With the World's Great Travellers Volume Iii Part 17

These frescoes are the work of Pierino del Vaga, who, having been obliged to seek refuge at Genoa from the calamities of Rome in 1527, was patronized by the great Doria, and intrusted to decorate his palace.

Genoa has been the birthplace of many painters, and art was in its most flourishing condition in this city in the fifteenth century, during which time Giovanni Cambiaso lived. At this epoch, so many persons of n.o.ble family were painters, that the Genoese, by a special decree, raised painting from a trade to a profession, declaring that it was a liberal art, and might be practised without derogating from n.o.bility.

The reason of the sudden decline of the Genoese school is attributed to the plague in 1657, when many of its chief painters fell victims to the disease. Lazzaro Calvi, who lived one hundred and five years, was born in 1502, and therefore died just fifty years prior to the epidemic, so that his country may congratulate itself that he was not cut off prematurely in the flower of his youth by that scourge.

At the back of the palace is the grave of Andrea's dog, Roldano, given to him by Charles V., and over it is the following epitaph, or something like it: "Here lies the Great Roldano, a dog belonging to Prince Gio.

Andrea Doria, who, for his fidelity and goodness, was considered to merit this memorial. In life, for years, he n.o.bly obeyed both these laws. In death we must place his ashes by the side of those of the beast that perishes. A companion worthy indeed of his regal donor. Died at 11 years and 10 months of age, in September of 1605, the 8th day, at 8 o'clock at night."

In the centre of the garden, facing the sea, and from whence Prince Doria may have looked on his fleet of twenty-two galleys at anchor in the harbor, is a fountain, and in it a statue in which he is represented as Neptune. Doria's tomb is in the crypt beneath the high altar of the church of San Matteo, and it is here also that the sword he received, in 1535, from Paul III., for the services he had rendered the church, is deposited. In the piazza adjoining there is a house with an inscription over it, to the effect that it was given to Andrea Doria by the republic. Here he once lived, and it was in an open square in front of it that he a.s.sembled his fellow-citizens to consult with them on the best way of repulsing the French, when they besieged Genoa in 1528. The house is now used as a shop,--for pictures and old furniture on the ground floor, and for stationery on the upper story. It, and the church of San Matteo, which has always been under the patronage of the Dorias, are both built of alternate layers of black and white marble. This magpie style of construction was confined to public edifices, but four patrician families--the Doria, Grimaldi, Spinola, and Fieschi--were allowed the privilege of using it....

If Genoa is a fair city by day, she is a still fairer one by night, when the innumerable lights on all sides make it look as if the stars had come down from heaven, and give the whole place an appearance of fairy-land. There are lights all round the harbor and on the quays; lights above the hills, and below in the old town; lights in the gardens of the cafes and in the streets, making them, and the gay company that crowds them, more brilliant than when seen in the full glare of mid-day.

The fireflies flit and flicker, but never rest as they hold their evening revels among the bushes and trees, and over the gra.s.s and flowers.

A charity bazaar was held every night on the Acqua Sola, when the fountains were illuminated with gas, and rings of light spanned the trunks of the great trees, and darling arches were placed over the garden paths. All the decorations were exceedingly pretty and light, as they were of gas arranged to represent branches of laurel, or lyres, or such like devices. There were not many stalls,--two dozen, perhaps; but these were in the fanciful shape of chalet or kiosk, and the Genoese ladies, in their temporary character of shopwomen, sat within them, with no covering on their heads but a white veil, and a rose at one side.

The orthodox band played inside the fair, for part of the garden was walled off, so only to admit of those who had tickets; whilst another band just outside appeared to be trying hard to outblow it. A little farther on, at the Cafe d'ltalie, the band of the Guides, in their light blue and silver uniform, charm the eaters of ice and drinkers of lemonade by their music, and make them linger at their little tables.

This place is a favorite resort in the evening of the Genoese men (where they put all the women is a mystery, as the streets are crowded with the n.o.bler s.e.x of every cla.s.s, whilst scarce any Italian fair ones of any kind are to be seen), and it is, for light and brilliancy, a very transformation scene. The lamps gleam from amidst beds of flowers and groves of orange-trees that make the air faint with their sweetness; and in the centre of the garden, under a kind of tent, is a large cocoanut-tree, with a branching green head and a cl.u.s.ter of lamps beneath to represent the fruit. And from the statues and fountains, and trees and arches, rose-colored and white lamps are hung, and being all of ground gla.s.s, they shed a subdued, mysterious light around the idlers who crowd the seats and benches. In fact, Genoa never looks as if she intended to go to bed at all; and the cool summer nights, the stars, the lamps, the sweet scent of the flowers, and the bands of music make it so pleasant a time that one cares not to think of to-morrow.

