The Story of Seville

CHAPTER XI

'The different provinces of Spain differ from each other in their architecture, as in their history; some of the buildings are purely Moorish, others have a mixture of that style…' J. H. Parker, The Study of Gothic Architecture.

IN order to appreciate the Andalusian character, it is essential that one should take into account the vast sway exerted by the Church in Spain. Devotion to piety has ever been one of the cardinal traits of the true Spaniard, and uncompromising faith in prelatical absolutism is considered one of the first virtues. In the long crusade against Saracen infidels, Arians, Jews, Protestants and apostates, men of high birth and wealth abandoned a life of ease to fight under the standard of Rome. To serve one's country as a priest or a soldier was the chief duty of the Christian.

The wars of the country were fought to preserve the traditional faith. As early as the seventeenth century, the clergy possessed more power in Spain than in any other European country; and the sovereigns were pledged to protect the faith. The bishops were the king-makers, the predominant rulers of the nation. During the forty years' reign of Carlos V., the main object of the State was to suppress heresy, and this had been the ambition of all the rulers since Fernando the Saint.

In the seventeenth century, the Church secured even greater power in temporal affairs; but this power began to wane when Florida Blanca, the new Minister, made a determined effort to lessen the dominance of the Church, in 1780. For diplomatic reasons, Blanca signed treaties with Turkey, Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis, thus exhibiting amity towards the very infidels, 'whom, in the opinion of the Spanish Church, it was the first duty of a Christian government to make war upon, and, if possible, to extirpate' (Buckle). The expulsion of the Jesuits was a part of the same policy. And now, for the first time for centuries, the secular authority gained supremacy over the spiritual class.

The cathedrals and churches of Spain remain as instructive monuments of the powerful religious fervour of the Middle Ages. They were built by men of profound faith, by devotees who were ready to die for their creeds. Those who endowed the buildings gave ungrudgingly; rich and poor were liberal in contributing the means, and clerics sometimes yielded half of their stipends to assist in the cost of beautifying the venerated piles. One and all, those who subsidised the labour, the architects, masons, artists and carvers, were inspired by a deep faith.

Such was the enthusiasm that produced the rich designs of rose windows like that of San Pedro in Avila, the doors of Toledo Cathedral, the marvellous architecture of Burgos Cathedral, and that of León and many other sacred buildings in the Peninsula. When surveying with delight these examples of æsthetic inspiration, we must remember that the artists worked not only to charm men, but to show reverence to their God. Every curve, tracery and adornment was conceived in a spirit of pious homage and of religious duty.

It is only when faith is enfeebled that we may observe the touch of indifference in the hand of the ecclesiastical builder and artist. There is nothing 'cheap,' nothing hasty, nothing paltry in the scheme and construction of the temples dedicated by mediæval believers to the worship of God and the Holy Virgin Mother. We may have outgrown the taste in certain forms of decoration, but the work will not strike us as ill-considered and commonplace. It stands as a testimony to the influence of faith and devotion upon the imagination and the artistic spirit.

If the modern churches of Spain disappoint us, we must remember that in these days men have, to a marked extent, lost that tenacity of belief, which once urged them to expend a great share of their wealth upon the founding of splendid houses of worship. 'The temples made by hands' are to-day less beautiful than those of the age when creed ranked before country, and was the absorbing subject and the profoundest conviction of the Spanish mind.

But the ancient cathedrals and churches endure as solemn memorials. Atmospheric influences do not cause crumbling and speedy decay in this land of dry winds and sunshine. The edifices were built to stand, and they have stood well the wear and tear of the centuries.

Most of the Seville churches exhibit the art itself, or at least the artistic influence, of the Moorish designer. The reconciled and converted Morisco had to live among his conquerors. Why should he not set his hand to the building of their temples? The Christians were pleased to borrow from his designs, to imitate his half-orange cupolas, his graceful arches, his glazed tiles, ribbon decorations and ajimez windows. Why should he refuse to design churches, and erect and adorn them, for the good pay that the Christians offered? The Mudéjares, or 'reconciled' Moors, became, therefore, the chief and most lavishly-remunerated artisans of Seville. In building the churches and mansions of the city, they no doubt experienced a compensation for their subjection in the thought that they were permitted to labour with a free hand, and to design and embellish sacred or secular buildings after the manner of their own nation. They had no faith to inspire them; the religion foisted upon them was repugnant to their consciences and minds. But they possessed a potent stimulus to good execution – the love of art for art's sake. This was their inspiration, and we may see its effect in many details of ecclesiastic architecture in the Sevillian churches.

San Marcos.– This church is of exceptional interest on account of its tower, a fine example of Morisco architecture, and its beautiful Mudéjar portal. The tower is in the minaret form, and was no doubt built in imitation of the Giralda, which it resembles in miniature. It is seventy-five feet in height, and ten feet wide, the loftiest tower in the city, except, of course, the stupendous Giralda, which is reared over all other edifices. The church is of Gothic design, and dates from 1478, though the much older tower and the chief portal are Arabian. The interior is not of much importance. It is said that the love-sick Miguel Cervantes used to ascend the tower of San Marcos to gaze around for one Isabel, a Sevillian beauty, who had entranced him. The church of San Marcos is approached from the Feria by the Calle de Castellar.

