The Collegio Real of Tortosa is in the best Plateresque style. The cloister is formed by three tiers of galleries, the columns and balconies being adorned with medallions and escutcheons. The original building belonged till the year 1528 to the Dominicans and was then reconstructed by order of Carlos I. with a view to serving as a seminary for Moorish converts. The College is now a barracks.
The Convent of Santa Clara, dating from the thirteenth century and restored by order of Jaime II. of Aragon, is another precious memorial of Tortosa’s more prosperous days.
THE BALEARIC ISLANDS
The Balearic archipelago no longer deserves the name of the Forgotten Isles bestowed upon it a dozen years ago by a French traveller. Much has since been written about the islands in our own and other languages, and yachtsmen often put in at what the Genoese Admiral classed with June, July and August, as one of the four best harbours in the Mediterranean. But the influx of tourists has not been large, and the isles run no immediate risk of losing their marked local characteristics. The remote past keeps a firm grip on Mallorca and Menorca; as in Egypt, you never cease to feel dead stony eyes are staring at you across thousand-year-long vistas. In the aisles the monuments of antiquity belong to the very dawn of human history, appearing almost the works of nature, even as those who reared them seem hardly to have emerged into full manhood. At every turn, as in Sardinia, you are met by the rude handiwork of that primitive Mediterranean race, which passed away in the struggle between Latins, Greeks and Semites. Every one knows now that the word Balearic is derived from a Greek word meaning to throw, and that it refers to the extraordinary dexterity of the natives in the use of the sling. This was their national weapon, their sole means of attack and defence. In summer, as their only clothing, each man wore three slings—one round his head, one round his loins, and one at his wrist. To train their children in its use, the mothers, we are told, would not let them have their bread or meat till they had brought it down from a bough or ledge by means of the sling.
Of all their dexterity they had need when strange men with black curling beards and dark stern faces—men that they had never seen—came sailing into their harbours and tempted them down from their perches with a display of bright rare stuffs and gewgaws. Poor simple white savages, it is likely enough that they had thought themselves till then the only men in the world. Then came the attempts of the Phœnicians to enslave and to subdue them, and wildly the islanders fought for their freedom, knowing as little as the creatures of the jungle do of the forces arrayed against them. The wild birds were netted at last. In the sixth century before Christ, the Carthaginians were masters of the archipelago, and dragged the slingers off to serve in their armies. Mago, a Punic leader, gave his name to Puerto Mahon. Then came a time when the natives felt the grasp of the Semites relax. Their power had been crushed by the Romans and the islands enjoyed a brief interval of liberty. But in the year 123 B.C., the conquerors of Carthage remembered their neglected heritage, and sent Cecilius Metellas to take possession. He founded the cities of Palma and Pollensa, which still retain their Latin names, and brought with him some thousands of Italian and Spanish colonists, who soon tamed the wildness of the aborigines. Thence onward for centuries the archipelago prospered quietly, safe beneath the outspread wings of the Roman eagle. Upon the break-up of the empire it passed through various hands to the Visigoths, to be wrested from them in the eighth century by the Arabs. Under this new dominion the islands became a nest of pirates, who ultimately founded a kingdom embracing parts of the Spanish mainland and of Sardinia. The depredations of the Balearic Moors excited the anger of Christendom, and Pope Pascual II. preached a crusade against them. Constituting themselves the ministers of Europe’s vengeance, the Pisans and Catalans inflicted a severe punishment on the Pirates and sacked the rich city of Palma. Over a hundred years later, in 1227, Don Jaime I. of Aragon reduced the whole group of islands in a memorable campaign, and annexed them finally to Christendom. The conqueror constituted his new possessions into a kingdom for his second son and namesake, from whose grandson, Jaime II., they were taken by Pedro IV. in the year 1347 and incorporated with the kingdom of Aragon.
But history had not yet done with the islands. The old rancour between the peasantry and the nobles came to a head at the beginning of the sixteenth century, in the war of the Germania or brotherhood. The viceroy took refuge in the Citadel of Ibiza, while the nobles defended themselves in the castle of Alcadia against the desperate attacks of the peasantry led by Juan Colom. The arrival of a royal squadron commanded by Don Juan de Valesco led to the extinction of the revolt. Ruled by Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors, the islands excited the cupidity of another race of conquerors. Seized by the English in 1708, Menorca remained in their possession till 1781, when it was retaken by the French and Spaniards. The failure to relieve the garrison cost Admiral Byng his life. We again took possession of the island in 1793 to surrender it finally to Spain at the peace of Amiens nine years later.