THE ALHAMBRA.

S. P. SCOTT.

[Among the many marvels of architecture left by the Mohammedans, as landmarks of their outflow over the earth, none have elicited more admiration than the remains of the Alhambra at Granada. This celebrated group of Saracenic edifices has suffered little from time, but much from ignorance and vandalism, of which the most deplorable instance is the demolition due to the Emperor Charles V., in his insane effort to better the work of the Moors. This palace and fortress of the Moorish caliphs of Spain is eloquently described in the following selection.]

Few readers need to be told that the kingdom of Granada at the period of the Conquest was one of the richest and most flourishing countries in the world. Its fertile valleys embraced the garden of the Peninsula; its industrious population had carried agriculture to a degree of perfection unknown to modern times; its mountains yielded great quant.i.ties of the precious metals; its manufactures of silk and porcelain found a ready market in the courts of semi-barbaric Europe; the commerce of Almeria and Malaga, its princ.i.p.al seaports, extended to the Indies. As the victorious arms of Castile and Aragon gradually encroached upon the provinces of Andalusia, the remains of that extraordinary civilization which, in the ninth and tenth centuries, had raised the Western khalifate to such a height of prosperity and renown, took refuge in Granada. To the beautiful capital, that included within its walls nearly half a million souls,--among them many thousand Jews and Christians,--fled the exiles of the conquered cities, bringing with them that advanced knowledge of the natural and exact sciences which, after surviving the vicissitudes of four hundred years of revolution and invasion, the ferocious bigotry of the Spanish clergy, more intolerant by far than the rude barbarism of Africa, threatened with utter extinction.

Here, under the protection of a race of sovereigns who rivalled each other in promoting the happiness of their subjects, a new impulse was imparted to the study of astronomy and medicine, and literature and the mechanical arts found in the tastes and habits of a luxurious people an ample field for their development. And here began the third and most glorious period of Arab art as displayed in its application to architecture, which, appropriating to itself all that was valuable in the experience of former ages,--ages which had witnessed the erection of the Mosque of Cordova and the Giralda of Seville,--soon disclosed a splendor and variety of decoration peculiarly its own, and, after filling the kingdom with its monuments, attained its climax in the creation of that masterpiece of human skill, the fairy palace of the Alhambra....

The Alhambra, the stronghold of a prince who united the triple functions of civil, military, and religious head of his people, stands on an isolated hill five hundred feet above the plain, or Vega. This hill, which romantic native writers love to compare to a _granada_, or pomegranate, thence deriving the name of their favorite city, is half a mile long by eight hundred feet wide, and is entirely surrounded by walls. Traversing a grove of elms that covers the slope nearest the Genil, we reach the Gate of Justice, a ma.s.sive tower forming the entrance to the fortress. The seat of the _kadi_, or civil magistrate, who here settled all disputes not deemed important enough to be carried before the sultan, the Gate of Justice was regarded with peculiar veneration by the Moors. Innumerable are the legends connected with this spot, many of them traceable to the mysterious hand and key carved upon the outer and inner arches of the portal. The hand, an unfailing talisman against the evil eye, was symbolical of the five precepts of Islam,--prayer, fasting, alms, ablution, and the pilgrimage to Mecca; the key referred to the dominion given to the Prophet over heaven and h.e.l.l, and was the badge of the kings of Andalusia. The old gate is well preserved; the cement covering the masonry is as smooth as when laid on; the ponderous bronze doors which opened to admit the Christian armies on the memorable 2d of January, 1492, are still in their places, so also are the racks that sustained the lances of the Moorish guard.

We next enter the Plaza de los Algibes, a square of comparatively modern date, which lies between the palace and the Alcazaba or citadel,--these two portions of the sultan's residence having been originally separated by a wall, of which the gate, now called the Puerta del Vino, alone remains. Fronting the venerable Moorish battlements rises the facade of the palace of Charles V., with the arms and trophies of the most arrogant and crafty of emperors.

[This structure was erected with the aid of money wrung from the Moors themselves, as a bribe to the emperor and his officials to suspend the work of the Inquisition.]

