Southern Spain Part 7

The Hall of the Amba.s.sadors probably never looked very different from what it is now. It was never a private apartment. We can imagine it occupied, when no function was proceeding, by a few slaves dozing on mats or reclining dog-like on the richly carpeted floor, ready, however, to spring up and make the lowest of salaams as some bearded dignity entered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE COURT OF THE LIONS: MOONLIGHT]

This splendid hall and the other apartments adjacent to the Court of the Myrtles are supposed (I know not on what authority) to have const.i.tuted the official or public part of the royal residence, together with the apartments demolished to make room for the Palace of Charles V.

The rest of the building, on this supposition, was the private or harem quarter. A narrow pa.s.sage leads from the Court of the Myrtles to the Court of the Lions. "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 fountain nowadays plays only once a year.] The architecture, like that of all other parts of the palace, is characterized by elegance rather than grandeur; bespeaking a delicate and a 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."

I fancy that the gifted American was himself responsible for that tradition, for the Spaniards, as Lady Louisa Tenison observed sixty odd years ago, are not an imaginative race, and whatever legends or traditions are current relate almost exclusively to the Virgin and saints. Spanish folk-lore knows nothing of fairies and goblins. The palace which Irving tells us the people regarded as enchanted had been used by them for years as a factory, as store-rooms, as a laundry, as a caravanserai. This hardly suggests that it was looked upon with superst.i.tious awe. The truth is that the palace had enchanted Washington Irving, as it has done many others--not natives--since.

The Court of the Lions is an oblong, surrounded by a gallery formed by 124 marble columns, eleven feet in height and placed irregularly, some in pairs, some single. The arches exhibit a similar variety of curve, and the capitals are of various designs. The tile roofing of the galleries rather mars the effect, but the stucco work within them is of the richest and finest description. In the centre of the short sides are two charming little pavilions, with "half-orange" domes and basins in their marble flooring. The court is gravelled, and derives its name from the twelve marble animals that support the basin of the central fountain. These creatures are called lions, but why I am at a loss to understand. They look more like poodles than any other living quadrupeds. Ford humorously remarks: "Their faces are barbecued, and their manes cut like the scales of a griffin, and their legs like bedposts, while water-pipes stuck in their mouths do not add to their dignity." An Arabic inscription reminds us that nothing need be feared from them, as life is wanting to enable them to show their fury.

That fury would no doubt have been directed in the first instance at the sculptor who had made of the unfortunate creatures such grotesque caricatures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE GENERALIFE: PATIO DE LA ACEQUIA]

The court is surrounded by four splendid rooms--the halls of the Mocarabes, the Abencerrages, the Two Sisters, and of Justice. The second and third resemble each other, and are covered with the most marvellous specimens of the artesonado or carved wood ceiling. The stalact.i.tes or pendants, though in reality following a strict geometrical plan, exhibit complications and varieties that it is impossible for the eye to follow.

The style may well have been suggested by the honey-comb. It is confusing, beautiful, glorious--certainly the most remarkable achievement of the art of the Spanish Moor. The walls are covered with lace-work in stucco of the most exquisite pattern, with mosaic dados, and friezes decorated with inscriptions in praise of Mohammed V. At the sides of the rooms are the alcoves characteristic of Oriental domestic architecture.

The Hall of the Two Sisters is so called from a couple of slabs of marble let into the flooring. The other chamber derives its name from the thirty-six chiefs of the Beni Serraj tribe, fabled to have been decapitated within it by order of Boabdil. The story was a pure invention of a Gines Perez de Hita, a writer who lived in the sixteenth century. It has now spread through all lands, thanks to the version of Chateaubriand. The tribe is supposed in this story to have espoused the "Little King's" cause against his father, Mulai Hasan. Later on their chief, Hamet, was suspected of intriguing with the Castilians; and, what was still more criminal in the eyes of a Moslem, of carrying on a love affair with one of the sultanas. A cypress in the gardens of the Generalife is pointed out as the lovers' trysting-place. The sultan resolved to make an end of this pestilent brood, but Hamet himself, warned at the eleventh hour, escaped the fate of his kinsmen. The frail sultana would have shared their fate, had not four champions presented themselves and vindicated her reputation against all comers in the lists. Thus the affair ended happily--except for the thirty-six chiefs.

