PLATE 85 SARAGOZA CASA DE COMERCIO MDW 1869
THIS house, originally a Gothic one, in some of its earliest details, still acknowledges its allegiance to the noble family of the Torrellas, its founders. Their arms, with a lion, and the three little towers which pun heraldically upon their name, as charges, still exist upon a Gothic escutcheon over one of the doorways. The house is locally stated, I know not on what authority, to have been occupied, and altered by a company of Genoese merchants, whence, no doubt, its popular name "de Comercio." It is situated in the Calle de Sant' Jago, and is now the property of the Marquis de Ayerve.
Although retaining the usual Saragossan bracket-capitals and "Anillos," in the shape of quasi bases and dies or pedestals united, the symmetry of the plan and the regularity of the cinque-cento ornament and Arabesque of the panels and pilasters certainly bear out the tradition of the Genoese occupation and alteration of an original mediæval structure early in the sixteenth century.
At that time, and for nearly a couple of centuries afterwards, the bulk of the commercial transactions of Spain were administered by foreigners, principally at first Italians, and subsequently Flemings and Frenchmen. The expulsion of the Moors, the persecutions of the Jews, and the pouring in of American silver opened up a splendid field in Spain, during this period, for the trafficking talents of people endowed with greater activity and commercial genius than the Spaniards themselves possessed. Their function was to despise trade, and use, but detest, the foreigners, whose aptitude for work supplied the wants engendered by one of their besetting sins—laziness. "Ociedad, raiz de los vicios, y sepulchro de las virtudes," as Marcos Obregon exclaims. "En quatro cosas," he continues, "gasta la vida el ocioso, en dormir sin tiempo, en comer sin sagon, en solicitar quietas, en murmurar de todos."[54]
The following are the Countess d'Aulnois' comments on the effects of the mixed jealousy and laziness of the Spaniards in her time—the latter part of the seventeenth century.
"All strangers," she says, "what services soever they may have done, the Spaniards ought to fear them, they considering themselves and interests only, in such a manner that the Italians and Flemings, that are this king's subjects, are used no more favourably than if born under another master. If they pretend to imployments, either at Court or in the armies, they are told they are not natural Spaniards who engross all, as well to keep up the glory of the nation, as out of diffidence of others, whom they in a manner declare incapable of all trust because not born in Spain; this country, nevertheless, abounds in strangers, but they are only artificers and mercenaries invited by gain, and that meddle with nothing but their peddling traffick. It is thought that there are above forty thousand French in Madrid, who, wearing the Spanish habit, and calling themselves Burgundinians, Walloons and Lorraines, keep up commerce and manufacture; it concerns them to conceal their country, for if it be discovered, they are obliged to pay a daily Pole-money of about a penny to the town, and, any bad success happening to the publick, appearing in the streets, are liable to a thousand insolencies, even to blows.
"They that know what number of strangers are in this town, report, that would they undertake it, they might make themselves masters, and drive out the Spaniards."
PLATE 86 SARAGOSSA HOUSE OF THE MARQUIS OF MONISTOL 1869 MDW
THE great dimensions of this house, and its massive strength and solidity are no bad emblems of the old sturdiness, wealth, and pride of the Aragonese nobility, whose Plateresque architecture "differed" as Mr. O'Shea justly remarks, "in many points from its countertype the Seville Moro-Italian, or strictly Andalusian style, applied to private dwellings." Although apparently far ruder in execution than either of the other two houses I sketched—that of the Infanta and that known as de Comercio—in the same city, I have little doubt that this is of considerably later date. The florid Spanish Plateresque of the former, and the cinque-cento carving of the latter, took precedence of the more regular Greco-Roman architecture aimed at by the architect of the house now under notice. The retention of the bracket capital in lieu of either arches or a lengthened column, and of the "anillo" or ring dividing the shaft into two heights, illustrate the way in which local habits interfered with the adoption of the rigid rules prescribed by the writers on architecture, and practised by contemporary architects, of the Herrera type.