Mallorca (it is as easy to call it by its proper name as by its variant Majorca) is the largest and most beautiful of the islands. Towards the north and south-west it presents an iron-bound wall of rock to the turbulent waters of the Catalan seas; on the south the plain stretches to the shore, and here we find the little harbour of Santa Ponza, at which the conqueror Jaime I. disembarked his army on September 10, 1229.
Hard by is the estate of Ben Dinat, so named, it is averred, because the conqueror expressed in those two words his satisfaction with a meal of bread and garlic served him at this spot. It is more probable that the name is that of some long-forgotten Moor. Then comes the little harbour and tower of Portopi and round the next promontory the lovely bay of Palma, with the capital of the Balearics smiling a welcome to the stranger. The walls that once surrounded the city have been demolished: the turrets that rise above the house-tops are those of the Cathedral and the Exchange (Lonja). We enter the town through the Water Gate, a building not without majesty, and crowned by a statue of the Blessed Virgin. The streets, as in most Spanish towns, are narrow and shady, often rewarding the curiosity of the passer-by with glimpses of Renaissance patios, graceful balconies, and turret windows. Among the most interesting houses of the Butifarras (big sausages), as the nobility of the island used to be called, are the Casa de Vivot and the palace of the Counts of Montenegro. But Palma is a living city, and side by side with these dignified memories of the past we find handsome modern buildings such as the Bank of Spain and the Hall of Provincial Deputation. Nor does Palma want for wide breathing-spaces and promenades. It has the fine Paseo del Borne and the Boulevards constructed round the bay and on the site of the old fortifications. Close to the landing-stage the new-comer’s attention is first attracted by the Exchange or Lonja. Charles V. on visiting the island for the first time hastened at once to see it, eagerly demanding if it belonged to the Church or to the State, and was visibly relieved on hearing that it was a civil edifice. The Lonja is a quadrangular building, surmounted by a crenellated balustrade and flanked at each angle with an octagonal tower of six stages, one of these rising above the balustrade. The walls are strengthened with graceful pilasters, and pierced in their lower story by ogival windows with good traceries. The door is square and enclosed within an ogival arch. The interior forms a single great hall, the roof of which is supported by only four slender fluted columns, from which the arches spring like palm branches. This interesting building was designed and begun by Antonio Sagrera in the year 1426. Like the numerous other Spanish Lonjas, it has long been deserted by the mercantile community.
The cathedral towers above the whole city and is one of the most important churches in the kingdom. The name of the architect is unknown, but the foundations were laid by order of Jaime the Conqueror soon after he had annexed the island. The plan is rectangular, the walls supported by massive flying buttresses, surmounted with pinnacles and turrets. The south front is the finest and is pierced by the beautiful Puerta del Mirador, in florid Gothic style, the work of Pedro Morey, who died in 1394. The west porch is an elaborate work, finished in 1601. On the north side is the noble square bell-tower.
The interior is remarkable for the enormous span of the nave, the widest in Spain. It rises to a height of 147 feet and is sustained by relatively slender columns. The nave terminates in the beautiful Capilla Real, founded in 1282, wherein is the modest tomb of the last King of Mallorca. The wooden gallery running round the wall is strongly suggestive of Saracenic influence. Opening into this chapel are the Capillas de Santa Eulalia, containing a Gothic altar and the tomb of a Bishop of Palma, and San Mateo, in which ends one of the aisles. In the chapel of St. Jerome is the fine tomb of the Marques de la Romana, who did such good service to Spain by bringing from Denmark the Spanish troops in Napoleon’s service. Another notable sepulchre is that of Bishop Gil Sancho Munoz, successor elect to Pope Benedict XIII. (1447). The choir is in decadent Gothic style, but the carving is very good and reveals imagination and fertility of resource on the part of the artist. The statues of St. Bruno and St. John were brought here from the chapter-house of Valledemosa. The old Moorish palace of Almudaina, adjacent to the cathedral, is the residence of the Captain-General and seat of the High Court. It is provided with a chapel built by Jaime II.