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Palace Of The AlhambraPalace Of The Alhambra
Palace Of The Alhambra
To the traveller imbued with a feeling for the historical and poetical,
so inseparably intertwined in the annals of romantic Spain, the Alhambra is
as much an object of devotion as is the Caaba to all true Moslems. How many
legends and traditions, true and fabulous; how many songs and ballads,
Arabian and Spanish, of love and war and chivalry, are associated with this
oriental pile! It was the royal abode of the Moorish kings, where, surrounded
with the splendors and refinements of Asiatic luxury, they held dominion over
what they vaunted as a terrestrial paradise, and made their last stand for
empire in Spain. The royal palace forms but a part of a fortress, the walls of
which, studded with towers, stretch irregularly round the whole crest of a
hill, a spur of the Sierra Nevada or Snowy Mountains, and overlook the city;
externally it is a rude congregation of towers and battlements, with no
regularity of plan nor grace of architecture, and giving little promise of
the grace and beauty which prevail within.
In the time of the Moors the fortress was capable of containing within
its outward precincts an army of forty thousand men, and served occasionally
as a strong-hold of the sovereigns against their rebellious subjects. After
the kingdom had passed into the hands of the Christians, the Alhambra
continued to be a royal demesne, and was occasionally inhabited by the
Castilian monarchs. The emperor Charles V commenced a sumptuous palace
within its walls, but was deterred from completing it by repeated shocks of
earthquakes. The last royal residents were Philip V and his beautiful queen,
Elizabetta of Parma, early in the eighteenth century. Great preparations were
made for their reception. The palace and gardens were placed in a state of
repair, and a new suite of apartments erected, and decorated by artists
brought from Italy. The sojourn of the sovereigns was transient, and after
their departure the palace once more became desolate. Still the place was
maintained with some military state. The governor held it immediately from
the crown, its jurisdiction extended down into the suburbs of the city, and
was independent of the captain-general of Granada. A considerable garrison
was kept up, the governor had his apartments in the front of the old Moorish
palace, and never descended into Granada without some military parade. The
fortress, in fact, was a little town of itself, having several streets of
houses within its walls, together with a Franciscan convent and a parochial
church.
The desertion of the court, however, was a fatal blow to the Alhambra.
Its beautiful halls became desolate, and some of them fell to ruin; the
gardens were destroyed, and the fountains ceased to play. By degrees the
dwellings became filled with a loose and lawless population; contrabandistas,
who availed themselves of its independent jurisdiction to carry on a wide
and daring course of smuggling, and thieves and rogues of all sorts, who made
this their place of refuge whence they might depredate upon Granada and its
vicinity. The strong arm of government at length interfered; the whole
community was thoroughly sifted; none were suffered to remain but such as were
of honest character, and had legitimate right to a residence; the greater
part of the houses were demolished and a mere hamlet left, with the parochial
church and the Franciscan convent. During the recent troubles in Spain, when
Granada was in the hands of the French, the Alhambra was garrisoned by their
troops, and the palace was occasionally inhabited by the French commander.
With that enlightened taste which has ever distinguished the French nation in
their conquests, this monument of Moorish elegance and grandeur was rescued
from the absolute ruin and desolation that were overwhelming it. The roofs
were repaired, the saloons and galleries protected from the weather, the
gardens cultivated, the watercourses restored, the fountains once more made to
throw up their sparkling showers; and Spain may thank her invaders for having
preserved to her the most beautiful and interesting of her historical
monuments.
On the departure of the French they blew up several towers of the outer
wall, and left the fortifications scarcely tenable. Since that time the
military importance of the post is at an end. The garrison is a handful of
invalid soldiers, whose principal duty is to guard some of the outer towers,
which serve occasionally as a prison of state; and the governor, abandoning
the lofty hill of the Alhambra, resides in the centre of Granada, for the more
convenient dispatch of his official duties. I cannot conclude this brief
notice of the state of the fortress without bearing testimony to the
honorable exertions of its present commander, Don Francisco de Serna, who is
tasking all the limited resources at his command to put the palace in a state
of repair, and by his judicious precautions, has for some time arrested its
too certain decay. Had his predecessors discharged the duties of their station
with equal fidelity, the Alhambra might yet have remained in almost its
pristine beauty: were government to second him with means equal to his zeal,
this relic of it might still be preserved for many generations to adorn the
land, and attract the curious and enlightened of every clime.
Our first object of course, on the morning after our arrival, was a visit
to this time-honored edifice; it has been so often, however, and so minutely
described by travellers, that I shall not undertake to give a comprehensive
and elaborate account of it, but merely occasional sketches of parts with the
incidents and associations connected with them.