Considering the terrible "fortunes of war," to which Saragossa has been exposed, and its frightful hand to hand fighting in the heart of the city, it is only wonderful that so much of the past should still linger within the lines of defence. If the ruinous sieges have left Saragossa poorer than they found her, they certainly do not appear to have left her weaker or less fierce. She struck me as being poorer and prouder than any other city I visited in Spain. At the same time, both men and women show a hardy activity and lively inclination to pugnacity I did not see elsewhere. The only answer I got from a Madrileño to my question as to "why the Saragossans did not work?" was, that "they preferred fighting," adding that "while they would look hard at a peseta before they would undertake even a trifling job for it, they would at any time do a good day's fighting for one half of that coin."
PLATE 87 SARAGOZA PLAZUELA ADUANA MDW 1869 BRONZE RENAISSANCE KNOCKER
THE quaint little animal, or rather conventionalised notion of an animal, which I found in an out of the way "Plazuela," or "little place," of Saragossa, doing duty as a knocker, furnishes a good illustration of the ready dexterity in his craft of the old Spanish smith and brazier. Of splendid bronze work (in spite of the intrinsic value of the material which has no doubt led to the fusion of thousands of treasures of Art all over the Peninsula) Spain yet possesses invaluable treasures. Amongst these the most salient which occur to my memory as single pieces, are the magnificent eleven gilt life-size portrait statues of the greatest of the Spanish Royal Family from Charles V. to Philip II. with which Pompeio Leoni decorated the "Entierros Reales" of the Escorial—and the same sculptor's still finer statues of the celebrated prime minister and favourite, the Duqué de Lerma, and his Duqueza, founders of the Convent of San Pablo, at Valladolid, whence they have been transferred to the museum of that city. As semi-architectural, semi-sculpturesque works in bronze, occasionally with an admixture of iron upon a large scale, of course the most important and abundant are the late Rejas, or metal screens, of the great Spanish churches and cathedrals. Of these, ample notices are given by both Ford and O'Shea—authorities, at once so excellent, and so readily accessible, as to render unnecessary any more on my part than a passing reference to them.
Another form in which copper and bronze have been well and plentifully used by the Spaniards is in the shape of coverings and strengthenings to doors. In this guise the models have been mainly derived from the Moors whose doors may generally, whether in wood or metal, be regarded as perfection itself, for beauty, strength, and fitness for the circumstances under which they have been used. The Spaniards (at Toledo Cathedral for example) have produced many admirable doors in which, by the judicious strengthening of the joiner's work with embossed and occasionally perforated bronze plates, they have combined strength with moderate substance, and the appearance of great richness with fairly simple and not costly labour.
PLATE 88 LERIDA SAN LORENZO. MDW 1869
THE interest of every other building in Lerida altogether pales before that of its noble, but now much desecrated Cathedral. Its ancient glories may be well studied in Mr. Street's pages, but its present humiliation can only be appreciated upon the spot. Toiling up from the city through streets and open platforms on the hill-side, thronged with soldiers, gipsies, beggars, and ragged boys innumerable, the traveller at last arrives, not at a church, but at a monster-barrack. In lieu of a sacristan he has to engage the services of a corporal as Cicerone, and with the consent of, I am bound to say, an exceedingly polite Spanish officer, he is free to examine, at his leisure, a Cathedral which, as Mr. Street says, "is in itself worth the journey from England." Its construction, and that of its splendid cloister, occupied almost the whole of the thirteenth century, and the vastness and regularity of its plan, its solid and perfect execution, and the just proportion of its structural and ornamental details certainly, to my mind, justify the praise bestowed upon them by that accomplished architect.
It was sad to see such a building cut about by the insertion of floors and partitions, and to hear the piquant, not to say ribald, jokes, "refranes, seguidillas" and songs of the soldiers, echoing from vaulting which once rang only with peals from the organ, and chants and hymns from the priests and people.
As my stay was bound to be short in Lerida, and I remembered that Mr. Street had done full justice to the Cathedral, I looked elsewhere for a subject for my note-book, and found it in the picturesque tower of the Church of San Lorenzo, given by my eighty-eighth sketch.
