The Story of Seville Part 14

The inspection of these churches would fill a long day. But there are several more fine _parroquias_ to be visited, for it must be remembered that the churches are the art museums of Spain, and no one can gain knowledge of the development of architecture, sculpture and painting in the country without spending a considerable portion of one's time in the dim, perfumed naves and chapels. The stranger will be impressed by the garish decoration of the interiors of many of the churches of Seville.

Gilt is spread lavishly, and the effect is often tawdry. Some of the images are poor, especially in the modern churches, and one's taste is often shocked by their incongruity. The figures of the Virgin often lack dignity and beauty. But, as Mr. Henry James points out in his sketch 'From Normandy to the Pyrenees,' in _Portraits of Places_, those images of the Holy Mother are 'the sentiment of Spanish Catholicism' of modern times. They are, therefore, instructive from that point of view.

But from a devotional, as well as an aesthetic, standpoint, one is disposed to ask whether the sacred idols would not gain in n.o.bility, pathos and stateliness if the Virgin were represented in the realistic garb of a Jewish woman of the people, instead of in modern dress, with trappings of lace and jewellery. It is with no disrespect towards Catholic prejudices in this matter that one expresses this view. The mediaeval conception of the Madonna in painting appeals to the imagination, because in the works of the great masters there is beauty, simplicity and convincingness.

In the northern district of the city, beyond the Convento de Santa Paula, we may, in a few minutes, reach--

_Santa Lucia._--This church is now used for profane purposes; but its splendid Gothic portal remains. The Morisco tower is also notable.

_San Roque_ is in the Barrio de San Roque, not far from Santa Lucia. The church was destroyed by fire in 1759, and rebuilt in 1769. It is not of great interest, though the arches of the naves are graceful, and the small tower is worthy of note. In times of flood, the Guadalquivir inundates this suburb, and the water flows into the church.

_San Bartolome_ may be reached from the last-mentioned church by the Recared o Industria and the Calle Tinte. The church was built on the site of a Jewish synagogue, after the expulsion of the Jews by the Catholic Kings of Spain. The _retablo_ and the sculpture of our Lady of Joy is antique and interesting.

_Santa Maria de las Nieves, or la Blanca_, is close to San Bartolome.

Until the year 1391 this church was a synagogue. It has three small naves, marble columns, and plateresque ornamentation. The two doors are Gothic. There is a painting attributed to Murillo, and one of our Lady of the Augustias, with the dead Christ in her arms, by Luis de Vargas, the famous fresco painter.

_San Salvador_ is in the centre of the city, behind the Audencia, and may be reached from Sierpes by the Calle de Gallegos. This church is not of much importance from its age; but it contains effigies by Montanez, the most celebrated being the figure of San Cristobal.

_San Isidoro_ is built upon the ground where a fine mosque once stood.

It is stated that St. Isidore was born upon this spot or close to the church. Juan de las Roelas painted the Translation of San Isidoro for the princ.i.p.al altar. There are also pictures by Murillo, Valdes, and Tortolero, and a statue of Santa Catalina by Roldan the Elder.

_San Julian_ should be visited for an inspection of the large painting of San Cristobal, the work of Juan Sanchez de Castro. The painting of St. Christopher has been retouched. It was executed in 1484, and the work is of great interest as an example of the art of the earliest Sevillian painter.

I have now mentioned thirteen churches. There are more to visit.

_San Bernardo_ is in the suburb of that name. It is built on the spot where a hermitage stood until 1593. The church has three wide naves. It should be visited for an inspection of the pictures. In the left nave is a painting of the Last Judgment, the work of Herrera the Elder.

The _Cena de Jesus_ is by Francisco de Varela. It was executed in 1622, and is regarded as one of the finest works of that painter. The statues of St. Michael, the Faith, St. Augustine and St. Thomas are the work of Luisa Roldan. The organ of this church is one of the best in Seville.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Puerta de Santa Maria]

_The Convent Church of La Trinidad._ The a.s.sociations of the church are of considerable interest. In the time of the Roman rule in Seville, the palace, ecclesiastical court, and dungeons of a governor were built upon this ground. The church is dedicated to the saints of Seville, Justa and Rufina, the guardians of the Giralda. When the Romans conquered the Spaniards, they sought to convert the subject-people to the Pagan religion. Among the potters of Trajan's town, now known as the suburb of Triana, were two girls, both of great beauty, named Justa and Rufina.