Thus the story. I hope it will stimulate your imagination. For myself, there is an utter absence of the personal and human note about these gorgeous Moorish halls. It is certainly easier to believe that they sprang into existence at the bidding of an enchanter than that they were ever the scenes of men's loves and hates, hopes and fears.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE GENERALIFE: COURT OF THE CYPRESSES]

The Hall of Justice (Sala de la Justicia), at the far side of the Court of Lions, is a long apartment, divided into alcoves specially remarkable for the paintings on its ceiling. These have been the subject of endless controversy. To begin with, it was doubted if a Mohammedan could have painted them, since the representation of living objects is contrary to the injunctions of the Koran. I have it on the authority of a very learned Moslem friend, a recognized authority on Mohammedan law, that the plastic arts are not forbidden by the Prophet, but merely pointed out as a possible snare and stumbling-block in the way of the believer.

Painting has been a recognized art in Persia for centuries, and I have seen some pictures from that country which reveal no mean degree of skill. There is therefore no good reason to doubt that these curious works were executed by Moorish artists at the end of the fourteenth century. They are done on leather prepared with gypsum and nailed to the wooden ceiling. The colours (red, green, gold, etc.) are still vivid, but mildew is covering them in parts, and in places the gypsum is peeling off. These valuable specimens of Moorish art ought to have been taken down and placed under gla.s.s long ago. The first of the three represents ten bearded, robed, and turbaned personages, who may with some degree of probability be identified with the first sultans of the Nasrid dynasty. According to Oliver, the Moor in the green costume occupying the middle of one side is Al Ahmar, the founder of the race.

Then, counting from his right, come Mohammed II., Nasr Abu-l-Juyyush, Mohammed IV., Sad Ismal, Mohammed V. (in the red robe), Yusuf II., Yusuf I., Abu-l-Walid, and Mohammed III. The family likeness between these potentates is striking, and the red beards suggest a liberal use of the dye still largely used by the Oriental man of middle age. The other pictures are more interesting. The first represents hunting scenes. Moors are seen chasing the wild boar, while Spanish knights are in pursuit of the lion and the bear. In another part of the composition the huntsmen are 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 on his knees offers his prize to his lady. In the next picture is another hunting scene, with a page, with sword and shield, leaning against a tree, awaiting his master's return.

In another quarter of the picture his master (presumably) is rescuing a distressed damsel from a wild-looking creature who is quite undismayed by the tame lion accompanying his captive. Further on, the same knight is unhorsed and overthrown by a Moorish huntsman, two ladies from a castle in the background most ungratefully applauding the Christian's discomfiture. The pictures evidently were intended to record the incidents of a border warfare not dissimilar to those commemorated in our ballad of Chevy Chase.

In this hall a temporary chapel was set up, and ma.s.s was celebrated, on the taking of the city by the Spaniards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--TOCADOR DE LA REINA]

Crossing the Hall of the Two Sisters, we enter the beautiful Mirador de "Lindaraja," the most charming and elegant of all the apartments in the palace. Through three tall windows, once filled with coloured crystals, we look down into the pretty Patio de Daraxa, which, like the chamber, does not derive its name from an imaginary sultana, but from a word meaning "vestibule." It is a delightful garden, where shade is always to be obtained between the closely planted cypresses, orange, and peach trees, rising between twin hedges of box and bushes of rose and myrtle.

In the centre is a seventeenth-century fountain. Here you will always find some artist committing to canvas his impressions of one of the fairest gardens men have fashioned for themselves.

The rooms on the other side of the patio were built by Charles V., and include the Tocador de la Reina, or Queen's Boudoir, a prettily decorated belvedere affording an entrancing view. It was in this room that Washington Irving took up his quarters. Theophile Gautier slept sometimes in the hall of the Abencerrages, sometimes in that of the Two Sisters, and was impressed by the eerieness of the palace at night. Yet there is not a manor-house in England or a chateau in France that is not more suggestive of the spectral and uncanny than these gilded halls and open courts. However, everyone has his own preconceptions of the weird and the picturesque.