The legend runs that this Church, and that of San Juan, were originally mosques; and that after the taking of the city from the Moors in 1149, they were applied to Christian uses. I am inclined to think this probable, although the detail is not anywhere Mahommedan, so far as the darkness of the interior would allow me to form any opinion. The great thickness of the walls, the mode of lighting, the form and proportions of the entrance archways (shown in my sketch) and the materials and mode of building of the base of the tower all seem to favour the supposition of an original Moorish construction. The octagonal form of tower is a favourite feature of this district, and occurs on a grand scale in the old Cathedral. The upper portion, at least, of this tower of San Lorenzo, may probably date from early in the fifteenth century.
PLATE 89 BARCELONA OLD HOUSE CALLE DE SANTA LUCIA MDW 1869
AS Prescott[55]observes, "The City of Barcelona, which originally gave its name to the county of which it was the capital, was distinguished from a very early period by ample municipal privileges. After the union with Aragon in the twelfth century, the monarchs of the latter kingdom extended towards it the same liberal legislation; so that by the thirteenth, Barcelona had reached a degree of commercial prosperity rivalling that of any of the Italian Republics. She divided with them the lucrative commerce with Alexandria; and her port thronged with foreigners from every nation, became a principal emporium in the Mediterranean for the spices, drugs, perfumes, and other rich commodities of the East, whence they were diffused over the interior of Spain and the European Continent."
Amongst its other merits was that of having established in 1401 the first bank of Exchange and deposit in Europe—as well as of having compiled the first written code amongst the Moderns of Maritime law. Her great merchants were "magnificos" ennobled, not degraded as in Castile, by connection with trade.
The long civil war which began in 1462 and ended with the surrender of the city to King Juan in 1472 was the first great check the city received in its splendid career of prosperity.
The house I have sketched was doubtless well adapted to such troublous times, affording comparative safety on its lower floors and comparative air and comfort as its occupants mounted higher and higher. It was probably built shortly after the middle of the fifteenth century, revealing here and there traces of a French mason's handicraft. It follows the type, not of the merchant's, but of the cavalier's house. Such towers, half residence, half fortress, were, especially in the south of Europe, far more numerous than one may now be justified in supposing; and the more frequently Italian street views in pictures and illuminated manuscripts are studied, the more natural and usual appears what we now fancy to be strange and rare. With the introduction of Renaissance architecture, the character of these quasi-mediæval structures changed altogether.
Navagiero[56]writing of the condition of Barcelona in 1524, says that "the houses are good and commodious, built of stone and not of earth, as are those of the rest of Catalogna. Although lying on the sea it has no port, but an arsenal, in which many galleys were wont to be constructed, now there are none. Bread and wine are scarce, but of every kind of fruit there is abundance. The cause is said to be that the land is stripped of men through the war with King John on account of his son Don Carlos."
Depopulated the city may have been, and its commerce may, no doubt, have suffered in consequence, but the Catalonian character was energetic, and the city still preserved much of its previously accumulated wealth. Merchants too have a knack of prospering in troublous times, especially those who thrive on profits upon imports. Hence we still find merchants' houses of great comfort, although evidently constructed during the evil days of Barcelona. Of one of these I furnish (in my ninety-sixth sketch) a good example, offering an interesting theme for comparison with the sketch now given.
PLATE 90 CASA DE LA DIPUTACION MDW 1869
WITHIN the ancient "Palacio de la Diputacion" is preserved the elaborate late Gothic Chapel of St. George (protector of Catalonia) with a small but highly wrought entrance from the arcading on the first floor of the Patio de la Audiencia, represented in my sketch. This Patio is so called because its arcades, in which habitually sit many lawyers, and saunter many clients, lead to the Courts of Justice, in which causes are tried. The existence of this Chapel has, for ages, given a sort of prescriptive right to the public to invade the Patio, the Chapel, and its precincts, upon St. George's day. Of the gay scene which then takes place Parcerisa[57]has given an animated lithograph, showing the very different aspect it then wears to any it habitually presents.