The maidens were renowned for their Christian piety. They refused to worship the Roman G.o.ds, and in their zeal they became iconoclasts. Their image-breaking brought them beneath the tribunal; they were sentenced to extreme punishment. The wretched victims were scourged, and forced to walk barefooted on the bleak mountains of the Sierra Morena. But this persecution failed to shatter their fervent devotion to Christianity.

They continued to protest against the religion of the Romans. Justa was imprisoned and slowly starved to death, while Rufina was cast to the lions in the arena.

The portraits of the youthful saints have been painted by several of the Sevillian artists. Murillo's SS. Justa and Rufina is in the picture gallery at Seville. The treatment is conventional. The saints are holding a model of the Giralda in their hands, and the martyrs' palms.

At their feet are broken crockery, showing the nature of their calling.

To the left are the ruins of a building. The figures of the maidens are large, and halos surround their heads.

In the same gallery are two pictures of the Sevillian saints by an unknown artist. One is a portrait of Santa Justa. The saint is holding a white vase and the martyr's palm in her hands. Santa Rufina, in the other painting, is bearing a plate and a palm branch. The Santa Justa is the more notable of these works. The conception is beautiful and the colouring subdued.

H. Sturmio's painting of Justa and Rufina is in the Cathedral, and so is that of the celebrated Luis de Vargas. From the artistic standpoint, the picture of the two saints by Francisco Goya is the finest of all. It is to be seen in the _Sacristia de los Calices_ in the Cathedral.

In the crypt of the Convent Church of La Trinidad is shown a rock, to which the saints were bound when scourged by their persecutors. There is a poor shrine in a dim cellar; and the sacristan shows a long, dark pa.s.sage, full of water, which is said to be a part of the Roman prison, where heretics were confined and starved to death. The story of the saints of Triana is legendary; but it is no doubt credited as actual history among the devout of the city.

It is recorded that the martyrs incurred death for breaking a statue of Venus. Tradition is hazy concerning the place of their burial. In one account we learn that SS. Justa and Rufina were laid to rest in Burgos.

Another historian a.s.sures us that they were buried in Seville, while a third story relates that their bones are in the mountainous Asturias, in the North of Spain.

A big book might be written on the churches of Seville alone. There are so many of those edifices, and few of them are devoid of interest to the antiquarian, art lover, and student of ecclesiastical history. The amalgamated Moorish and Renaissance elements in the Seville churches lend a charm to the architecture and the adornments. This strange combination of styles is only to be found in the Christian churches of Spain. Almost everywhere we are confronted in Andalusia with this seeming incongruity, the employment of designs for religious edifices from the hand of the despised and detested _Mudejar_. The phenomenon is strange and instructive. The zealous Catholic kings, sworn to the extirpation of the Moslems, allowed the Moors to build their churches in the style of temples devoted to Allah.

The same monarchs who ordered the destruction of the beautiful Moorish baths in Cordova and Seville were willing that Mohammedan genius should have full play in the design, construction and decoration of Christian temples.

But, after all, was it not a question of necessity? When a nation has only two honourable professions, the military and the clerical, where is the scope for a development of skill in the industrial arts? The Moriscoes were martial, but they never neglected the peaceful occupations. Sadly had Spain to learn that the neglect of culture and the arts was the cause of her decline. Germans, Italians and Moors were employed in the erection and adornment of ecclesiastic and civil buildings. The Teutons Johann, and his son Simon, of Cologne, were the chief architects of Burgos; and it is probable that German designers and masons performed a large share in the building of Seville Cathedral. At Burgos, Toledo and Leon we may note the influence of French architects.