Leaving our posada, and traversing the renowned square of the
Vivarrambla, once the scene of Moorish jousts and tournaments, now a
crowded market-place, we proceeded along the Zacatin, the main street of what,
in the time of the Moors, was the Great Bazaar, and where small shops and
narrow alleys still retain the oriental character. Crossing an open place in
front of the palace of the captain-general, we ascended a confined and
winding street, the name of which reminded us of the chivalric days of
Granada. It is called the Calle or street of the Gomeres, from a Moorish
family famous in chronicle and song. This street led up to the Puerta de
las Granadas, a massive gateway of Grecian architecture, built by Charles V,
forming the entrance to the domains of the Alhambra.
At the gate were two or three ragged superannuated soldiers, dozing on a
stone bench, the successors of the Zegris and the Abencerrages; while a tall,
meagre varlet, whose rusty-brown cloak was evidently intended to conceal the
ragged state of his nether garments, was lounging in the sunshine and
gossiping with an ancient sentinel on duty. He joined us as we entered the
gate, and offered his services to show us the fortress.
I have a traveller`s dislike to officious ciceroni, and did not
altogether like the garb of the applicant.
"You are well acquainted with the place, I presume?"
"Ninguno mas; pues senor, soy hijo de la Alhambra." - ("Nobody better;
in fact, sir, I am a son of the Alhambra!")
The common Spaniards have certainly a most poetical way of expressing
themselves. "A son of the Alhambra!" - the appellation caught me at once; the
very tattered garb of my new acquaintance assumed a dignity in my eyes. It
was emblematic of the fortunes of the place, and befitted the progeny of a
ruin.
I put some farther questions to him, and found that his title was
legitimate. His family had lived in the fortress from generation to generation
ever since the time of the conquest. His name was Mateo Ximenes. "Then,
perhaps," said I, "you may be a descendant from the great Cardinal Ximenes?"
- "Dios sabe! God knows, senor! It may be so. We are the oldest family in
the Alhambra-Cristianos viejos, old Christians, without any taint of Moor or
Jew. I know we belong to some great family or other, but I forget whom. My
father knows all about it: he has the coat-of-arms hanging up in his cottage,
up in the fortress." - There is not any Spaniard, however poor, but has some
claim to high pedigree. The first title of this ragged worthy, however, had
completely captivated me, so I gladly accepted the services of the "son of
the Alhambra."
We now found ourselves in a deep narrow ravine, filled with beautiful
groves, with a steep avenue, and various footpaths winding through it,
bordered with stone seats, and ornamented with fountains. To our left, we
beheld the towers of the Alhambra beetling above us; to our right, on the
opposite side of the ravine, we were equally dominated by rival towers on a
rocky eminence. These, we were told, the Torres Vermejos, or vermilion towers,
so called from their ruddy hue. No one knows their origin. They are of a date
much anterior to the Alhambra: some suppose them to have been built by the
Romans; others, by some wandering colony of Phoenicians. Ascending the steep
and shady avenue, we arrived at the foot of a huge square Moorish tower,
forming a kind of barbican, through which passed the main entrance to the
fortress. Within the barbican was another group of veteran invalids, one
mounting guard at the portal, while the rest, wrapped in their tattered
cloaks, slept on the stone benches. This portal is called the Gate of Justice,
from the tribunal held within its porch during the Moslem domination, for the
immediate trial of petty causes: a custom common to the oriental nations,
and occasionally alluded to in the Sacred Scriptures. "Judge and officers
shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, and they shall judge the people with
just judgment."
The great vestibule, or porch of the gate, is formed by an immense
Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the
tower. On the keystone of this arch is engraven a gigantic hand. Within the
vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in like manner, a
gigantic key. Those who pretend to some knowledge of Mohammedan symbols,
affirm that the hand is the emblem of doctrine; the five fingers designating
the five principal commandments of the creed of Islam, fasting, pilgrimage,
almsgiving, ablution, and war against infidels. The key, say they, is the
emblem of the faith or of power; the key of Daoud or David, transmitted to the
prophet. "And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so
he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open."
(Isaiah xxii. 22) The key we are told was emblazoned on the standard of the
Moslems in opposition to the Christian emblem of the cross, when they subdued
Spain or Andalusia. It betokened the conguering power invested in the prophet.