The winter residence of the Moors, that seems to have equalled the remainder in magnificence, and was probably of greater extent, was razed, the fountains were removed, the doors and bal.u.s.trades broken up, and the stuccoes carted away as rubbish. Founded thus in the misery of the most intelligent and thrifty portion of his subjects, and upon the ruins of that unrivalled palace,--the boast and glory of the Western empire of the Khalifs,--the ill-omened design of Charles V. was destined never to be carried to completion. His attention soon became engrossed by the discovery and conquest of Mexico and Peru, and this costly toy, neglected and forgotten, was long utilized as a ring for bull-fighting, being now degraded to the vilest uses of the beggars of Granada.

The gorgeousness of Moorish architecture, which, with its enamelled tile-work, its gilded domes and filigree arcades, speaks so eloquently of Oriental luxury, bursts suddenly upon us as we pa.s.s, by a narrow gate-way opened in the seventeenth century, from the Plaza de los Algibes into the Court of the Myrtles. On the right is the portico of what was once the winter palace, on the left the Tower of Comares, containing the Hall of the Emba.s.sadors, the largest apartment of the Alhambra. The great basin occupying the centre of the court is bordered by hedges of myrtle interspersed with orange-trees. Arabic inscriptions cover the walls and galleries, and in the latter appear the identical jalousies which once screened from vulgar gaze the voluptuous charms of the wives and favorites of the sultan. This court, the only part of the building to which the public were ever admitted, was the theatre of frequent intrigues of the hostile factions that contended for the mastery even while the common enemy was thundering at the gates, and to whose bitter feuds, as much as to the valor of the Christian arms, should be attributed the downfall of the kingdom. In the Court of the Myrtles were received the flower of the Castilian chivalry, who upon grand occasions came to compete for the prize of knightly skill and courtesy in the famous Plaza de la Bibarrambla; here were entertained the picturesque envoys of the distant East, bringing greeting from the lords of Cairo and Ispahan; here the captive bishop of Jaen defied the monarch, and was sent to labor with his fellow-slaves upon the fortifications of the city; and here the fiery old Abul Hacen, surrounded by his harem, listened with gloomy forebodings to the predictions of the astrologer announcing the loss of his empire and the extinction of his race, and endeavored to forget his fears in the stirring ballads of his ancestors, or in the caresses of the beautiful Zorayda, the "Star of the Morning."

The Hall of the Emba.s.sadors occupies the whole of the Tower of Comares, and was used for coronations and royal festivals. From the balconies which replace the curious Moorish lattices of its alcoves we look down upon the gypsy quarter of the Albaycin, and the cypress groves that fringe the banks of the Darro, so named from its sands of gold. In this brilliant hall, during the closing days of the siege, Aixa, the mother of Boabdil, learned for the first time that he had been arranging for a capitulation; and, leading him to one of the windows, she threw open the gilded lattice and bade him look below. The last rays of the sun disappearing behind the Sierra Elvira lighted up the landscape, and through the purple haze, which hung like a veil over the lovely Vega, sparkled the domes of mosque and villa and the battlements of many a shapely tower and minaret. It was the hour of prayer, and the shrill tones of the muezzin, as turning towards each point of the compa.s.s he summoned the faithful to their devotions, mingling with the clash of arms and the cheers of the populace as they hailed the return of some valiant band from the successful foray, rose faintly to the lofty ramparts of the castle. A wilderness of orchards and vineyards which the ravages of war had spared still covered the mountain-side. The score of palaces with which the voluptuous Alhamares had embellished the environs of the capital still displayed their wonted beauty; though over more than one floated the hated banner of the infidel, whose intrenched lines appeared in the distance, encircling like a band of steel the walls of the devoted city. The quaint houses, red and white, with terraced roofs, and embowered amid verdant groves, recalled the simile of the poet who likened Granada to "a silver vase full of hyacinths and emeralds." The Genil and the Darro, which the ancient Syrian invader had p.r.o.nounced rivals of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, could be traced for leagues, as, after turning the wheels of more than three hundred mills, they distributed their refreshing waters, until lost in the innumerable ca.n.a.ls that, like a net-work of glittering threads, spread far and wide over the fertile plain.

As the cowardly king gazed in silence on a scene which, including the fairest portion of his dominions, offered a view unequalled in the world, his mother, who united the courage of a soldier with the vindictiveness of the renegade, indignantly said, "See what you are about to surrender, and remember that all of your ancestors died kings of Granada, and that their line will end with you." The tears stood in Boabdil's eyes as he turned away, but the remonstrance had come too late. The truce was already signed; and three days later, attended by his mournful retinue, he left the fortress by the Gate of the Seven Stories, and departed for his little princ.i.p.ality in the Alpujarras.

