‘The happy days in fair AranjuezAre past and gone.’
‘The happy days in fair AranjuezAre past and gone.’
‘The happy days in fair AranjuezAre past and gone.’
‘Intriguing courtiers no longer crowd its halls,’ he reflects; ‘its spacious circus, where Manchegan bulls once roared in rage and agony, is now closed, and the light tinkling of guitars is no longer heard amidst its groves and gardens.’ One feels as one reads these passages that Borrow was not at his best as a moralist. One prefers him when he is describing in his lively, absorbing manner his personal experiences, and is glad to learn that he disposed of eighty Testaments in desolate Aranjuez, and that he ‘mighthave sold many more of these Divine books’ if he had remained there a longer period.
But we are sorry that Borrow did not see the Palace Gardens in April or May, when the view from the Parterre is one of almost unsurpassed loveliness. The Reina, Isla, and Principe Gardens are furnished with a multitude of bridges, grottoes, fountains, and cascades, bordered and surrounded by an exuberance of plants and flowers from England, France, and the East, all bathed by the waters of the Tagus, and made musical with the notes of myriad birds. ‘The Nightingale that in the Branches sang’ returns in his thousands every spring, and we hear ‘The melodious noise of birds among the spreading branches, and the pleasing fall of water running violently.’ Here are Oriental trees, palms, and the cedars of Lebanon, and interspersed with them are the first elms introduced by PhilipII.into Spain from England, which grow magnificently under the combined influence of heat and moisture. The impressionable and responsive Edmondo de Amicis writes of Aranjuez:
‘The interior of the royal building is superb, but all the riches of the palace do not compare with the view of the gardens, which seem to have been laid out for the family of a Titanic king, to whom the parks andgardens of our kings must appear like terrace flower-beds or stable-yards. There are avenues as far as the eye can reach, flanked by immensely high trees, whose branches interlace as if bent by two contrary winds, which traverse in every direction a forest whose boundaries one cannot see; and through this forest the broad and rapid Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades and basins. A luxurious and flourishing vegetation abounds between a labyrinth of small avenues, cross roads, and openings; and on every side gleam statues, fountains, columns, and sprays of water, which fall in splashes, bows, and drops, in the midst of every kind of flower of Europe and America. To the majestic roar of the cascade of the Tagus is joined the song of innumerable nightingales, who utter their plaintive vibratory notes in the mysterious shade of the solitary paths. Beyond the palace, and all around the shrubberies, extend vineyards, olive-groves, plantations of fruit trees, and smiling meadows. It is a genuine oasis, surrounded by a desert, which Philip II. chose in a day of good humour, almost as if to temper with the gay picture the gloomy melancholy of the Escorial, and in which one still breathes the atmosphere, so to speak, of the private life of the kings of Spain.’
‘The interior of the royal building is superb, but all the riches of the palace do not compare with the view of the gardens, which seem to have been laid out for the family of a Titanic king, to whom the parks andgardens of our kings must appear like terrace flower-beds or stable-yards. There are avenues as far as the eye can reach, flanked by immensely high trees, whose branches interlace as if bent by two contrary winds, which traverse in every direction a forest whose boundaries one cannot see; and through this forest the broad and rapid Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades and basins. A luxurious and flourishing vegetation abounds between a labyrinth of small avenues, cross roads, and openings; and on every side gleam statues, fountains, columns, and sprays of water, which fall in splashes, bows, and drops, in the midst of every kind of flower of Europe and America. To the majestic roar of the cascade of the Tagus is joined the song of innumerable nightingales, who utter their plaintive vibratory notes in the mysterious shade of the solitary paths. Beyond the palace, and all around the shrubberies, extend vineyards, olive-groves, plantations of fruit trees, and smiling meadows. It is a genuine oasis, surrounded by a desert, which Philip II. chose in a day of good humour, almost as if to temper with the gay picture the gloomy melancholy of the Escorial, and in which one still breathes the atmosphere, so to speak, of the private life of the kings of Spain.’
The Jardines de la Reina are of minor importance, but the Jardines de la Isla, comprising the four divisions which are known as Parterre, La Estatuas, Isla, and Emparrado, are filled with natural and created beauties. In the IsabelII.Garden is a bronze statue of the queen, erected to commemorate the political events of 1834. It is surrounded by a handsome iron railing, and completed by eight stone seats and as many marble vases mounted on pedestals. The Jardines de Principe, a much more modern preserve, are divided into four departments, and bisected by avenues that lead to the various small squares and to the Princesa, Apollo, Blanco, and Embajadores Avenues, the last of which terminates in the little Pabellones Garden of the time of FerdinandVI.In addition to these princely gardens there are the English Garden, remarkable for its carved rock supporting a well-modelled swan; the Chinese Garden with its banana plantations; and the Garden of the Princess, acquired in 1535, and adorned in 1616 with a mechanical clock, decorated with twelve bronze figures that play on bronze trumpets. On the banks of the swiftly flowing river are the paddocks of the Crown, where camels and llamas roam, and a stud farm, where are bred English and Spanish blood horses and the beautiful cream-coloured animals of the Aranjuez stock.
The auxiliary palace called the Casa del Labrador, or Labourer’s Cottage, built by CharlesIV., is a remarkable structure, being aseries of boudoirs,à petit Trianon, worthy of a Pompadour. The ceilings are painted by Zacarias Velazquez, Lopez, Maella, and other artists, and the walls of the back staircase are decorated with scenes and figures of the time of CharlesI.At the top of the staircase is figured a balcony, on which are leaning the handsome wife and children of the painter, Z. Velazquez. The gilded bronze balustrade of the main staircase contains gold to the value of £3000, and the marbles over the doors are very fine. On the ground-floor of the building, which is composed of three stories, are thirteen statues by Spanish sculptors. In the centre of the hall is a marble figure representing Envy, and around the apartment are twenty busts of Carrara marble. Among the treasures of the palace are many Japanese vases and bronzes of great artistic value, marble busts of Minerva and Mars, a group representing a sacrifice in honour of Venus, and an enormous, beautifully carved mahogany fountain. The decorations consist of platinum, artistically worked pavements of Buen Retiro porcelain, and the most gorgeous silk embroideries and tapestries bordered with gold; while the furniture includes priceless chandeliers, Sèvres vases, candelabra, and clocks. A chair and table inmalachite, a present from Prince Demidoff to the ex-Queen Isabella of Spain, is valued at about £1500. The apartment known asRetreteis adorned with a composition resembling marble in the Moorish style and Etruscan low relief, and furnished with crimson coverings bordered with gold, while all the appointments of the hall, the capricious clocks and floral stands of bronze and glass, the table of rock crystal, and the wealth of marbles, all contribute to the magnificence of this so-calledCasa del Labrador.