"He that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth; and
shutteth and no man openeth." (Rev. iii. 7)
A different explanation of these emblems, however, was given by the
legitimate son of the Alhambra, and one more in unison with the notions of the
common people, who attach something of mystery and magic to every thing
Moorish, and have all kind of superstitions connected with this old Moslem
fortress. According to Mateo, it was a tradition handed down from the oldest
inhabitants, and which he had from his father and grandfather, that the hand
and key were magical devices on which the fate of the Alhambra depended. The
Moorish king who built it was a great magician, or, as some believed, had sold
himself to the devil, and had laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By
this means it had remained standing for several hundred years, in defiance of
storms and earthquakes, while almost all other buildings of the Moors had
fallen to ruin, and disappeared. This spell, the tradition went on to say,
would last until the hand on the outer arch should reach down and grasp the
key, when the whole pile would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures buried
beneath it by the Moors would be revealed.
Notwithstanding this ominous prediction, we ventured to pass through the
spell-bound gateway, feeling some little assurance against magic art in the
protection of the Virgin, a statue of whom we observed above the portal.
After passing through the barbican, we ascended a narrow lane, winding
between walls, and came on an open esplanade within the fortress, called the
Plaza de los Algibes, or Place of the Cisterns, from great reservoirs which
undermine it, cut in the living rock by the Moors to receive the water brought
by conduits from the Darro, for the supply of the fortress. Here, also, is a
well of immense depth, furnishing the purest and coldest of water; another
monument of the delicate taste of the Moors, who were indefatigable in their
exertions to obtain that element in its crystal purity.
In front of this esplanade is the splendid pile commenced by Charles V,
and intended, it is said, to eclipse the residence of the Moorish kings. Much
of the oriental edifice intended for the winter season was demolished to make
way for this massive pile. The grand entrance was blocked up; so that the
present entrance to the Moorish palace is through a simple and almost humble
portal in a corner. With all the massive grandeur and architectural merit of
the palace of Charles V, we regarded it as an arrogant intruder, and passing
by it with a feeling almost of scorn, rang at the Moslem portal.
While waiting for admittance, our self-imposed cicerone, Mateo Ximenes,
informed us that the royal palace was intrusted to the care of a worthy old
maiden dame called Dona Antonia-Molina, but who, according to Spanish custom,
went by the more neighborly appellation of Tia Antonia (Aunt Antonia), who
maintained the Moorish halls and gardens in order and showed them to
strangers. While we were talking, the door was opened by a plump little
black-eyed Andalusian damsel, whom Mateo addressed as Dolores, but who from
her bright looks and cheerful disposition evidently merited a merrier name.
Mateo informed me in a whisper that she was the niece of Tia Antonia, and I
found she was the good fairy who was to conduct us through the enchanted
palace. Under her guidance we crossed the threshold, and were at once
transported, as if by magic wand, into other times and an oriental realm,
and were treading the scenes of Arabian story. Nothing could be in greater
contrast than the unpromising exterior of the pile with the scene now before
us.
We found ourselves in a vast patio or court one hundred and fifty feet in
length, and upwards of eighty feet in breadth, paved with white marble, and
decorated at each end with light Moorish peristyles, one of which supported
an elegant gallery of fretted architecture. Along the mouldings of the
cornices and on various parts of the walls were escutcheons and ciphers, and
cufic and Arabic characters in high relief, repeating the pious mottoes of the
Moslem monarchs, the builders of the Alhambra, or extolling their grandeur and
munificence. Along the centre of the court extended an immense basin or tank
(estanque) a hundred and twenty-four feet in length, twenty-seven in breadth,
and five in depth, receiving its water from two marble vases. Hence it is
called the Court of the Alberca (from al Beerkah, the Arabic for a pond or
tank). Great numbers of gold-fish were to be seen gleaming through the waters
of the basin, and it was bordered by hedges of roses.
[See Court Of Lions]
[See Spanish Gypsy]
Passing from the Court of the Alberca under a Moorish archway, we
entered the renowned Court of Lions. No part of the edifice gives a more
complete idea of its original beauty than this, for none has suffered so
little from the ravages of time. In the centre stands the fountain famous in
song and story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops; the
twelve lions which support them, and give the court its name, still cast forth
crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The lions, however, are unworthy of
their fame, being of miserable sculpture, the work probably of some Christian
captive. The court is laid out in flower-beds, instead of its ancient and
appropriate pavement of tiles or marble; the alteration, an instance of bad
taste, was made by the French when in possession of Granada. Round the four
sides of the court are light Arabian arcades of open filigree work supported
by slender pillars of white marble, which it is supposed were originally
gilded. The architecture, like that in most parts of the interior of the
palace, is characterized by elegance, rather than grandeur, bespeaking a
delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When one
looks upon the fairy traces of the peristyles, and the apparently fragile
fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much has survived
the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes, the violence of
war, and the quiet, though no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful
traveller; it is almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition that the
whole is protected by a magic charm.