The Court of the Lions, which communicates with the Court of the Myrtles by means of a short pa.s.sage, is rectangular in form, and is surrounded by galleries and pavilions supported by columns of white marble. To the right is the Hall of the Abencerrages, where, tradition says, the chiefs of this n.o.ble tribe were beheaded one by one in the presence of Boabdil; and beyond is the Hall of Justice, noted as the place where the rites of the Christian religion were first celebrated after the Conquest. It was used as a chapel while the cathedral was building, and differs in plan from the other halls, being divided into a suite of rooms crowned with little cupolas. The ceilings of its alcoves are covered with rude paintings of unknown origin, almost obliterated by time and neglect.

The Court of the Lions, renowned in ballad and chronicle, is the culminating point of the beauties of the Alhambra. No pen can describe them, no pencil can delineate them. The strange Cufic letters, the lace-work of the graceful arches, the stalact.i.tic pendants of the domes blazing with scarlet and gold, the texts of the Koran meeting the glance at every turn, the long colonnades through which slant the rays of sunlight from the jalousies above, the chequered floors, the gorgeous tiles incrusting pilaster and wall, dazzle the eye with their splendor.

And if now, with their ornaments cracked and faded, stained with damp and defaced by vandal travellers, these scenes can so enthrall the mind, what were they in the days of their glory, when the gilded arcades rang with the laughter of the houris imprisoned here, and black eunuchs, in silken robes and armed with jewel-hilted scimitars, guarded with jealous care these treasures of the harem!

On the north side of the court is the Hall of the Two Sisters, unsurpa.s.sed in the elegance of its decorations. Its divans are models of taste and richness, its enamels are the most curious in Spain. The broad inscriptions, that, twined with buds and leaves, are so conspicuous, are poems in praise of the builder, and amid the snowy arabesques appears at frequent intervals his shield, bearing the devout motto of the Alhamares, "There is no conqueror but G.o.d."

Did s.p.a.ce permit, much might be said of the subterranean apartments of the Alhambra,--the cisterns, the baths, the dungeons, the magazines; of the little oratories or mosques, mementos of the piety of the Moslem; of the isolated towers, each forming a miniature palace, with guard-room and courts and hall of state, their boudoirs cooled by the spray from alabaster fountains, their walls incrusted with precious mosaics resembling tissues of brocade. In the corridor under the Tower of Comares the two discreet statues immortalized by Irving gaze yet upon the niche where the treasure was discovered by the little Sanchica.

Unlike most of the legends to which Moorish fancy has given rise, this story is substantially true, for three immense jars of finished workmanship and full of coins and jewels were found here soon after the Conquest. Two of them were afterwards lost by neglect; the third, the famous vase of the Alhambra, unique in design, is preserved, though in a damaged condition, in a room near the Court of the Lions.

Of the numerous suburban villas that offered rest and seclusion to the princes of Granada, but one, the Generalife, or Garden of the Architect, now exists. It is situated much higher than the adjoining fortifications, and, completely commanding the city, was a point of the greatest strategic importance during the siege. Owned by a descendant of Boabdil, who has not entirely forgotten the customs of his princely line, the grounds of the Generalife present not a few of the distinctive characteristics of Moorish horticulture. Most prominent in the landscape are the venerable cypresses which have stood here for centuries, and by the trunk of the largest well-founded tradition says the daring Aben Hamet whispered words of illicit love in the ears of the frail sultana.

So extensive are the alterations which ignorance and barbarism have made in the Alhambra that its original plan cannot now be determined. We know that it contained five grand courts, of which only two remain, and that of the area enclosed by the outer wall scarce a foot of s.p.a.ce was not occupied by buildings, the latter as late as 1625 affording shelter to six thousand souls who in that year attempted to turn the palace into a ribbon-factory. The royal residence was divided into several departments, each having its _alcalde_, or mayor, who was responsible to the governor of the fortress. One quarter was a.s.signed to the sultan's family, another to the religious functionaries and doctors of the law, another to the garrison. Upon the highest point of the hill were lodged the _muftis_, or expounders of the Koran, and in the midst of their dwellings rose the tapering minarets of the great mosque, whose rare marbles and columns with capitals of ma.s.sy silver caused it to be justly regarded as one of the wonders of the Moslem world. Instead of the coa.r.s.e tiles whose weight is crushing the galleries, the roofs were covered with thin plates of porcelain corresponding with the gay mosaics of the pavements and the walls. The taste of the Oriental was visible everywhere, in cascades and fountains, in groves where myrtle and cypress were trimmed in all manner of fantastic shapes,--pyramids, grottoes, obelisks, stalact.i.tic arches,--in aromatic hedges diffusing a succession of delicate perfumes, in beds where flowers of glowing colors traced texts and legends on a ground of brightest green. Seventy thousand gold ducats--one hundred and forty thousand dollars, equal to four times that amount at the present day--were expended annually upon the palace, to which additions were made by each succeeding monarch, until arrested by the fatal dissensions that heralded the overthrow of the Saracen power.