The Church of the Convent of Santa Paula is behind San Marcos, and within a few steps of that church. The azulejos covering the walls are fine examples of sixteenth-century workmanship from the potteries of Triana. The reliefs of saints on the Gothic portal of the nunnery are from the design of Pedro Millan, a famous sculptor, and are the work of Niculoso of Pisa. From the convent we may retrace our steps to San Marcos, turn to the right, and follow the Calle San Luis to

Santa Marina. The handsome Gothic portal of this church has some notable sculptures. It is said that the tower and the chapels are the remains of a mosque.

San Gil is on the left-hand side of San Luis, close to the Church of Santa Marina. It was originally a Moorish mezquita. The doorways are Gothic. The effigies of the Saviour and the Virgin within the church are attributed to Roldan, one of the pupils of Montañez.

Omnium Sanctorum is in the Plaza de la Feria. This church stands on the former site of a Roman temple, and it was built by Pedro the Cruel in 1356. It exhibits a mingling of Gothic and Mudéjar architecture. There are three naves and three doors. On the tower are some noteworthy frescoes. Francisco de Rioja, the poet, lived in this parish.

Santa Catalina is situated in the calle of that name. This church was also built on the ground once occupied by a Roman fane, and afterwards by a Mohommedan mosque. The façade is another instance of the survival of Moorish art, while the principal chapel is Gothic. Within are three remarkable paintings by Pedro de Campaña, a Flemish artist, who is claimed as one of the Sevillian school. These masterpieces of early Andalusian art are described in the chapter on the painters of Seville.

The inspection of these churches would fill a long day. But there are several more fine parroquias to be visited, for it must be remembered that the churches are the art museums of Spain, and no one can gain knowledge of the development of architecture, sculpture and painting in the country without spending a considerable portion of one's time in the dim, perfumed naves and chapels. The stranger will be impressed by the garish decoration of the interiors of many of the churches of Seville. Gilt is spread lavishly, and the effect is often tawdry. Some of the images are poor, especially in the modern churches, and one's taste is often shocked by their incongruity. The figures of the Virgin often lack dignity and beauty. But, as Mr. Henry James points out in his sketch 'From Normandy to the Pyrenees,' in Portraits of Places, those images of the Holy Mother are 'the sentiment of Spanish Catholicism' of modern times. They are, therefore, instructive from that point of view.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

San Isidoro is built upon the ground where a fine mosque once stood. It is stated that St. Isidore was born upon this spot or close to the church. Juan de las Roelas painted the Translation of San Isidoro for the principal altar. There are also pictures by Murillo, Valdés, and Tortolero, and a statue of Santa Catalina by Roldan the Elder.

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

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

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

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

The Convent Church of La Trinidad. The associations of the church are of considerable interest. In the time of the Roman rule in Seville, the palace, ecclesiastical court, and dungeons of a governor were built upon this ground. The church is dedicated to the saints of Seville, Justa and Rufina, the guardians of the Giralda. When the Romans conquered the Spaniards, they sought to convert the subject-people to the Pagan religion. Among the potters of Trajan's town, now known as the suburb of Triana, were two girls, both of great beauty, named Justa and Rufina. The maidens were renowned for their Christian piety. They refused to worship the Roman gods, and in their zeal they became iconoclasts. Their image-breaking brought them beneath the tribunal; they were sentenced to extreme punishment. The wretched victims were scourged, and forced to walk barefooted on the bleak mountains of the Sierra Morena. But this persecution failed to shatter their fervent devotion to Christianity. They continued to protest against the religion of the Romans. Justa was imprisoned and slowly starved to death, while Rufina was cast to the lions in the arena.

The portraits of the youthful saints have been painted by several of the Sevillian artists. Murillo's SS. Justa and Rufina is in the picture gallery at Seville. The treatment is conventional. The saints are holding a model of the Giralda in their hands, and the martyrs' palms. At their feet are broken crockery, showing the nature of their calling. To the left are the ruins of a building. The figures of the maidens are large, and halos surround their heads.

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

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

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

It is recorded that the martyrs incurred death for breaking a statue of Venus. Tradition is hazy concerning the place of their burial. In one account we learn that SS. Justa and Rufina were laid to rest in Burgos. Another historian assures us that they were buried in Seville, while a third story relates that their bones are in the mountainous Asturias, in the North of Spain.

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XII

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

We will first visit the Casa de los Taveras, in the Calle Bustos Tavera. The house is principally celebrated as the scene of the tribunal of the Inquisition from 1626 to 1639. In the corridors is a collection of family portraits.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is a few steps across the plaza to the Casa Lonja. This Renaissance edifice was erected in 1583. The Academy of Painters formerly held their councils in the Lonja. It is now a library, and a repository of archives relating to the Indies. The patio is fine, paved with marble, and surrounded by a double arcade. On the fountain is a statue of Columbus. A marble staircase, constructed in the time of Charles III., conducts the visitor to Achivo General de Indias.

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