On one side of the court a rich portal opens into the Hall of the
Abencerrages; so called from the gallant cavaliers of that illustrious line
who were here perfidiously massacred. There are some who doubt the whole
story, but our humble cicerone Mateo pointed out the very wicket of the portal
through which they were introduced one by one into the Court of Lions, and the
white marble fountain in the centre of the hall beside which they were
beheaded. He showed us also certain broad ruddy stains on the pavement, traces
of their blood, which, according to popular belief, can never be effaced.
Finding we listened to him apparently with easy faith, he added, that
there was often heard at night, in the Court of Lions, a low confused sound,
resembling the murmuring of a multitude; and now and then a faint tinkling,
like the distant clank of chains. These sounds were made by the spirits of the
murdered Abencerrages, who nightly haunt the scene of their suffering and
invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer.
The sounds in question had no doubt been produced, as I had afterwards an
opportunity of ascertaining, by the bubbling currents and tinkling falls of
water conducted under the pavement through pipes and channels to supply the
fountains; but I was too considerate to intimate such an idea to the humble
chronicler of the Alhambra.
Encouraged by my easy credulity, Mateo gave me the following as an
undoubted fact, which he had from his grandfather:
There was once an invalid soldier, who had charge of the Alhambra to show
it to strangers: as he was one evening, about twilight, passing through the
Court of Lions, he heard footsteps on the Hall of the Abencerrages; supposing
some strangers to be lingering there, he advanced to attend upon them, when
to his astonishment he beheld four Moors richly dressed, with gilded
cuirasses and cimeters, and poniards glittering with precious stones. They
were walking to and fro, with solemn pace, but paused and beckoned to him. The
old soldier, however, took to flight, and could never afterwards be prevailed
upon to enter the Alhambra. Thus it is that men sometimes turn their backs
upon fortune; for it is the firm opinion of Mateo, that the Moors intended to
reveal the place where their treasures lay buried. A successor to the invalid
soldier was more knowing; he came to the Alhambra poor; but at the end of a
year went off to Malaga, bought houses, set up a carriage, and still lives
there one of the richest as well as oldest men of the place; all which, Mateo
sagely surmised, was in cosequence of his finding out the golden secret of
these phantom Moors.
I now perceived I had made an invaluable acquaintance in this son of the
Alhambra, one who knew all the apocryphal history of the place, and firmly
believed in it, and whose memory was stuffed with a kind of knowledge for
which I have a lurking fancy, but which is too apt to be considered rubbish by
less indulgent philosophers. I determined to cultivate the acquaintance of
this learned Theban.
Immediately opposite the Hall of the Abencerrages a portal, richly
adorned, leads into a hall of less tragical associations. It is light and
lofty, exquisitely graceful in its architecture, paved with white marble, and
bears the suggestive name of the Hall of the Two Sisters. Some destroy the
romance of the name by attributing it to two enormous slabs of alabaster which
lie side by side, and form a great part of the pavement; an opinion strongly
supported by Mateo Ximenes. Others are disposed to give the name a more
poetical significance, as the vague memorial of Moorish beauties who once
graced this hall, which was evidently a part of the royal harem. This opinion
I was happy to find entertained by our little bright-eyed guide, Dolores, who
pointed to a balcony over an inner porch, which gallery, she had been told,
belonged to the women`s apartment. "You see, senor," said she, "it is all
grated and latticed, like the gallery in a convent chapel where the nuns hear
mass; for the Moorish kings," added she, indignantly, "shut up their wives
just like nuns."
[See Hall Of Two Sisters]
The latticed "jalousies," in fact, still remain, whence the dark-eyed
beauties of the harem might gaze unseen upon the zambras and other dances and
entertainments of the hall below.
On each side of this hall are recesses or alcoves for ottomans and
couches, on which the voluptuous lords of the Alhambra indulged in that dreamy
repose so dear to the Orientalists. A cupola or lantern admits a tempered
light from above and a free circulation of air; while on one side is heard the
refreshing sound of waters from the fountain of the lions, and on the other
side the soft plash from the basin in the garden of Lindaraxa.