No Arab names of the apartments of the Alhambra have come down to us: those by which they are at present designated are modern and entirely imaginary. We are even ignorant as to the uses of many rooms, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the parts of the original structure from those of later date erected with materials taken from the demolished winter palace. These mutilations, that, under the pretext of "improvements," were effected in the reign of Charles V. and his immediate successors, have rendered a complete restoration impossible.

Enough remains, however, to show the immense progress made by the Moors in architecture during the latter half of the fourteenth century, appropriately named the Hispano-Arab age of gold. The changes undergone by the various orders before the arch peculiar to Granada was developed are clearly defined and worthy of attention; and not less interesting is the study of the fragile and elaborate arabesques.

It is remarkable that such magical results were produced by the simplest means; for Arab ornamentation, far from being as complicated as it appears, is subject to certain plain geometrical rules. The figures, which at first sight show but a maze of lines and curves, can be easily resolved into the square and the circle; the shawls of Cashmere have afforded the patterns of the intricate floral designs lavished in such bewildering variety; the stalact.i.tic cornices and domes are modelled after the sections of a pomegranate divested of its seeds. All the countries which the armies of Islam had overrun in their wonderful career seem to have furnished suggestions to the architects of the Alhambra. The huge stone blocks of the gates, fitted with perfect accuracy, are copied from the masonry of the Roman, who built for eternity; the hanging gardens are the gardens of Babylon; the lions that support the basin in the famous court are Phoenician; the fountain itself is an imitation of the brazen laver of Solomon, mentioned in the thirty-fourth _sura_ of the Koran; the _tarkish_, or stucco-work, was invented at Damascus; the hand of the Persian artist is visible upon the glittering walls of the Tower of Comares. Nor did the Moor, ever proud of his origin and tenacious of the prejudices of his race, though separated hundreds of leagues from the home of his ancestors and domiciled for centuries in a foreign land, reject the influence of their traditions in the decoration of his palaces. The lotus of Egypt and the palm of Arabia are interwoven in the foliage of every fretted hall; the letters of the Cufic alphabet--singularly adapted to ornament--proclaim the doctrines of Islam from cornice and capital; while the profusion of water and verdure proves that the Saracen, though surrounded by the luxuriant vegetation of the Vega, beheld a grove or a fountain with the same emotions as did the weary camel-driver when, uttering a prayer of thanksgiving to Allah, he hailed with delight the refreshing oasis shining amid the dull gray sands of the desert.

"Quien no ha visto Granada No ha visto nada,"--[B]

so saith the Andalusian proverb; but, aside from the Alhambra, the city boasts but few attractions. The streets are filthy beyond description, and so narrow that two persons can hardly ride abreast; the houses have a dilapidated appearance, and the people an air of dejected poverty.

Long Venetian blinds hang over the balconies, and through their interstices peer the charming _Granadinas_, displaying in l.u.s.trous eyes and jet-black tresses their Moorish ancestry. At the side of almost every door is an altar, where a plaster image, arrayed in blue and tinsel, amid a cloud of votos and paper flowers, stares vacantly at the pa.s.ser-by.

[Footnote B: "Who hath not Granada seen Is no traveller, I ween."]

The Granadan dress is wholly Spanish, far different from that of the western provinces, where Parisian fashions are fast supplanting the showy national costume. The ladies wear lace mantillas and close-fitting skirts of light-colored silk, and are never seen without the coquettish fan, which no one knows how to wield so well as the charming Spanish woman. As for the men, they are almost invariably m.u.f.fled in a cloak that hides them to the very eyes, except on some grand holiday, when they appear in all the splendor of plush jacket and scarlet sash, adding much to the brilliancy of the gay and noisy throng.

When riding, the lady usually mounts behind her lover, and, with nothing to steady her but a scarf fastened to the crupper, will gallop unconcernedly over mountain-roads and through crooked lanes at the greatest speed. At the festivals is exhibited to the best advantage the character of the idle and music-loving Andalusian, from the lounging dandy, praising in bad extempore verses the beauty of some bar-maid in the little wine-shop, to the dishevelled gypsy, equally ready to sing a song or pick the pocket of the careless and admiring stranger.