The interiors of the churches of Seville are so dark that it is often difficult to see the pictures clearly. Even on the brightest days the sunshine penetrates imperfectly through the stained windows, and in some cases the works of art are in the gloomiest chapel or recess of the building. The sacristans are usually to be found in or near the churches, and they are mostly courteous to the visitor, and anxious to point out the most important paintings, statues and relics. But in their desire to please, they sometimes ascribe the pictures to the wrong artist. A daub by an unknown artist becomes a work of Zurbaran, if the stranger appears to be greatly interested in that painter.

Several spurious Murillos were shown to me. Now and then, the sacristan knows very little about the art treasures of his church. When you ask who painted a picture or carved an image, the attendant shrugs his shoulders, and murmurs _No se_ (Don't know). The boys who volunteer as guides are of no service to the visitor. In the chapter of information I have given the name of a reliable guide.

CHAPTER XII

_Some Other Buildings_

'Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days.'

_Childe Harold_, Stanza lxv.

The _palacios_ and fine _casas_ of Seville are numerous. Some of them retain a distinctly _Mudejar_ design in their architecture, and all of them possess an Oriental atmosphere or tone. One may spend many hours in visiting the courts of the big houses of the city. As a rule, the porter has instructions to admit strangers into the courts, but very rarely within the houses. But from the courts one may gain very considerable knowledge of the progress of architectural style in the dwelling-houses of the South of Spain, where, above all, we may trace the influence and art of the Morisco designer and craftsman.

We will first visit the Casa de los Taveras, in the Calle Bustos Tavera.

The house is princ.i.p.ally celebrated as the scene of the tribunal of the Inquisition from 1626 to 1639. In the corridors is a collection of family portraits.

Finer, from the point of view of architecture and adornment, is the Casa de los Marqueses de Torre Blanca, in the Calle de Santiago, number thirty-seven. It has a very beautiful _patio_, and a splendid marble staircase. These two houses are mentioned as well worth seeing in the little book _Sevilla Historica_.

Roaming in the Calle O'Donnell, I peeped into the court of number twenty-four. The fine _patio_ is surrounded with the heads of bulls killed in the arena. Number seventeen in the Calle Alfonso XII. is another handsome _casa_, with a typical court. Visitors may discover many sumptuous houses in this quarter of the city. The Casa Alba once had eleven courts and nine fountains. It is decidedly Moorish in build, with Renaissance details in the stucco-work. This beautiful palace, in the Calle de Duenas, was at one time owned by the Ribera family (the Dukes of Acala). It was begun about 1483. The Casa Alba is larger than the Casa Pilatos, described in the literary chapter of this book.

Mr. Digby Wyatt says of the Casa Alba, in his _Architect's Note Book in Spain_, that this is one of the rare instances of Renaissance ornamentations executed by Moorish workmen. 'For these, no doubt, they were furnished with drawings or models, since in no other parts of the same building, and especially in many beautiful rooms in the interior, where they have apparently been left to themselves, they have reverted partly to _Mudejar_ work, and partly to the old types of geometrical enrichment, which may be regarded as specifically their own. Much of this is almost reduced to a flat surface by repeated coats of whitewash.'

The Casa de los Abades is 'more Italian in its plateresque than is usual in other houses in Seville,' says Mr. Digby Wyatt. The mansion was built early in the fifteenth century, and was modified and embellished by the Pinedos, a Genoese family, in 1533. Mr. Wyatt tells us that: 'If it were not for the peculiar engrailed double edging to the arches, the thinness of the marble central window shaft, and a few Oriental turns here and there given to the foliage and enrichments of the mouldings, one could almost believe that this architecture was regular Genoese cinque-cento.' After the Pinedo family, the _casa_ came into the hands of the Abades, members of the Cathedral staff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Patio del Casa Murillo]

A _Mudejar_ window in the Fonda de Madrid has been sketched by Mr. Digby Wyatt in the afore-mentioned book. This is an _ajimez_ window, 'through which the sun shines.' It is of brickwork and was 'once covered apparently in Moorish fashion with thin plaster, excepting the column which is of white marble.'