Themost modern of the many royal residences in Spain is the palace which the queen-mother built for herself and her young family in the most easterly province on the northern coast of the Peninsula. Queen Maria Cristina had been Regent for three years when in 1889 she determined to make a home between the mountains and the sea in a spot far removed from the etiquette and stress of the capital and from the sad memories which were associated with the ancient palaces of Castile. Her Majesty spent her first summer holiday at Miramar, the capital of Guipuzcoa in 1894, and here, overlooking the Bay of Biscay, AlfonsoXIII.was brought up among and in the heart of his own people. Here he was prepared by a rigorous course of study to assume the duties of the high destiny to which he was born, and here also he learnt to ride and shoot, to swim and handle a boat, and to excelin every form of manly sport. At San Sebastian the dignity and restraint of royalty is largely relaxed, and the English visitor realises more clearly than in any other part of the country how intensely democratic is the Spaniard at heart. The King of Spain is more in touch with the masses of his people than the ruler of any other European nation. He is an anointed sovereign and the most august personage in the land; but he is a Spaniard, he belongs to his people, he is one of themselves. In Madrid court etiquette keeps the sovereign at a different altitude from his subjects, but here he rides and drives abroad, generally unattended, and sets an example of princely amiability and unaffected kindliness which distinguishes all ranks of the Spanish nobility. The line of demarkation between the nobles and the people is so clearly defined that it never has to be emphasised. In their relations there is no unbending on the one side, there is no servility on the other. A grandee of Spain does not imperil his dignity by joining the cotillon at the Casino; a duchess can drink tea at the crowded tables of a public café without taking thought of appearances.
In San Sebastian the sovereign is not the High and Mighty Señor Don AlfonsoXIII.of Bourbonand Austria, Catholic King of Spain, but rather is he ‘le chevalier Printemps,’ and the respect with which he is everywhere greeted is based as much in affection for his person as in deference to his exalted station. In all the festivities and social functions of the fashionable watering-place, His Majesty takes a prominent part; and although roulette is forbidden at the Casino while Royalty is at Miramar, no other restriction is imposed upon the gaiety of the town by the king’s presence. Don Alfonso is president of the Yacht Club and of the Horse Show; he distributes the athletic championship prizes, and is among the guns at every important shoot; the homely, merry festival of the Urumea would be incomplete without him; his attendance in the Avenida de la Libertad is as necessary as the sunshine to the Carnival of Flowers. The queen-mother’s handsome team of four Spanish mules is to be met with every day in the neighbouring country, and the king’s motor car is a familiar object of the landscape between San Sebastian and Biarritz. It was from San Sebastian that he motored to the bright little French town to make his formal request for the hand of Victoria Eugénie of Battenberg, and it was to Miramar that he brought his affianced bride topresent her to the queen-mother and the Spanish people.
If the Spanish coast had been searched from one end to the other, it would have been impossible to have found a more picturesque spot than the bay of San Sebastian, where the blue billows from the North Atlantic bring their long journey to an end on a stretch of the most golden sands in Europe. During the summer months the crested rollers, following one another with the regularity and precision of Highland regiments at the quickstep, sweep through the narrow channel between Santa Clara and Mount Orgullo, and, making the semicircle of the Concha, break their formation at the private landing-stage beneath the royal palace of Miramar, and fall out about the rocky base of Mount Igueldo. Seen from the royal yacht, theGiralda, which always lies in the bay when the royal family are in residence at Miramar, the town of San Sebastian lies in the base of a crescent, the horns of which are tipped with the old light tower at one extremity and the castle of La Mota at the other. Behind the town Mount Ulia raises its wooded height in the middle distance, and beyond it, as far as the eye can see, the white-capped sentinels of the Pyrenees complete the view. One can sipone’s chocolate on the terrace of the restaurant which crowns Mount Ulia, and gaze on San Sebastian spread out like a panorama in the valley, or watch the sunlight reflected from the white cliffs of France, or try to make out the sword-cut in the coast-line by which the tide flows, as through the neck of a bottle, into the inland sea, which laps the very door-steps of Pasajes and divides it into the two sections of San Juan and San Pedro. There are seasons when the Bay of Biscay is the incarnation of elemental fury, when the inviting natural harbour of San Sebastian is a death trap for any vessel that flies to it for shelter. When the south and south-west winds are blowing at the end of September, and the hurricane is driving the raging billows of the Atlantic before it; when even whales are caught by the stampeding waters and tossed like weeds on the sandy bosom of the Concha; when the roof of the Royal Nautical Club is swept by the waves, and the breakwater at the mouth of the Urumea crumbles before the ferocity of the gale; then is this north-east coast of Spainanathema maranathato those that go down to the sea in ships. But by the end of September, the holiday season in San Sebastian is over, and the holiday-makers are distributedover every country in Europe. The Court is removed to Madrid, the Palace of Miramar and the Casino are closed, theGiraldaseeks a surer anchorage, and the fishing-fleet is safely berthed in the land-locked harbours of Pasajes.
The construction of the Royal Palaces of Madrid absorbed over a quarter of a century, and a whole army of labourers were twenty years on the Escorial before it was ready for occupation by PhilipII.Five hundred men built the royal residence of Miramar in four years. Two architects collaborated in its construction—Mr. Selden Wornum, who laid down the general plan, and Señor Goicoa, who was in charge of the building operations and revised the plans as the work proceeded. The materials used, with the exception of some special tiles, which had to be brought from England, are Spanish, the marble and stone having been brought from the provinces of Guipuzcoa, Valladolid, and Burgos; the iron for the different stages from the ‘Altos Hornos’ and ‘Vizcaya’ factories of Bilbao, and the metal work from Eibar.