Under any circumstances, however, its architecture, which is bold, even to the verge of rashness, gives it a permanent interest. It is a subject for wonder, that any structure in which the main supports of a heavy third story appear so insignificant as do the little marble columns (about two inches in diameter only) of the first floor of this Patio should have existed from mediæval days to our times. The truth, no doubt, is that the main weight of the walls of the top story, and of the roof, is carried by means of massive beams, acting as cantilevers, back to the walls which form the internal faces of the arcades, a device not quite maintaining that beautiful "lamp of truth" we are taught to look for in all mediæval designs. The users of the arcades have lately procured the building up of many of the arches, leaving windows to light the arcades. I have taken the liberty of omitting all of these but one, as I was desirous of showing, not what the lawyers have done, but what the original architects devised, no doubt as a "tour de force."
I was told upon the spot that this building up of the arches, the supports of which certainly appeared to my eye far too fragile for beauty, was a matter not of choice but of necessity.
PLATE 91 BARCELONA CASA DE LA DEPUTACION MDW 1869
IF Catalonian architecture differs from ordinary Spanish, and it is quite manifest from my sketch that it does in detail, as I have already shown that it does in system, the character of the Catalonian men and women differs even more markedly from that of the Spanish. While one of the latter in his laziness, as Marcos Obregon says, "ni come con gusto, ni duerme con quietud, ni descansa con reposo," the former, on the contrary, eat with appetite, sleep with tranquillity, and throw off their cares healthily in rest. The latter, in fact, chew but scarcely digest the bread of idleness, while the former thrive on that of industry. As a natural consequence, there is no love lost between the two races. The Castilian regards as mean and debasing the cultivation of the very mechanical arts, excellence in which the Catalonian well knows to be the source, not only of wealth, but of power and honour as well. To Barcelona belongs the credit of having been one of the first cities in the world, out of France, to establish gratuitous schools of design in which poor youths were taught specially to design for manufactures. Both Laborde and Whittaker[58]testify to the extent and excellence of these schools at the end of the last century and beginning of the present. The latter, writing in 1803, says, "we visited the Academy of Arts instituted in the Palace of Commerce, and supported in the most magnificent manner by the merchants of Barcelona. We were conducted through a long suite of apartments, in which seven hundred boys were employed in copying and designing; some of them, who display superior talents, are sent to Rome, and to the Academy of St. Fernando at Madrid; the others are employed in different ways by the merchants and manufacturers. The rooms are large and commodious, and are furnished with casts of celebrated statues and every proper apparatus. We observed a few drawings of considerable merit, produced by the scholars; but the grand picture before us of liberality and industry, amply rewarded our visit; and was the more striking to us, for having of late been continually accustomed to lament the traces of neglect and decay, so visibly impressed on every similar institution in the impoverished cities of Italy."
PLATE 92 BARCELONA CASA DE LA DEPUTACION MDW 1869
THIS quaint and very late specimen of Gothic, although Ecclesiastical enough in its sculpture, is purely domestic in its architecture. The latter is in its character rather French or Burgundian than Spanish, while the former was, I have little doubt, the work of a native of the Peninsula. So far as I could see, no preparation had ever been made for glazing this window, and the wooden shutters, both in their form and mode of joinery, were rather Moorish than Spanish. No one can be surprised at such symptoms of internationality, in works executed at a sea-port like Barcelona—in which the Arts, like the prevalent language, may have had a "lingua franca" of cosmopolitan freedom from prejudice. In most of such Gothic work, and indeed in every kind of building in Spain, however fantastic and not unfrequently over intricate the detail may be, we scarcely ever observe any flimsiness, or want of due substance in the constructional parts. In this matter the Spanish architects merit, for attention to the erection of permanent structures in all their styles, the praise bestowed by Mr. Street upon those mainly who wrought in the mediæval ones. Of those last, the Spanish critics, who have been sometimes accused of overduly estimating what they call Greco-Roman architecture, early showed what I regard as a fair appreciation. Antonio Ponz, for instance, in the last century certainly praised Berruguete, Covarrubbias, and even Herrera in very glowing terms, but I know few writers who have better expressed an opinion as to the fitness of the mediæval styles, and especially the old Spanish system of the sturdiest construction, for ecclesiastical purposes.
Of this "Arquitectura Gótica," he says,[59]"nadie puede con razón decir, que falta en la majestad y el decoro: al contrario parece inventada para dárselo á los Templos, y casas del Señor. Los mas insignes Arquitectos han confessado su solidez, y han tenido mucho que admirar en el capricho de sus adornos, y en la prolixidad con que están acabadas todas sus partes. Muchos países de Europa se precian de sus monumentos, y en España los hay magnificos, como son la Catedral de Burgos, la de Sevilla, Valencia, y otras."