We may now visit the Palacio Arzobiscopal, the Archbishop's Palace, in the Plaza de la Giralda. The doors are in the plateresque style. You may enter the courtyard, and ascend the marble staircase, which is one of the most beautiful in the city. The _Salon_ contains some pictures that were formerly in the Cathedral. Among them are three paintings by Alejo Fernandez, an artist of the early Sevillian school, representing the Conception, Birth, and Purification of the Virgin. There are also pictures by J. Herrera and Juan Zamora.

It is a few steps across the _plaza_ to the Casa Lonja. This Renaissance edifice was erected in 1583. The Academy of Painters formerly held their councils in the Lonja. It is now a library, and a repository of archives relating to the Indies. The _patio_ is fine, paved with marble, and surrounded by a double arcade. On the fountain is a statue of Columbus.

A marble staircase, constructed in the time of Charles III., conducts the visitor to Achivo General de Indias.

From the Casa Lonja pa.s.s down the Calle Santa Tomas to the Hospital de la Caridad. This inst.i.tution has a church, built by Miguel de Manara. In the _Annales de Sevilla_, the author, Ortiz de Zuniga, says that the record of the Brotherhood of the Holy Charity dates back to 1578, and that the inst.i.tution had probably existed then for a century. The object of La Santa Caridad was to provide Christian burial for evildoers and offenders against the law of Spain. La Caridad is, however, a.s.sociated with Don Miguel de Manara Vicentelo de Leca, Knight of Calatrava, a Don Juan of Seville, who abandoned his profligate life, and became a devout pietist. In his youth, Manara was a renowned duellist, a boon companion, and a gambler. He was generous to his friends in a spendthrift fashion, and he was cultured enough to expend large sums of his wealth upon the fine arts. Murillo was under his patronage and enjoyed his friendship.

Don Miguel de Manara was born in the year 1626, and is supposed to have married the _senorita_ of the House of Mendoza. There are several stories of the young rake's career in Seville, and of his resolve to dedicate his riches to the service of the Church and to the poor of the city of his birth. One day a gift of some choice hams was sent to Manara. In compliance with the regulations, the hams were detained by the customs' officers until the dues upon them were paid. The Don was extremely angered at the detention of the hams. He went out, in a furious pa.s.sion, to upbraid the officials for the delay. As he paced fuming through the streets, 'the Lord poured a great weight upon his mind,' and Manara was suddenly convicted of the sinfulness and folly of his life. Such is one account of Don Miguel's 'conversion.' Another annalist informs us that Manara, while stumbling homewards after a night of carousal, saw a funeral procession approaching him. The priests and the usual torch-bearers accompanied the bier. Stepping up to the bearers, the young man said: 'Whose body is that which you are carrying?' The reply was startling: 'The body of Don Miguel de Manara.'

The prodigal reeled away, filled with horror; for he had looked upon the corpse, and seen his own features. Upon the next morning Manara was found insensible in a church. It was the turning-point in his life. He became an ascetic and devotee. Because he liked chocolate, he refrained even from tasting that innocent beverage. He was seen no more among the dissolute of Seville, and his money went to the building and decoration of the Hospital and Church of the Holy Charity. In his treatise _Discurso de la Verdad_ (Discourse upon Truth) Don Miguel Manara tells us of the hollowness of existence apart from holiness. He reflects often upon the solemnity of death, and the necessity for practising virtue and charity. His repute as an almsgiver of discretion was so great that one Don Gomez de Castro gave him an estate worth 500,000 ducats for charitable disburs.e.m.e.nt.

In the Sala del Cabildo of La Caridad, you may see a portrait of the pious founder, painted by Juan de la Valdes. Manara has a sad, thin face. He is seated at a table covered with black velvet and gold, and he appears to be reading aloud. A charity lad is seated on a stool, with a book on his knees. Manara's Toledan sword is exhibited in a case. He died in 1679, and bequeathed his fortune to the hospital, except some legacies to servants. To his confessor the Don presented his ivory Christ. His sister received a picture, which was upon his bedstead, representing the Saviour on the Cross. The work was said to be from the brush of Murillo.

The founder was interred in the vault of the hospital church. There is a legend that, two months after burial, the corpse was found without any trace of decay. It is also related that by the touch of some doc.u.ments which had belonged to Manara, a knight of the Order of Santiago was cured of a headache.