The real Casa de Campo de Miramar is composed of three departments: the palace, the offices, and the stables and coach-houses. The palace is a three-storied building, in the style ofan English country house. On the ground-floor, at the entrance, is a spacious central gallery, which extends nearly the whole length of the palace, dividing it into two parts. On the right are the king’s study, the library, the oratory, the reading-room and the dining-room, which is rectangular, and boasts a magnificent balcony. On the left are the hall, the official reception rooms, and the billiard-room. Between the study and the library is a large drawing-room. On the first floor are the apartments of the king and queen and the old playroom of his Majesty, all communicating with each other by a terrace which overlooks the sea and the garden. From the king’s room a tower is reached, which is surmounted by a flag-staff. The rooms occupied by the royal servants are on the upper floor. A long gallery connects the main building with the house in which are lodged the chief officials of the palace, and the stables, which are fashioned on the most modern English pattern, form a separate building.
Over the principal entrance are three beautifully carved shields: one with the arms of Spain, another with those of the king, and the third with those of the queen. In the construction of the palace, the chief considerations have beencomfort and convenience. Every most modern improvements, both scientific and æsthetic, have been employed to attain this end. The furniture is elegant, and harmonises perfectly with the decoration of the rooms; the tapestries, paintings, porcelains, all the objects of art, in fact, which are found there in great profusion, are in the most exquisite taste; while the park by which Miramar is surrounded is probably the best cultivated domain in the possession of the Crown. The telegraph links up the palace with the whole world; and the telephone connects it with the royal palace and the Government Offices at Madrid. At the extremity of the grounds of the Royal residence, which have been built over the road, and continued to the water’s edge, is the private landing-stage which his Majesty always uses in going to and from theGiralda. On most days during the San Sebastian season, the king is to be seen in the Bay, and he is always one of the most interested spectators of the races during the regatta week.
In a little volume of this kind, which is intended as an album and pictorial souvenir of the palaces of which it treats rather than an illustrated handbook, little attention has been given to the cities in which these royal residences aresituated, or the country by which they are surrounded. But a few lines may be added here about San Sebastian, which in most respects is different from other Spanish cities, even from the capitals of the other Basque provinces. San Sebastian is kept spotlessly clean, its municipal management is perfect, and its beggars are conspicuous by their absence. The modernity of the town is due to the firing of the place after the siege of 1813, when the only part that escaped was the bit of old town, situated near the littlePort des Pêcheurs, under the shadow of Mount Urgull. The broad, even, regular streets of the new town, which is bisected by the handsome Avenida de la Libertad, are flanked by splendid shops and hotels that would do credit to any European city. The whole place wears an aspect of smiling prosperity, and its life during the holiday season is one continuous round of hearty, innocent gaiety. Cricket, it must be admitted, has not yet been naturalised in Spain, and the golfer must cross the border to Biarritz to indulge in his favourite game, but every other sport that the average Englishman affects can be enjoyed here. The bathing from the beach is the best and safest in the world, and the lover of picturesque scenery has a paradise of variedlandscapes and sea pieces within walking distance of the town. There is lawn tennis in the new recreation grounds, and pelota matches, at one or other of the courts, are played daily; while, for those who care for bull fighting, there is acorridaevery Sunday afternoon during the season.
Thebeautiful Moorish palace of the Alcazar at Seville, unlike the more famous Alhambra of Granada, is still a royal palace, though only occasionally the residence of their Catholic Majesties. The upper floor, containing the royal apartments, is always kept ready for these illustrious tenants, and in consequence is rarely accessible by the tourist and sight-seer. The palace proper is one of a group of buildings known as the Alcazares, which is surrounded by an embattled wall, and includes several open spaces and numerous private dwellings. Immediately inside the wall are two squares called the Patio de las Banderas and Patio de la Monteria. At the far end of the former is the office of the governor of the palace, and to the right of this is an entrance whence a colonnaded passage called the Apeadero leads straightthrough to the gardens, or, by turning to the right, to the Patio del Leon. On one side this latter square communicates with the Patio de la Monteria; on the other side is the palace of the Alcazar itself. I hope this will make the rather puzzling topography of the place a little more intelligible.
Whether or not the Roman ‘Arx’ stood on this spot, as tradition avers, I cannot pretend to say. But there is no room for doubt that a palace stood here in the days of the Abbadite amirs, and that this building was restored and remodelled by the Almohades. To outward seeming the Alcazar is as Moorish a monument as the Alhambra. In reality, few traces remain of the palace raised by the Moslem rulers of either dynasty, and the present building was mainly the work of the Castilian kings—especially of Pedro the Cruel. But though built under and for a Christian monarch, it is practically certain that the architects were Moors and good Moslems, and that their instructions and intentions were to build a Moorish palace. Historically, you may say, the Alcazar is a Christian work; artistically, Mohammedan.
The actual palace occupies only a small part of the site of the older structures, and incorporatesbut a few fragments of their fabrics. Since Pedro the Cruel’s day, so many sovereigns have restored, remodelled, and added to the building, that it is far from being homogeneous, though we can hardly agree with Contreras that it is ‘far from being a monument of Oriental art.’
Pedro built more than one palace, or, more correctly, two or three wings of the same palace, in this enclosure. Traces of his Stucco Palace (Palacio del Yeso) remain. Pedro looms very large in the history of Seville. He plays the same part here as Harûn-al-Rashid in the story of Bagdad. He was fond of the Moors, and affected their costumes and customs. He also favoured the Jews, and was alleged by his enemies to be the changeling child of a Jewess. His treasurer and trusted adviser was an Israelite named Simuel Ben Levi. He served the king long and faithfully, till one day it was whispered that half the wealth that should fill the royal coffers had been diverted into his own. Ben Levi was seized without warning and placed on the rack, whereupon he expired, not of pain, but of sheer indignation. Under his house—so the story goes—was found a cavern in which were three piles of gold and silver, twice as high as a man. Pedro on beholding these was muchaffected. ‘Had Simuel surrendered a third of the least of these piles,’ he exclaimed, ‘he should have gone free. Why would he rather die than speak?’