PLATE 93 BARCELONA THE TOWN HALL MDW 1869
THE mission to Spain of the Count de Laborde on the part of the French Government at the moment when Napoleon I. thought he had the whole country within his grasp, was essentially economic in its object. Hence his accounts of, and investigations into, its past, present and future capabilities for trade are of far greater value than his topographical and archæological investigations, most of which are founded on the writings of Ponz and other well known authorities. While Spain was at the height of its prosperity, Seville and subsequently Cadiz commanded the South American trade, but Barcelona remained as it had been from a very early date, the great maritime means of communication and interchange of commodities between Spain and the rest of Europe. The business transactions carried on at its Lonja, or Bourse, and its Town Hall were very extensive, and these buildings were of commensurate importance. Our present sketch represents an internal doorway of the last named building, and the cosmopolitan character of its architecture, of probably the commencement of the sixteenth century, will be manifest at a glance. The following is Laborde's[60]epitome of the history of that great foreign trade of which Barcelona once shared with Valencia and Almeria almost a complete monopoly.
"The state of Spanish manufactures, in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, will form a tolerably accurate clue to that of commerce at the same period. The latter was then in a most flourishing condition, and its ramifications extended to all parts of Europe. The cities of Medina del Campo, Rio Seco, Burgos, Segovia, Toledo, Cuenca, Granada, Almeria, Cordova, Jaen, Seville, Barcelona, Valencia, Ciudad Real, and Sant' Jago, carried on a very extensive commerce. Almeria, Valencia and Barcelona pushed their commercial concerns into Syria, Egypt, Barbary, and the Archipelago. These cities were equally important, in a mercantile view, with the Hanseatic towns. Barcelona had a very great foreign trade; after the commencement of the fourteenth century; under the Kings of Aragon it equipped and maintained armed ships for the defence of the Catalonian coast and the protection of its trade. It established factories in the extreme parts of Europe and Asia, as far as the river Tanais; kept a consul, who represented the city, and who was presented to Tamerlane the Great in the year 1397, when he returned in triumph from his military expedition into Muscovy and the Kipzac, a country lying east and west of the Caspian Sea and the river Volga.
"Spain at that period had a large navy, and its shipping trade was immense. If the account of Thomé Cano in his 'Arte de construir Naves' be admitted, it possessed a thousand merchant vessels at a time when the European marine was far less extensive than it is at present."
To return for a moment to the picturesque doorway I have sketched. Its sculpture, which in execution is very good of its kind, is as completely Renaissance in character as its architecture is still Gothic; it in fact corresponds to Mudejar work, with this difference, that the admixture with the Gothic in this case is Plateresque, while in the Mudejar work it is Moorish.
PLATE 94 BARCELONA KNOCKER TO OLD HOUSE CALLE SANTA LUCIA. MDW 1869.
IN the vicinity of the old church of Sta. Lucia yet exist at Barcelona several interesting stone houses of the fifteenth century. Upon the doors of these are to be still found specimens of excellent iron work of the same period. It is not however to be supposed that the Barcelonese possessed any very special gifts in this line, since evidences of almost equal dexterity are to be found scattered over the whole extent of the Peninsula. In the north and south alike, the "Rejas," or vast screens, sometimes of iron only, sometimes of brass and bronze, and sometimes of mixed metals, are yet to be found of great importance and interest. The most famous of the "Rejeros," as they were called, or makers of Rejas, were Francesco de Salamanca who flourished in 1533; Christobal Andino of 1540; Francesco de Vilalpando of 1561; and Juan Bautista Celma of 1600. Because these men's names have become "household words" amongst all students of Spanish Art, it should not be forgotten that great men "to fortune and to fame unknown" lived before those whose good deeds and works encountered fitting record. By some of these were executed many of the various admirable specimens of metal work commented upon in terms of high praise by Ford, Street, O'Shea and other writers. The finest metal worker who really startled his contemporaries by the beauty and splendour of his workmanship, its "elaboracion y prolixedad," was the celebrated Henrique de Arfé, gold and silversmith of Leon, founder of a family which for several generations supplied artist-workmen in the precious metals whose fame rests upon the same platform as that of Cellini and Caradosso di Milano. His principal works were, according to the account given to us of them by his grandson Juan, in the "Varia Commensuracion," the custodias (or "ciboria" for holding the sanctified wafer) of the Cathedrals of Leon, Cordova, Toledo, and Sahagun. Of crosses, paxes, censers, pixes, feretories, candelabra, monstrances, lamps, &c., he scattered specimens broadcast throughout Spain. In all of them he showed, as his descendant declared, "El valor de su ingenio raro, con mayor efecto que puede escribirse."
