor des Histoires admirables [56]

knows well how to mingle shadows with the colours on his palette.

He tells us how Juan Vasquez Ayala and two other young Spaniards, on their way to a French university, were unable to find suitable accommodation at a certain village where they had halted for the night, and were obliged to take shelter in a deserted house, the reputation of which as a haunted vicinity had flourished for a considerable time among the villagers.

The young men made the best of matters, borrowed articles of furniture from several neighbouring houses, and resolved to give a warm reception to any supernatural visitant who should have a mind to pay them a call. But on the first night of their occupancy they had scarcely fallen asleep when they were awakened by a noise as of clanking chains, which seemed to proceed from the lower regions of their temporary dwelling.