Stories innumerable are told of this king, a good many, no doubt, being pure inventions. There is no reason to question the account of his treatment of Abu Saïd, the Moorish Sultan of Granada. This prince had usurped his throne, and being solicitous of Pedro’s alliance, came to visit him at the Alcazar with a magnificent retinue. The costliest presents were offered to the Castilian king, whose heart, however, was bent on possessing the superb ruby in the regalia of his guest. Before many hours had passed, the Moors were seized in their apartments and stripped of their raiment and valuables. Abu Saïd, ridiculously tricked out, was mounted on a donkey, and with thirty-six of his courtiers, hurried to a field outside the town, where they were bound to posts. A train of horsemen appeared, Don Pedro at their head, and transfixed the helpless men with darts, the king shouting, as he hurled his missiles at his luckless guest: ‘This for the treaty you made me conclude with Aragon! This for the castle you took from me!’ The ruby which had been thecause of the Moor’s death was presented by his murderer to the Black Prince, and now adorns the crown of England.
Nor did Pedro confine his fury to the sterner sex. Doña Urraca Osorio, because her son was concerned in Don Enrique’s uprising, was burned at the stake on the Alameda. Her faithful servant, Leonor Dávalos, seeing that the flames had consumed her mistress’s clothing, threw herself into the pyre to cover her nakedness, and was likewise burnt to ashes. Having conceived a passion for Doña Maria Coronel, the king caused the husband to be executed in the Torre del Oro. The widow, far from yielding to his entreaties and threats, took the veil and destroyed her beauty by means of vitriol. Pedro at once transferred his attentions to her sister, Doña Aldonza, and met with more success. If a chronicler is to be believed, he threw his brother Enrique’s young daughter naked to the lions, like some Christian virgin martyr. The generous (or possibly overfed) brutes refused the proffered prey, and the whimsical tyrant ever afterwards treated the maiden kindly. In memory of her experience, she was known as ‘Leonor de los Leones.’
Crossing the Plaza del Triunfo, which liesbetween the Cathedral and the old Moorish walls, we enter the Patio de las Banderas, so called either because a flag was hoisted here when the royal family was in residence, or on account of the trophy, composed of the arms of Spain with crossed flags, displayed over one of the arches. Pedro was accustomed to administer justice, tempered with ferocity, after the Oriental fashion, seated on a stone bench in a corner of this square. The surrounding private houses occupy the site of the old Palace of the Almohades, and one of the halls—the Sala de Justicia—is still visible. It is entered from the Patio de la Monteria. Contreras assigns an earlier date to this room even than the advent of Almohades. It is square, and measures nine metres across. The stucco ceiling is adorned with stars and wreaths, and bordered by a painted frieze. The decorations consist chiefly of inscriptions in Cufic characters. The right-angled apertures in the walls were closed either by screens of translucent stucco or by tapestries, ‘which must,’ says Gestoso y Perez, ‘have made the hall appear a miracle of wealth and splendour.’ It was in this hall, often overlooked by visitors, that Don Pedro overheard four judges discussing the division of a bribe they had received. The question wasabruptly solved by the division of the disputants’ heads and bodies. Thanks to its isolation, the Sala de Justicia escaped the dreadful ‘restoration’ effected in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Duc de Montpensier. The house No. 3, Patio de las Banderas, formed part, in the opinion of Gestoso y Perez, of the Palacio del Yeso, or Stucco Palace, of Don Pedro.
Passing through the colonnaded Apeadero, built by PhilipIII.in 1607, and once used as an armoury, we reach the Patio del Leon, where tournaments used to be held, and stand in front of the Palace of the Alcazar. The façade is gorgeous yet elegant, of a gaudiness that in this brilliant city of golden sunshine and white walls is not obtrusive. Yet, despite the Moorish character of the decoration, the Arabic capitals and pilasters, and the square entrance ‘in the Persian style,’ the front is not that of an eastern palace; and it is without surprise that we read over the portal, in quaint Gothic characters, the legend: ‘The most high, the most noble, the most powerful, and the most victorious Don Pedro, commanded these Palaces, these Alcazares, and these entrances to be made in the year (of Cæsar) 1402’ (1364). Elsewhere on the façade are the oft-repeated Cufic inscriptions: ‘There is no conqueror but Allah,’ ‘Glory to our lord the Sultan’ (Don Pedro), ‘Eternal glory to Allah,’ etc., etc.
This is a very different entrance from that of the Alhambra, the building on the model of which the Alcazar was undoubtedly planned. From the entrance a passage leads from your left to one extremity of the Patio de las Doncellas, the central and principal court of the palace. How this patio came to be so named I have never been able to ascertain. There is an absurd story to the effect that here were collected the girls fabled to have been sent by way of annual tribute by Mauregato to the Khalifa. Had such a transaction taken place, the tribute would have been payable, of course, at Cordova, not at Seville. Moreover this court was among the works executed in the fourteenth century.
The Alcazar strikes us (if we have come from Granada) as being on a much smaller scale than the Alhambra. It is very much better preserved, as it should be, seeing that it is a century younger; and if it vaguely strikes one as being fitter for the abode of a court favourite than of a monarch, it impresses one as being fresher, more elegant—in a word, more artistic—than the older building.
The Patio de las Doncellas is an oblong, and surrounded by an arcade of pointed and dentated arches which spring from the capitals of white marble columns placed in pairs. The middle arch on each side is higher than the others, and springs from oblong imposts resting on the twin columns and flanked by the miniature pillars characteristic of the Grenadine architecture. The spandrels are beautifully adorned with stucco work of the trellis pattern. On the frieze above runs a flowing scroll with Arabic inscriptions, among them being ‘Glory to our lord, the Sultan Don Pedro,’ and this very remarkable text: ‘There is but one God; He is eternal; He was not begotten and has never begotten, and He has no equal.’ This inscription, opposed to the tenets of Christianity, was evidently designed by a Moslem artificer, who relied (and safely relied) on the ignorance of his employers. The frieze is decorated also, at intervals, by the escutcheons of Don Pedro and of Ferdinand and Isabella, and by the well-known devices of CharlesV., the Pillars of Hercules with the motto ‘Plus Oultre.’ The inside of the arcade is ornamented with a high dado of glazed tile mosaic (azulejo), brilliantly coloured, and with the highly prized metallicglint. The combinations and variations of the designs are very ingenious and interesting. This decoration probably dates from Don Pedro’s time. Behind each central arch is a round-arched doorway, flanked by twin windows. These are framed in rich conventional ornamental work. Through little oblong windows above the doors light falls and illumines the ceilings of the apartments opening into the court. The ceiling of the arcade dates from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, but was restored in 1856. A deep cornice marks the division of the lower part of the court from the upper story, the front of which, with its white marble arches, columns and balustrades, was the work of Don Luis de Vega, a sixteenth-century architect.