From the Patio de Daraxa we enter the very interesting Baths, ably restored by the late Don Rafael Contreras. The Sala de las Camas, or chamber of repose, is among the most brilliantly decorated rooms in the palace, yet, as elsewhere in this neglected pile, the gilding is being suffered to fade and the tiling in the niches, I noticed, is loosening and breaking up. From a gallery running round the chamber, the music of the odalisques was wafted down to the sultan reclining in one of the divans below. He must have been in no hurry to leave this spot, where he dreamily puffed at his hubble-bubble and watched the play of the fountain. The light came from apertures in the superb artesonado ceiling. Without, on a stone seat, the eunuchs mounted guard and preserved their lord's repose from interruption. The actual baths are contained in two adjacent chambers. A staircase ascended to the Hall of the Two Sisters above, for the use, not improbably, of the ladies of the harem. On leaving the baths you may follow the tunnel across the uninteresting Patio de la Reja and beneath the Tower of Comares, to the Patio del Mexuar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--TORRE DE LAS DAMAS]

No visitor to the Alhambra must omit to walk round the outer wall or enceinte, and to inspect the towers. The Torre de las Damas, a fortified tower dating from the time of Yusuf I., was inhabited by Ismal, the brother of Mohammed V., and marked the palace limits on this side. It contains a tastefully decorated hall. Adjacent to it is a beautiful if gaudy little Mohammedan mihrab or oratory, approached through a private garden. Here was the house of Anastasio de Bracamonte, the esquire of the Conde de Tendilla, to whom was a.s.signed the custody of the Alhambra at the Reconquest. The Puerta de Hierro, a little further on, was restored at the same time, and faces the gate and path leading to the Generalife. Pa.s.sing the Torre de los Picos, we reach the Torre de la Cautiva, which contains a beautiful chamber, over which a lovely rosy tint is diffused by the tiles and stucco. The Torre de las Infantas, built by Mohammed VII., is a perfect example of an Oriental dwelling-house. Through the usual zigzag vestibule you reach a hall with a fountain in the centre and alcoves in three of the sides. The decoration is perhaps over elaborate. The towers on the other side of the enceinte were, as I have said, intended mainly for defence. Near the ruinous Torre del Agua, at the south-east extremity, a viaduct crosses the ravine from the Generalife, and some of the water precipitates itself over the brow of the hill in a ma.s.s of vivid living greenery.

Further on, towards the Gate of Justice, is the Torre de los Siete Suelos, through which Boabdil is said to have made his last exit. It is supposed to extend far underground, and to contain much buried treasure.

So at least Irving was told by the inhabitants, or possibly told them!

Hence issues the Belludo, the spectral pack, which traverses the streets of Granada by night--also according to legend. This story of the Wild Huntsman crops up, in one form or another, in every part of Europe.

There are the Dandy Dogs in Cornwall, the Wild Huntsman in Germany, Thibaut le Tricheur in the valley of the Loire, the Cha.s.seur Noir of Fontainebleau, and so on. Folk-lore of this sort is easily fabricated.

Foreigners in search of the picturesque ask the natives of such a place as this if ghosts do not haunt the ruins. The guide, anxious to please, says "Doubtless!" The foreigner goes on to tell him of spectres that affect this particular cla.s.s of building at home; and the guide readily devises a local version of the yarn for the benefit of the next stranger. I have found that the peasantry in most European countries hear of their local traditions and folk-lore first through the medium of books. And these remarks apply with especial force to the people of Latin countries, whom, contrary to the received opinion, I know to be less imaginative and less superst.i.tious than northerners. It is natural that the gloomy forests of Germany and Sweden, rather than the sunlit plains of Andalusia, should generate dark fancies.

Strictly speaking the Generalife, the Trianon of the Moorish kings, is a more beautiful place than the Alhambra, though it has no architectural merit. It became the property at the Reconquest of a Christianized Moor, Don Pedro de Granada, who claimed to be descended from the famous Ben Hud, and from whose family it pa.s.sed into the possession of the Marquises of Campotejar. The approach lies along a magnificent avenue of cypresses and tall shrubs. Arrived at the entrance you are admitted by a very comely damsel, and allowed to wander about the lovely gardens by yourself and to stay there all day if you like. At the far end of the first court is a poor collection of portraits, among which is one--No.

11--absurdly supposed to be a portrait of Ben Hud (died about 1237), though the person is dressed in the costume of the fifteenth century.

This is the portrait which English travellers, and even the usually correct Baedeker, persist in mistaking for Boabdil's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--THE GENERALIFE: COURT OF THE CYPRESSES]

The gardens of the Generalife are beyond all praise. Water bubbles up everywhere, and moistens the roots of gorgeous oleanders, myrtles, orange trees, cedars, and cypresses--the tallest trees in Spain. Beneath one of these--that to the right as you reach the head of the first flight of steps--the sultana is alleged to have kept her tryst with Hamet, the Abencerrage. Not a bad place, this, for a lovers' meeting.