As the present is the last occasion on which, in this volume at least, I may have to speak of mediæval metal work, and especially iron work, I may be allowed to allude very briefly to the two principal tools by which it was worked, viz.: the hammer and the pliers. In England and in France the first was used in preference at least to the last; while in Germany, Burgundy and the Low Countries, the last was specially affected, and by its means foliage, both natural and conventional, was rendered with great skill, facility and taste. The Spaniards, as is proved by the present sketch, and that which follows it, were at an early period dexterous in the use of both tools; uniting the massive style engendered by the predominant use of the hammer with the more florid and fanciful manner springing out of the light and convoluted forms created by a more liberal use of the pliers.
PLATE 95 BARCELONA KNOCKER TO OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE SANTA LUCIA. MDW 1869.
IN this fanciful little object we meet with another illustration of the spirit of humour as well as of dexterity in their craft, manifested in abundance by the excellent old ironworkers of Spain. Still good as the blacksmiths unquestionably were, the triumphs of Spanish metal working were chiefly embodied in the precious metals. It is rather in the cabinets of connoisseurs than in the churches of the country that specimens should be sought for to justify the splendid reputation those artist-workmen enjoyed in the palmy days of the Spanish Court and Church. Everywhere the traveller comes now only upon exhausted treasuries and emptied sacristies. Even since the days of Ford's inimitable handbook the spoiler has been rampant, and of the custodias and virus, the "blandones" and "portapaces" in which he delighted, so far as my perquisitions extended, scarcely a vestige was to be met with. Even since my sketches were made, the contents of the treasury of "Nuestra Señora del Pilar" have been brought to the hammer; and the pressure of other engagements alone prevented my return to Saragossa empowered to secure a share of those artistic curiosities for our National collection.
No doubt many beautiful specimens of Gothic precious metal work once adorned the principal mediæval ecclesiastical structures of Spain, but it was not till a later date that the most important and famous works, other than those already noticed (by Henrique de Arfé,) were produced. A brief notice of some of these from the pen of a contemporary may not be altogether uninteresting.
"Although Renaissance architecture was introduced in Spain in a fully developed form before the middle of the sixteenth century, it was never thoroughly understood and adopted, we are told by Juan de Arphe y Villafañe,[61]in ecclesiastical plate, 'until my father, Antonio de Arfé, began to use it in the Custodia of Santiago in Galicia and in that of Medina de Rioseco, and in the portable shrine of Leon.'
"In all his work he evidenced an imperfect knowledge of good style, introducing fanciful columns of irregular proportions according to his own fancy. Juan Alvarez, who was a native of Salamanca, died in the prime of his life in the service of Don Carlos of Austria. For this reason he left no evidence of his rare talent in any public performance. Alonso Beceril obtained reputation in his turn on account of having made in his studio the Custodia of Cuenca. This work secured the approbation of every artist in Spain who at that time was really learned in Art. Juan de Orna was an excellent plate-worker in Burgos. Juan Rinz,[62]a disciple of my grandfather, made the Custodias of Jaen, Baza, and that of San Pablo of Seville. He was the first who used the lathe for forming plate in Spain; he set the fashion for the principal pieces of silver services for the table, and instructed workmen throughout Andalusia. All the above artists, and others, began to give elegant shapes to the principal objects made in silver and gold for the use of the church, each one improving in symmetry and general excellence upon the works of his predecessors until those types became established which I am now about to describe."