Three recesses in the wall to the left of the entrance are pointed out as the audience closets of King Pedro; but they are much more likely to be walled-up entrances to formerly existing corridors and chambers behind.
The door facing this wall gives access to the Hall of the Ambassadors (Salon de los Embajadores), the finest apartment in this fairy palace. The doors are magnificent examples of inlay work, and were, according to the inscriptionon them, made by Moorish carpenters from Toledo in the year 1364. The hall is about thirty-three feet square, and exhibits a splendid combination of the various styles with the Gothic and Renaissance. The ornamentation is rich and elaborate almost beyond the possibility of description. The magnificent ‘half-orange’ ceiling of carved wood rests on a frieze decorated with the Tower and Lion. Then come Cufic inscriptions on a blue ground and ugly female heads of the sixteenth century. Then, below another band of decoration, is a row of fifty-six busts of the Kings of Spain, from Receswinto the Goth to PhilipIII.These date, at earliest, from the sixteenth century. The wrought-iron balconies were made by Francisco Lopez in 1592. The decoration of this splendid chamber is completed by a high dado of blue, white, and green ‘azulejos.’ It was in this hall that Abu Saïd is said to have been received by his treacherous host.
The Hall of the Ambassadors communicates on each side with the patio and adjoining halls by entrances composed of three horseshoe arches, supported by graceful pillars and enclosed in a circular arch.
Through the arch facing the entrance from thepatio we pass into a long narrow apartment, known as the Comedor, where the late Comtesse de Paris was born in 1848. To the north of the salon is a small square chamber, called the ‘Cuarto del Techo de Felipe Segundo,’ with a coffered ceiling dating from the time of that king. North of this room is the exquisite little Patio de las Muñecas (Court of the Dolls) purely Grenadine in treatment. The rounded arches are separated by cylindrical pillars—I call them so for want of a better word—which rest on slender columns of different colours, reminding one of the early or Cordovan style. The capitals are rich, the pillars they uphold decorated with vertical lines of Cufic inscriptions, many of which, says Contreras, are placed upside down. The walls and spandrels are tastefully adorned with stucco work of the trellis pattern, tiling and mosaic. This court, though still harmonious and beautiful, suffered rather than benefited by its restoration in 1843; but the architecture has been not unsuccessfully reproduced in the upper story.
This charming spot is by no means suggestive of deeds of blood and violence; yet, just as they point out the Salon de los Embajadores as the scene of the arrest of the Red Sultan by Don Pedro, so here do the guides place the scene ofthe murder of Don Fadrique by the truculent monarch—a fratricide to be avenged by another fratricide at Montiel. The Master of Santiago, to give the Don his usual title, after a successful campaign in Murcia, had been graciously received by his brother the king, and presently went to pay his respects in another part of the palace to the royal favourite, Maria de Padilla. It is said that she warned him of his impending fate; perhaps by her manner, if not by words, she tried to arouse in him a sense of danger, but the soldier prince returned to the king’s presence. With a shout, Pedro gave the fatal signal. ‘Kill the Master of Santiago!’ he cried. Guards fell upon the prince. His sword was entangled in his scarf, and he was butchered without mercy. His retainers fled in all directions, pursued by Pedro’s guards. One took refuge in Maria de Padilla’s own apartment, and tried to screen himself by holding her little daughter, Doña Beatriz, before him. Pedro tore the child away, and dispatched the unfortunate man with his own hand. The murder took place on May 19, 1358.
To the west of the court is a little room, elegantly decorated, and named after the Catholic Sovereigns, by whom it was restored. Their well-known devices appear, together with the Towersand Lions, among the decorations, which reveal the influence of the plateresque style. The north side of the patio is occupied by the Cuarto de los Principes, not to be confounded with a similarly named apartment on the floor above. At either end of this room is an arch, adorned with stucco work, admitting to a cabinet or alcove. That to the right has a fine artesonado ceiling, and that to the left is decorated in a species of Moorish plateresque style. An inscription states that the frieze was made in the year 1543 by Juan de Simancas, master carpenter.
East of the Patio de las Muñecas, and occupying the north side of the Patio de las Doncellas, is the long room called the Dormitorio de los Reyes Moros. All the apartments in the Alcazar are fancifully named, but the designation of none is quite so stupid and misleading as this. The columns of the twin windows on either side of the door appear to date from the time of the Khalifate. The doors themselves are richly inlaid and painted with geometrical patterns. The three horseshoe arches leading to theal hami, or alcove, also seem to belong to the early period of Spanish-Arabic art. The room is so richly decorated that scarce a handbreadth of the surface is free from ornament.
On the opposite side of the central court is the sumptuous Salon de CarlosV., the ceiling of which was constructed by order of the emperor, and is adorned with classical heads. The tile and stucco work is the finest in the palace. There is a legend to the effect that St. Ferdinand died in this room—on his knees, with a cord round his neck and a taper in his hand—but it is unlikely that this part of the palace existed in his time. The guide pointed out the room to the west of this salon as the chamber of Maria de Padilla, but this again is, to put it mildly, doubtful.
The upper chambers of the Alcazar, which are not accessible to the general public, are very handsome. The floor overlooking the Patio del Leon is occupied by the Sala del Principe, with its beautiful spring windows, polychrome tiling, and columns brought from the old Moorish Palace at Valencia. Adjacent is the Oratory, built by order of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1504. The tile work is of extraordinary beauty, and shows that the Moors had not a monopoly of talent in this kind of decoration. The fine Visitation over the altar is signed by Francesco Nicoloso the Italian. On the same floor is the reputed bed-chamber of Don Pedro. Over thedoor may be seen four death’s-heads, and over another entrance the curious figure of a man who looks back over his shoulder at a grinning skull. These gruesome designs commemorate the summary execution by the king of four judges whom he overheard discussing the division of a bribe. The royal apartments on this floor contain some precious works of art; but I abstain from mentioning the most remarkable of these, as pictures are so often transferred in Spain from one royal residence to another that such indications are often out of date before they are printed.