You rise from one flower-laden terrace to another till you reach the ugly belvedere--scribbled all over with idiots' names--whence you obtain a ravishing view of the Alhambra, the city, the Vega, and the mountains.

The hours spent in the Generalife Gardens will be remembered as among the pleasantest of one's lifetime.

It may be, as a French writer states, impossible to tickle the surface of Granada without discovering Moorish remains, but certainly, outside the Alhambra, very few are to be seen above ground. The most conspicuous of them in the lower town is, on the whole, the Casa del Carbon, a dilapidated structure with a bold horseshoe archway which confronts you as you cross the Reyes Catolicos near the Post Office. The house is now used as a coal depot, but beneath the thick coating of grime you may discern the traces of graceful decorative work. The building is said to have been a corn exchange in Moorish days. More interesting are the vestiges of the ancient walls that girdled the oldest quarter, _el viejo Albaicin_. They were built in great part by Christian captives--perhaps by those whose chains are hung up on the walls of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo. The Moors of Granada grew embittered by their reverses, and treated their Christian subjects harshly. The martyrs whom the monument on the Alhambra hill commemorates are not merely the creatures of pious imagination. There is an ugly story, too, of an unfortunate monk accused of heretical doctrines, who took refuge at Granada and was burnt at the stake by the Moslems.

Two of the old gatehouses on this side of the city are still standing.

They are ma.s.sive crenellated towers, pierced with round-headed archways.

I do not consider them entrancingly picturesque; they form the northern entrances to the Albaicin quarter, which is now a perplexing congeries of squalid houses, formless convents, and churches tottering to their fall. Whatever interest its antiquity may excite is lost in disgust at its wretchedness. On the outskirts dwell the gipsies--mostly in semi-underground burrows, and left very much to themselves by the local authority. These are the poor creatures who are dragged out to bore visitors with their wearisome dances, the fee charged for which goes almost entirely into the pockets of the guides. The gipsies of Spain are not nomadic. There are people in Granada who wish they were.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--CASA DEL CARBON]

In the Albaicin the Zirite sultans had their palaces, one of which was called the House of the Weatherc.o.c.k, from the bronze figure of a horseman that surmounted it and served as a vane. Washington Irving has written a story about it. Fragments of all these ancient buildings are incorporated with modern houses, and may be identified by those who care to take the trouble. Romantic legends (of the precise nature of which I am ignorant) cl.u.s.ter round the Casa de las Tres Estrellas, possibly because it affords ingress to a subterranean pa.s.sage leading no man knows whither. But I do not think you will be tempted to linger long in this odoriferous, wormeaten quarter. You may be said to have escaped from it when you reach the picturesque Carrera de Darro, the embankment of that narrow stream facing the Alhambra. Here may be seen a Moorish bath at one of the private houses, and--much more delightful to the artist--a broken Moorish bridge, the Puente del Cadi, to which a path led down from the Torre de las Armas. Against the little church near this point you will notice a white corner house with a handsome doorway in the Renaissance style. At the angle of the house is a balcony, bearing the odd inscription, "Esperandola del Cielo" ("Waiting for it from Heaven"). The words are accounted for by the following story: The house was built by Hernando de Zafra, the astute secretary of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the negotiator of the capitulation of Granada. He suspected his daughter of a love affair with an unknown cavalier. To satisfy his doubts he surprised her one day, and found his page a.s.sisting the lover to escape by the window. Baulked of his prey the enraged father turned upon the lad. "Mercy," implored the page. "Look for it in Heaven!" answered the Don, as he hurled his daughter's accomplice after her lover into the street below. There are those who say that De Zafra had no daughter, and that he has been libelled in this matter. But the episode is more probable than the foreign-made yarns about the Alhambra.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--STREET IN THE ALBAICIN]