Juan de Arphe proceeds, after complimenting Philip II. on his majestic works at the Escorial, to give the forms and proportions of the five orders, and their application to every variety of silversmith's work, recognised as suitable for employment in sacred offices and ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies in his time.
PLATE 96 BARCELONA OLD HOUSE IN THE CALLE DE MONCARA MDW 1869
IN noticing my ninety-first sketch I took occasion to comment on the difference which existed between Spanish and Catalonian architecture, and Spanish and Catalonian character. Both are pressed upon one's attention in looking over a house which, like the one I have sketched in the Calle de Moncara at Barcelona, appears to have been the comfortable home of a well-to-do merchant, with roomy stores and warehouses on the ground floor facing the entrance, domestic offices to the left, and counting-house and living rooms on the first floor, with bedrooms above. As is becoming in the house of one welcoming alike buyer and seller, we find a total absence of that almost Asiatic privacy which the Spaniards generally, and especially the Andalusians, appear in their homes to have adopted from Moorish models. Under the old Counts of Barcelona the architecture of the city had no doubt been mainly French. After the annexation of the city to the crown of Aragon, the architecture became tinctured with detail corresponding with much yet to be seen at Saragossa and elsewhere in Aragon, and finally after the consolidation of the whole monarchy by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the expulsion of the Moors, Barcelonese architecture fell under the Plateresque revival and the subsequent Greco-Roman mania which affected all Spain. The date of erection of the house of which I now give a sketch, appears to have brought it under the second of these two sets of conditions. In the twisted column, its cap and base, and some other features, we may recognise the Aragonese style, while in the staircase and some of the windows there is to be traced, I consider, a decided French influence.
In spite of legislative assimilation, the Catalonians have never been able to cordially adopt a Spanish nationality. They have never warmly responded to the caresses of their monarchs. Even as late as 1802, when Charles IV. paid a visit to Barcelona with the infamous Godoy, and a retinue like an army, and drew some eighty thousand strangers to the city, a visitor in the following year records that "the Catalans felt a generous pride in observing that no accident or quarrel occurred on that occasion, and no life was lost,notwithstanding the enmity subsisting between them and the Spaniards."[63]Whittaker further illustrates this mutual jealousy and spiteful feeling by the following characteristic anecdote:—"This enmity," he says, "is carried to such a height that when it was proposed to strike a medal in honour of the King's visit, the Academy of Arts of St. Fernando, at Madrid, were requested to superintend the execution; but this body, actuated by a most illiberal and unworthy spirit, endeavoured to excuse themselves, and made every possible delay, which so enraged the Catalans, that they withdrew the business from their hands, and trusted it to their own academy. The medal was produced in a month, and remains a record rather of their loyal zeal, than of their ability in the fine arts."
PLATE 97 BARCELONA CALLE DE MONCARA MDW 1869
IAM induced to give this one little specimen of what the Spaniards call "Churriguerismo" for these reasons: 1stly, because it is a prettier example than usual of the style practised early in the eighteenth century by the fashionable José Churriguerra—the William Kent of Spanish architecture; 2ndly, because it affords a good specimen of the comfortable house of a rich Barcelonese merchant of the last century; and 3rdly, on account of the singular arrangement of the jointing of the masonry, which converts the apparently double arch into very little else than one tolerably stable spanning of the whole space.