The gardens are really the most pleasing spot within the Alcazares. They form a delicious pleasaunce, where the orange and citron diffuse their fragrance, and magic fountains spring up suddenly beneath the passenger’s feet, sprinkling him with a cooling dew. I noticed some flower beds shaped like curiously formed crosses, which the gardener told me were the crosses of the orders of Calatrava, Santiago, Alcantara, and Montesa. You are also shown the baths of Maria de Padilla, which are approached through a gloomy arched entrance. In the favourite’s time they had no other roof than the sky, and no further protection from prying eyes than thatafforded by a screen of orange and lemon trees. In Mohammedan times the baths were probably used by the ladies of the harem.
The Alcazar, I think, disappoints most foreigners. The architectural and decorative work of the Spanish Moors and their descendants pleases people quite inexperienced in the arts by its mere prettiness, its brilliance, its originality, and its colour; and it delights still more those who are able to appreciate its marvellous combinations of geometrical forms, its exquisite epigraphy, and all its subtle details. But the average traveller stands between these two classes of observers. He looks for grandeur where he should expect only beauty, and his eye is wearied by the wealth of conventional ornamentation. What I think is conspicuously lacking in the Alcazar, and to a much less extent in the Alhambra, is atmosphere. Memories do not haunt you in these gilded halls. There is nothing about them to suggest that anything ever happened here. The legends tell us the contrary; but assuredly no one was ever less successful in impressing his personality on his abode than were the founders and inhabitants of the Alcazar.
ThePalacio Real, which towers high above the ‘most noble, loyal, imperial, crowned and heroic city’ of Madrid, dominating the bleak table-land, and reflecting in the rays of southern sunshine the gleaming whiteness of the distant, snow-capped Guadarramas, occupies a site which has been royal since the eleventh century. In 1466 an earthquake partially destroyed the Moorish Alcazar, and on the ruins HenryIV.constructed a palace of mediæval splendour, which was enlarged by CharlesV., embellished by PhilipII.and completed by PhilipIII., who added a façade—the joint work of Toledos, Herrera, Moras, Luis and Gaspar de Vega—which was acclaimed as a masterpiece of architecture. In the time of PhilipII., the palace is described as having five hundred rooms. On the ground-floor was the grand reception-room, an apartment 170 feet long, in which the ten state councillors heldtheir meetings. Behind the tapestry hangings the walls were lined with marble, and guards were stationed at the outer and inner portals. There was a theatre in the building, in which some of the great comedies of Philip’s reign were first produced, and in an adjoining saloon was held, in 1622, the famous Poetic Tournament of which Lope de Vega has left us such a sprightly account. The rooms were hung with the richest Flemish tapestries, the picture gallery was filled with priceless works of art, and the treasury of the king’s, theGuarda Joyas—that store of untold gold and silver, of jewels and precious stones—was contained in a carefully guarded suite of apartments. Gil Gonzalez Davila in hisTeatro de las Grandezas de Madridtells us that included in the royal treasure were a diamond valued at 200,000 ducats, a pearl as large as a nut—which is impressive but indefinite—calledLa Huerfana(the Orphan), because of its unique size, and a golden lily, which was recovered from the French by CharlesV., who made its return a condition in the agreement by which they obtained the deliverance of FrancisI.A maze of subterranean passages was constructed beneath the old palace, some of which exist beneath the present building.
On Christmas night, 1734, the Royal Palace of the Alcazar was on fire, and the building and all its treasures were utterly destroyed. This disaster afforded PhilipV.the opportunity to display his powers as a master builder. He had already created the Palace of San Ildefonso at La Granja, he had rebuilt the palace at Aranjuez, he had tinkered at the Alcazar at Seville. Now he would create a marble monument that should surpass the magnitude and magnificence of Philip the Second’s Escorial and outstrip in splendour the Versailles palace of LouisXIV.Such a work was beyond the art of the followers of Churriguera: he sent to the Court of Turin for the Abbé Felipe de Juvara, the Sicilian, and confided to him the scheme of the palace that he would raise on the heights of San Bernardino. It was to be a square edifice of the composite order, having four façades, each 1700 feet long, it was to contain twenty-three courts, approached by thirty-four entrances from the exterior, and be completed with gardens, churches, public offices, and a theatre. It was to be a collection of palaces under one roof, and the colossal model of the building, which is preserved in the Galeria Topografica of the Madrid Museum, conveys some idea of the marvel of architecture which the kingand his designer had conceived between them. But the palace on the San Bernardino hill was never begun. The ruling ambition of the masterful Elizabeth Farnese was to advance the interests of her children, and she begrudged the expense which the colossal building would entail. She raised so many difficulties and delayed so long the adoption of the plans that Juvara died of hope deferred, and Giovanoni Battista Saccheti came from Turin to carry on the work. The queen by this time had exhausted Philip’s resistance to her will, and Sacchetti’s less pretentious design, traced among the still smouldering ruins of the ancient Alcazar, was adopted on 7th April 1737.
A year later the first stone of the present palace was laid. The foundation-stone bore a commemorative description and enclosed a leaden casket, containing gold, silver, and copper coins from the mints of Madrid, Seville, Mexico, and Peru. The work of ensuring the solidity of the foundations by moulding them into the western slope of the hill cost an enormous sum of money, entailed an immense amount of labour, and occupied a proportionately extensive period of time. In 1808 the palace had cost 75,000,000 pesetas, and the subsequent alterations, which includedthe enclosing of the Campo del Moro with a wall and gilded railing, brought up the sum total to the enormous sum of over 100,000,000 pesetas. Philip died in 1746, long before the palace he had projected was near completion. The work went on through the thirteen years’ reign of PhilipVI., and when CharlesIII.came to Madrid in 1759 he recognised that unless the rate of progress was accelerated he would have to occupy the building at the Buen Retiro for the rest of his life. Under his resolute authority the work was pushed on with more vigour, and it was ready for his occupation on 1st December 1764. It had taken over a quarter of a century to build, it had cost Spain three millions sterling, but it gained the place that PhilipV.anticipated for it among the palaces of the world.