It is impossible to contemplate this scene so perfectly Oriental without
feeling the early associations of Arabian romance, and almost expecting to see
the white arm of some mysterious princess beckoning from the gallery, or some
dark eye sparkling through the lattice. The abode of beauty is here, as if it
had been inhabited but yesterday; but where are the two sisters; where the
Zoraydas and Lindaraxas!
An abundant supply of water, brought from the mountains by old Moorish
aqueducts, circulates throughout the palace, supplying its baths and
fishpools, sparkling in jets within its halls, or murmuring in channels along
the marble pavements. When it has paid its tribute to the royal pile, and
visited its gardens and parterres, it flows down the long avenue leading to
the city, tinkling in rills, gushing in fountains, and maintaining a perpetual
verdure in those groves that embower and beautify the whole hill of the
Alhambra.
Those only who have sojourned in the ardent climates of the South, can
appreciate the delights of an abode, combining the breezy coolness of the
mountain with the freshness and verdure of the valley. While the city below
pants with the noontide heat, and the parched Vega trembles to the eye, the
delicate airs from the Sierra Nevada play through these lofty halls, bringing
with them the sweetness of the surrounding gardens. Every thing invites to
that indolent repose, the bliss of southern climes; and while the half-shut
eye looks out from shaded balconies upon the glittering landscape, the ear is
lulled by the rustling of groves, and the murmur of running streams.
I forbear for the present, however, to describe the other delightful
apartments of the palace. My object is merely to give the reader a general
introduction into an abode where, if so disposed, he may linger and loiter
with me day by day until we gradually become familiar with all its localities.
Note On Morisco Architecture
To an unpracticed eye the light relievos and fanciful arabesques which
cover the walls of they Alhambra appear to have been sculptured by the hand,
with a minute and patient labor, an inexhaustible variety of detail, yet a
general uniformity and harmony of design truly astonishing; and this may
especially be said of the vaults and cupolas, which are wrought like
honey-combs, or frostwork, with stalactites and pendants which confound the
beholder with the seeming intricacy of their patterns. The astonishment
ceases, however, when it is discovered that this is all stucco-work: plates of
plaster of Paris, cast in moulds and skilfully joined so as to form patterns
of every size and form. This mode of diapering walls with arabesques and
stuccoing the vaults with grotto-work, was invented in Damascus, but highly
improved by the Moors in Morocco, to whom Saracenic architecture owes its most
graceful and fanciful details. The process by which all this fairy tracery was
produced was ingeniously simple: The wall in its naked state was divided off
by lines crossing at right angles, such as artists use in copying a picture;
over these were drawn a succession of intersecting segments of circles. By the
aid of these the artists could work with celerity and certainty, and from the
mere intersection of the plain and curved lines arose the interminable variety
of patterns and the general uniformity of their character.
Much gilding was used in the stucco-work, especially of the cupolas: and
the interstices were delicately pencilled with brilliant colors, such as
vermilion and lapis lazuli, laid on with the whites of eggs. The primitive
colors alone were used, says Ford, by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Arabs, in the
early period of art; and they prevail in the Alhambra whenever the artist has
been Arabic or Moorish. It is remarkable how much of their original brilliancy
remains after the lapse of several centuries.
The lower part of the walls in the saloons, to the height of several
feet, is incrusted with glazed tiles, joined like the plates of stucco-work,
so as to form various patterns. On some of them are emblazoned the escutcheons
of the Moslem kings, traversed with a band and motto. These glazed tiles
(azulejos in Spanish, az-zulaj in Arabic) are of Oriental origin; their
coolness, cleanliness, and freedom from vermin, render them admirably fitted
in sultry climates for paving halls and fountains, incrusting bathing rooms,
and lining the walls of chambers. Ford is inclined to give them great
antiquity. From their prevailing colors, sapphire and blue, he deduces that
they may have formed the kind of pavements alluded to in the sacred
Scriptures- "There was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire
stone" (Exod. xxiv. 10); and again, "Behold I will lay thy stones with fair
colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires." (Isaiah liv. 11.)
These glazed or porcelain tiles were introduced into Spain at an early
date by the Moslems. Some are to be seen among the Moorish ruins which have
been there upwards of eight centuries. Manufactures of them still exist in the
peninsula, and they are much used in the best Spanish houses, especially in
the southern provinces, for paving and lining the summer apartments.
The Spaniards introduced them into the Netherlands when they had
possession of that country. The people of Holland adopted them with avidity,
as wonderfully suited to their passion for household cleanliness; and thus
these Oriental inventions, the azulejos of the Spanish, the az-zulaj of the
Arabs, have come to be commonly known as Dutch tiles.
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