In describing my eighty-fifth sketch I alluded to the fact that the trade of Spain gradually fell into the hands mainly of foreigners, and especially at first of the Genoese, the difference between them and the native Spanish merchant being that while the former were crafty, industrious and dishonest, the latter were stupid and lazy, but (except in the matter of smuggling) strictly honest. Plenty of witness is borne by different writers to both facts. Quevedo, for instance, abounds in hits at the Genoese and other Italians. "Give an Italian to the Devil," he says in his "El Alguazil Endemoniado," "and the old gentleman won't try to take him, for an Italian would take away the Devil himself."[64]Elsewhere in the same satire he cautions his readers telling them that they are bound to know "that in Spain the mysteries of the accounts of the Genoese are disastrous for the millions that come from the Indies, and that the cannons of their pens are batteries for purses. There are no incomes which, if they once get into the strokes of their pens, and the inkholders of their inkstands, escape without drowning."[65]
The poco-curante honesty of the Spaniard on the other hand, (the "poco-curanteeism" at least an inheritance from the East,) kept business in his hands which, but for his reliability, ought according to every recognised law of probability in trade, to have left him before it did. Laborde, a writer by no means inclined to take too favourable a view of the national character, confesses that "Spanish probity is proverbial, and that it conspicuously shines in commercial relations. Good faith and punctuality are generally prevalent among merchants, the instances of deception, negligence, fraudulent dealing and non-fulfilment of engagements, so general in the trading world, being unknown to and not practised amongst them." As an illustration, Laborde mentions some coined silver sent home in the year 1654, which was paid away by the Spanish merchants, and was subsequently discovered to have been debased. Not only were the Spanish merchants eager to make good the loss to those who had dealt with them, but having discovered the culprit they obtained his conviction, and the wretched man was publicly burnt alive. In spite of honesty, however, trade and commerce will not thrive in any country in which they are looked upon as degrading. A Catalonian might work, since he was but half a Spaniard. A Castilian, however, was quite willing to pay any one who would work for him, and as with his increase of wealth his wants became more and more artificial and luxurious, the swarms of foreigners he harboured about him to do his bidding, increased to an unprecedented extent. The Countess D'Aulnois gives a capital account of the state of things in this respect in her time (circâ 1679).
"Spain," she says,[66]"cannot well be without commerce with France, not only on the frontiers of Biscai and Arragon, where it hath been almost ever permitted, but through the whole country where it is prohibited, for Provence hath ever had correspondencies in the kingdom of Valentia, by its necessity of the others commodities; and for the same reason Britaign, Normandy, and other parts on the ocean have continually sent theirs to Cadiz and Bilbo. I speak not of corn and stuffs of all sorts brought from that country, but even of ironwork and swords; by which it appears a mistake to think that in these dayes the best come of Spain. No more being now made at Toledo, few but forrain are used, unless a very small quantity that come from Biscai, which are excessively dear.
"It is, moreover, hard to imagine how much Spain suffers for want of manufactures. So few artificers remain in its towns, that native commodities are carried abroad to be wrought in forrain countries. Wools and silks are transported raw, and being spun and weaved in England, France, and Holland, return thither at dear rates. The land itself is not tilled by the people it feeds. In seed time, harvest, and vintage, husbandmen come from Bearn and other parts of France, who get a great deal of money by sowing and reaping their corn, and dressing and cutting their vines. Carpenters and masons are (for the most part) also strangers, who will be paid treble what they can get in their own country. In Madrid there is hardly a waterbearer that is not a foreigner, such are also the greatest part of shoomakers and taylors, and it is believed the third of these come only to get a little money and afterwards return home; but none thrive so much as architects, masons, and carpenters. Almost every house hath wooden windows (here being no glass), and a balcony jutting into the street."
PLATE 98 GERONA OLD HOUSE NEAR THE ESTRELLA DE ORO MDW 1869
IF my last sketch illustrated the regular rich merchant's house of the eighteenth century—symbol of peace and plenty, police and protection—the kind of residence I now submit to the reader's attention is cast in quite a different key. It is essentially a fighter's house, the only kind of structure in which (before the use of gunpowder) a family could hold its own for months of foreign siege or protracted street fighting. Gerona has always been, as we shall have occasion to recognize in examining its fine old walls, almost a frontier city, struggled for repeatedly by Christian and by Moor. The house I have sketched is one of the earliest and most complete of its class I have ever seen, the lower half alone having been materially altered from its original construction. It dates in all probability from the middle of the twelfth century, and yet stands strong and stalwart in a quarter of the city in which very little of anything not comparatively of yesterday meets the wandering visitor's eye. On comparing this sketch with that from a house at Barcelona (No. 96) erected at least three hundred years later, it will be found that the type furnished by the earliest in date had changed but little in the interval. Hence we may fairly infer that the conditions of insecurity affecting domestic life had scarcely varied in Catalonia during the whole of that term. In fact, it was not until the invention of printing spread abroad the elements of education, and brought about changes in social systems, that men began to dream of peace and security ensured by other preservatives from danger than heavy armour and fortress-like houses.