It has been said, and the statement is but slightly exaggerated, that our own Buckingham Palace looks shabby and insignificant beside this vast pile of shimmering, white masonry, this truly royal residence, this unique museum, which contains every variety of art treasures. The architecture selected is the unpoetical but imposing style of the late Renaissance, and the regularity of the exterior is redeemed from monotony by Ionic columns, pilasters, and balconies. Themassive building, 500 feet square and 100 feet in height, forms a huge quadrangle, enclosing a court, while two projecting wings form the Plaza de Armas. The base of the building, which is composed of three stories above the ground-floor, is of granite, and the upper portion is of the beautiful white stone of Colmenar, which gleams like marble. The lower portion is plain, massive, and severe, and the appearance of the third story is marred by the square port-holes of the entre-súelos. A wide cornice runs round the top, and above it a stone balustrade, on the pedestals of which stand rococo vases. In accordance with the first plans of the palace, the whole of this balustrade was surmounted by statues, but these were removed on account of their great weight, and are now scattered all over Madrid.
The principal entrance is in the south façade, but the palace is approached by five other grand entrances. The east side, which faces on to the Plaza de Oriente, is called ‘del Principe,’ from the fact that at one time it was always used by the royal family. On the eastern and southern sides the height of the edifice is more than doubled by reason of the uneven ground where it falls away to the river. The northern side faces the Guadarrama mountains, from which theicy winter blasts have frozen to death many unfortunate sentries on guard at the Puerta del Diamante. The main southern entrance leads into a huge patio, some 240 feet square, surrounded by an open portico, composed of thirty-six arches, surmounted by another row of arches, forming a gallery with glass windows. In this court are four large statues of Trajan, Hadrian, Honorius, and Theodosius, the four Roman emperors who were natives of Spain. The upper vaulting is decorated with allegorical frescoes, the work of Corrado Giaquinto, representing the Spanish monarchy offering homage to religion. The famous Grand Staircase, with its three flights of black and white marble steps,—each step a single slab of marble—and its celebrated lions, lead out of this court. Napoleon Bonaparte is reported to have said to his brother Joseph as the intrusive king made his first ascent of this superb staircase, ‘Vous serez mieux logé que moi.’ During the same historic tour of the palace the emperor laid his hand on one of the silver lions in the throne-room, and remarked to his brother, ‘Je la tiens enfin, cette Espagne si désirée.’
The ground area of the palace is divided into thirty salons, magnificently furnished and adorned with a profusion of precious marbles and frescopaintings by Ribera, Gonzalez, Velazquez, Maella, Mengs, Bayeu, and Lopez. It would be going outside the province of this sketch to describe each apartment in detail, but special reference must be made to the Hall of Ambassadors. This magnificent apartment, the largest and richest in the Palace, occupies the centre of the principal façade, in which it has five balconies. The whole apartment glows with rich colouring, and scintillates with a lavish display of precious metals. The rock-crystal chandeliers, colossal looking-glasses cast at San Ildefonso, the marble tables, the crimson, and the gilding compose a spectacle of royal magnificence. Here is the splendid throne of silver, made for the husband of Mary of England, and mounting guard on either side are the huge lions of the same metal. The ceiling, painted by Juan Bautista Tiépolo, represents the Spanish Monarchy, exalted by poetic beings, accompanied by the Virtues, and surrounded by its dominions in both hemispheres. On a throne, at the sides of which are Apollo and Minerva, the Monarchy is majestically seated, supported by the allegorical figures representing the science of Government, Peace and Justice and Virtue. Another group, on clouds, is formed by Abundance, Mercy, and other figures. Arainbow crosses the whole ceiling, and between this and the great circle of clouds circled by angels covering is the Monarchy. In the same salon is an allegory in praise of CharlesIII., which is formed by Magnanimity and Glory, Affability and Counsel. Faith, enthroned on clouds, has an altar of fire, and is accompanied by Hope, Charity, Prudence, Strength, and Victory; and an angel carries a chain with a medal to reward the Noble Arts. Between the cornice Tiépolo displayed his masterly hand by delineating the provinces of the Spanish Monarchy. Roberto Michel executed in the angles four gilded medallions, representing Water and Spring, Air and Summer, Fire and Autumn, and Earth and Winter. Over the doors are two ovals, one representing Abundance, and the other Merit and Virtue. All the walls of this regal hall are covered with crimson velvet bordered with gold. On the right is the statue of Prudence, on the left that of Justice, and in the two angles traced by the steps are four gilded bronze lions. Before the superb mirrors in this apartment are costly tables, and on these marble busts and other no less beautiful objects, the whole constituting the most beautiful room in the palace, and one of the first in Europe.
In these salons is the wonderful collection of French clocks which amused the unproductive leisure of FerdinandVII., who spent his time in a profitless endeavour to make them chime simultaneously. The glorious pictures, now in the Prado, that once adorned these walls were removed by FerdinandVII.to make room for his beloved silk hangings. At his death vaults and store-rooms were emptied of a forgotten accumulation of fine old furniture, and much portable treasure was removed from the palace. Much of this has vanished beyond recovery, but during the redecoration of the building for the reception of the king’s bride, AlfonsoXIII.was successful in recovering a number of splendid bronzes, clocks, and porcelain vases, which now adorn the principal apartments.
The Guard Room, occupied by the Royal Halberdiers, is at the head of the Royal Staircase, and opens into the enormous Hall of Columns. The columns which support the corner medallions are similar to those on the staircase, and the ceiling is painted by Conrado Giaquinto. The paving is of variegated marbles; the only decorations of the apartments are its medallions, its cornices of trophies, and its four great allegorical figures. For its impressiveness the room depends solely on its architectural merits andits simplicity, and forms a striking contrast to the other salons of the palace with their superb tapestries, upholstered furniture, brocades, and ornaments. The Banqueting Hall is of magnificent proportions, and the Ball Room, to the splendour of which all the arts and manufactures appear to have contributed, is the largest in Europe. The Chinese Room, the CharlesIII.Room, hung with blue brocade starred with silver, and the Giardini Room, which is upholstered in ivory satin, embroidered in gold and coloured flowers, and roofed with porcelain from the Buen Retiro factory, are among the many marvels of this marvellous palace.