The rivers of Granada are more spoken of than seen. At the foot of the Alhambra the Darro disappears, its channel through the town having been roofed over at different epochs. Till the middle of the last century the houses of the Zacatin looked at the back upon the stream, as may be seen from a picture by Roberts in the South Kensington Galleries. There was a local proverb which said "Ugly as the back of the Zacatin," an evidence of the persistent confusion of the ugly and the picturesque. This part of the stream is now covered by the Reyes Catolicos Street. The famous Zacatin--a lane-like thoroughfare, like those we have seen in Seville--was once the princ.i.p.al street in Granada, and seems to have been full of animation in Gautier's time. That brilliant Frenchman speaks of meeting there parties of students from Salamanca, playing as they went on the guitar, triangles, and castanets--truly a singular mode of taking one's walks abroad, such as even the Spaniards of the 'thirties and 'forties must have marvelled at exceedingly. Are we to understand by this remarkable pa.s.sage that the alumni of Salamanca formed processions like those of the Salvation Army, whenever they met by chance in the public street, or that, like the fine lady of Banbury Cross, they were determined to move nowhere without a musical accompaniment? At all events, the Zacatin is quiet enough nowadays. It still contains some of the best shops in the town and is one of the few comparatively shady walks outside the precincts of the Alhambra. It leads you to the far-famed Plaza de Bibarrambla, with the name of which we have been familiarized by Byron's rendering of the Spanish ballad, "Ay de mi, Alhama!" The square, like so much else in Granada, has been so completely modernized that nothing remains to recall the days when the sultans here a.s.sisted at pageants and tournaments, wherein Christians often took part. It is edifying to learn that Spanish knights, forbidden in their own country to cut each other's throats, often resorted hither to do so, by gracious permission of his Moorish Majesty.

We are now in the neighbourhood of the second great sight of Granada--the Cathedral with its adjoining buildings. The church called the Sagrario is an eighteenth-century structure immediately adjoining the west front of the Cathedral, on the south side, which served for a time as the metropolitan church of Granada. The interior is sombre, heavy, and Churrigueresque--a style which, it always strikes me, might have been devised by an undertaker accustomed to a high-cla.s.s business.

One of the chapels, however, is interesting. It contains the bones of "the magnificent cavalier, Fernando del Pulgar, Lord of El Salar," as the inscription records. This gallant knight, during the last siege of Granada, penetrated into the city with fifteen hors.e.m.e.n, and nailed a paper bearing the Ave Maria on the door of the mosque. This brave exploit earned for him and his descendants the right of remaining covered in the Cathedral and before the king. In Philip II.'s time the Marques del Salar, the representative of the family, was fined for appearing covered before the High Court of Granada. He appealed to the king, invoking the privilege conferred on his ancestor. "Not so,"

replied Philip; "you may wear your bonnet in the presence of the king, but not in the sacred presence of Justice." With the fine was built the staircase in the Audiencia in the Plaza Nueva.

Behind the Sagrario is the mausoleum of Ferdinand and Isabella--the Capilla Real--a temple peculiarly sacred in the eyes of all good Spaniards. The two great sovereigns lie here in the heart of the city which they recovered for Christendom, even as many great soldiers have caused their remains to be buried on the sites of their greatest victories. The chapel, founded in 1504 and completed in 1517, is a n.o.ble example of late Gothic. The exterior is very simple, the decoration consisting mainly of two highly ornate bal.u.s.trades, surmounting each of the two stages. The well-known devices and monograms of the founders are interwoven with the decoration. Through a portal flanked by the figures of heralds we enter the chapel--plain, bright, and airy. The chancel is railed off by a magnificent grille of gilt ironwork, wrought by Maestre Bartolome of Jaen, in 1522. Between this and the altar are the superb tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of their daughter Joanna and her husband, Philip I. The former is ascribed to a Florentine sculptor, Domenico Fancelli.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--INTERIOR OF A POSADA]

The rec.u.mbent effigies of the Reyes Catolicos are full of expression and majesty. Both wear their crowns, and Ferdinand is in full armour. At the angles of the tomb are seated figures, and the sides are sculptured with medallions and escutcheons and the figures of angels and saints. The figures of the unhappy Joanna and her Flemish consort are less lifelike, and the decoration is much more florid. It must be admitted that the Renaissance character of these sepulchral monuments contrasts rather oddly with the Gothic surroundings. The kneeling statues of the founders at the sides of the altar are believed to be actual likenesses. The reliefs on the retablo, by Vigarni, represent the surrender of Granada and the subsequent baptism of the Moors. In the former, both the sovereigns are shown, in the company of Cardinal Mendoza, receiving the keys from Boabdil; in the latter, we note that the candidates for baptism are so many that the rite is being administered by means of a syringe.

