Part 8 (1/2)

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the Garden of the Alcazar.]

The Orientalism of the Alcazar 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 b.u.t.terflies and the peering, green lizards, and thinking of the bygone greatness of Seville.

Let us conjure one more ill.u.s.trious 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 Cordova 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 appet.i.te. 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 const.i.tution, 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 n.o.bles 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sociations 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 Espana_, 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 ma.n.u.script.

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 _Cancion a 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 n.o.blest monuments of the Spanish tongue.'

Rodrigo Caro, the historian, and one of the Sevillian authors, says in his _Ill.u.s.trious 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 t.i.tle 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.