The Royal Chapel, which was depleted in 1808 by General Belliard, who carried off the pictures painted for PhilipII.by Michael Coxis, is still splendid in its profusion of rich marbles, gilt, and stucco, and its beautiful ceiling painted by Giaquinto. Many of the exquisite altar-cloths and vestments were embroidered by Queen Cristina. Here also is an immensely valuable collection of fine ecclesiastical objects; and here at Epiphany, Easter, and Corpus Christi the galleries leading from the royal chapel are hung with the magnificent and unique tapestries which belong to the crown of Spain.
The private library of his Majesty is on theground-floor of the palace. It was formed by PhilipV.about 1714, and has since been increased by the acquisition of several notable collections, including those of the dean of Teruel, Counts Mansilla and Gondomar, and Judge Bruna of Seville. The manuscripts are for the most part from the extinct colleges. The king’s library, which occupies ten rooms and two passages, is composed of eighty thousand volumes in magnificent mahogany cases with beautiful glass from La Granja. Books issued prior to the sixteenth century, beautiful copies on vellum, very rare editions by Spanish printers, and rich bindings, make this library one of the most important in Europe. Among the illustrated missals is a prayer-book said to have belonged to Ferdinand and Isabella or their daughter, Juana la Loca, whose portrait it contains. The building is adorned with exquisite ornaments and the arms of Leon and Castile in enamel. The correspondence of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador in London during the reign of JamesI., is also to be seen here.
The general Archive of the crown of Spain was created in virtue of a royal decree of FerdinandVII., dated May 22, 1814. The organisation and classification of all the documents sincethe reign of CharlesI.until that of IsabellaII.were based on chronology; but AlfonsoXII.thought the classification of subjects more scientific, and the Keeper of the Archives has, since 1876, had the whole of the documents divided into four large sections, namely, administrative, juridical, historical, and according to their sources. This Archive also has a reference library composed of seven hundred volumes. At present the Archive of the Crown consists of thirty rooms, containing nearly ten thousand bundles of papers and two thousand volumes. The administrative documents date from 1479; the juridical ones from 1598; the historical from 1558; there being also some property deeds dating from the eleventh century relating to the celebrated monastery of El Escorial, founded by PhilipII., which from the paleographic point of view, and even from the historical, are of great interest.
The Royal Pharmacy, situated in the part of the palace known as Los Arcos Nuevos (the New Arches), has an origin which is closely bound up with the history of national pharmacy. In the beginning of the pharmaceutical profession, when it became a faculty, the Royal Pharmacy was the centre of the profession in all its phases. It contains a rich collection ofutensils of all periods, curious examples of pharmaceutical materials used in olden times, and a well-filled library, consisting of more than two thousand five hundred volumes.
The stables of the ancient Alcazar were situated in the space now occupied by the large Armoury Court; those of the present palace were built in the reign of CharlesIII., in accordance with the plans and under the direction of the notable architect, Francisco Sabatini. The plan of the edifice is an irregular polygon, the longest side of which, at the Cuesta de San Vicente, is nearly 700 feet in length. The principal façade is in the Calle Bailen, and is adorned by a simple granite portal, over which are the royal arms. This door leads to a fine court surrounded by arches, and on the west side is a small chapel, dedicated to St. Anthony, Abbot.
The principal part of these buildings consists in the large and magnificent galleries, sustained by double rows of pillars, which constitute the stables. These consist of a spacious stable for the horses used by royalty. There is another stable for Spanish horses, another for foreign horses and mares, and yet another for mules. More than three hundred animals can be accommodated in the stables. There are at present onehundred saddle-horses, all of which, with the exception of sixty foreign animals, come from the royal stud at Aranjuez.
The general harness-room is a large nave, consisting of three halls. Preserved in many cases are the magnificent sets of harness and saddles, the liveries of footmen and coachmen, crests, fly-traps, whips and ancient horse-cloths, bridles, and other curiosities. The Royal Riding School is built on one of the esplanades facing the Campo del Moro.
In order to form some idea of the size of the edifice, it may be mentioned that, besides the coach-houses, stables, harness-rooms, etc., there are apartments for the accommodation of the six hundred and thirty-seven people and their families who are employed in this department of the palace.
The Royal Coach-house is situated in the Campo del Moro. Its plan is a rectangular parallelogram, the longest sides of which are 278 feet in length, and the shortest 101 feet. This great coach-house was built in the time of FerdinandVII., after the design and under the direction of the architect Custodio Moreno, who gave to the exterior a simple and severe appearance. In this department are twentysplendid State carriages, which are only used on special occasions, among them being that of Juanathe Mad, restored a few years since, and one hundred and twenty-one carriages of all kinds and shapes for daily use.
Kings of three dynasties have made their homes in the Royal Palace of Madrid since the nineteenth century brought in with it so much havoc and disruption to Spain. The Bourbons, Joseph Buonaparte, and Amadeo of Savoy, each ‘abode his hour or two and went his way,’ and in 1873 and 1874 the palace windows looked out upon a city which for the first time since its foundation was the capital of a republic. Nearly all the culminating incidents in the stormy history which has been enacted in Spain since the abdication of CharlesIV.occurred in the Royal Palace. From this not too secure eminence Ferdinand the Desired saw his guards slaughtered by the frenzied mob. ‘Serve the fools right,’ he exclaimed; ‘at all events I am inviolable.’ But the king had a fit of terror when he found his palace was left without guards to protect it from the crowd, and Riego, the man he hated, was taken into favour, in order that he might appease the populace.
Through the terrible night of 7th October1841, when Generals Concha and Leon made their determined attempt to kidnap Queen Isabella and her little sister, the Infanta Maria Luisa, the valiant eighteen halberdiers of the guard, commanded by Colonel Dalee, held the grand staircase of the palace against an army of revolutionists until the National Militia arrived to relieve them. Truly that night the halberdiers wrote a magnificent page of fidelity in the records of the guards.
After a hopeless struggle to reduce Spanish affairs into something like order, Amadeo of Savoy issued from the Royal Palace his valedictory address to his people, and on the following day, 12th February 1873, he left Madrid, as he had entered it, a chevaliersans peur et sans reproche. In the same palace AlfonsoXIII.was born and baptized, from the palace he set out to the church of San Jeronimo to be married to Victoria Eugénie of Battenberg, and here was born and baptized the Prince of the Asturias, the heir to the throne of Spain.