Beneath the tombs is the vault containing all that was mortal of the makers of Modern Spain. The sacristan thrusts a lighted taper forward into the gloomy abode of death, and you are able to distinguish five coffins--those of Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip, Joanna, and the Infante Miguel. Philip's coffin, it will be remembered, was carried about by his lovesick widow till she had to be parted from it by force.

The coffins are rude, bulging, and almost shapeless. One only, that of Ferdinand, can be identified, and this only by the simple letter F upon it. Might not this stand as well for Felipe?

The sacristan next shows you the treasury of the chapel. Among the relics are the crown, sceptre, and mirror of Isabella, her missal beautifully illuminated, and the standard embroidered by her that floated over the city. A casket is shown which was filled with jewels which she p.a.w.ned to procure funds for Columbus's first voyage of discovery. Few investments have proved more profitable, as far as material wealth is concerned. You may also see Ferdinand's sword, rather interesting to those curious in ancient weapons.

The Royal Chapel is quite independent of the immediately adjacent Cathedral. The chaplains have a right of way across the Cathedral transept to the Puerta del Perdon, a privilege deeply resented by the chapter. Once when the Archbishop wished to visit the chapel, his attendant canons were refused admission. The irate prelate caused the chaplains to be arrested for this affront, and a long lawsuit followed. But all this happened a long time ago, and it is to be hoped that the two bodies of clergy now live upon good terms with each other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--OLD HOUSES, CUESTA DEL PESCADO]

A very beautiful arch, richly and tastefully adorned with statues, admits to the Cathedral. This church, described by Fergusson as one of the finest in Europe, was begun by Diego de Siloe, about 1525, and not completed till 1703. The exterior is far from corresponding to the majesty of the interior, though the Puerto del Perdon, already referred to, on the north side, is a beautiful piece of work. The impression produced on entering the Cathedral is rather similar to that experienced on entering St. Peter's. There is an atmosphere of loftiness, luxury, and cold purity--like that clinging to the finest cla.s.sical works. This is certainly the triumph of Spanish Renaissance architecture. The effect is, of course, utterly different from that of the grand old Gothic fane of Seville. Like all Renaissance churches, as it seems to me, it lacks the devotional atmosphere. The nave, as usual, is obstructed by the choir--where, by the way, Alonso Cano was buried. The dome above the chancel is sublime, the daring of the arches wonderful. The altar is completely insulated by the ambulatory.

Before it are the grand sculptured heads of Adam and Eve by Cano. His also are seven of the frescoes decorating the upper part of the dome.

The others are by his pupils. The Cathedral contains much of this irascible and wayward artist's best work. In the chapel of San Miguel is a "Virgen de la Soledad," in whose human beauty and pathos his genius finds its highest expression. In the chapel of Jesus Nazareno, Cano's "Via Crucis" does not suffer by comparison with three works of Ribera and a "St. Francis" by El Greco. The artist's studio may be seen in one of the towers flanking the west front of the Cathedral. He was a native of Granada, and a lay canon of the chapter. He died in poverty at his house in the Albaicin quarter, aged 66 years, on October 5, 1667. He was a man of hasty but not ungenerous temper, and in some of his phases of character recalls Fuseli. Justice has hardly been done to his great talent, of which he himself seems to have entertained an exaggerated estimate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANADA--OLD AYUNTAMIENTO]

The minor churches of Granada are not of very great interest. The church of San Geronimo was built by the Great Captain as a mausoleum for himself and his wife, but such of his remains as escaped the ghoulish spoliation of the French have been transported to Madrid. The church is no longer used as a place of worship. The retablo is remarkable, and in it may be traced the dawning of Siloe's ambition to create a true Spanish Renaissance style. The church of San Juan de Dios, not far off, is filled with tawdry rubbish, petticoated crucifixes, etc. Here is buried the t.i.tular saint, a Portuguese, Joao de Robles, who in the seventeenth century devoted himself with so much energy to the sick and suffering that his contemporaries esteemed him mad. You may see the cage in which he was confined at the hospital founded by Isabella the Catholic on the arid, ugly Plaza de Triunfo, near the Bull Ring. A column in the middle of the square marks the spot where Dona Mariana Pineda was publicly garrotted in 1831. This lady is the great heroine of Granada. She perished a victim to the reactionary tendencies then prevalent in Spain. Spaniards were then crying "Hurrah for our chains!"

and Dona Mariana's house was known to be a rendezvous of the Liberals of Granada. On raiding her house the police discovered a tricolour flag.