The King Don Pedro fills with his grand sinister figure the apartments which he occupied, and even those added by later monarchs, just as the whole gloomy pile of the Escurial seems to be haunted by the ambiguous personality of Philip II. Sad privilege of despots; the terror which they inspire in life, survives them, freezing the smile of happiness on the lips of generations, who are free from their malevolent actions, even in the very chambers which they dedicate to their pleasures.
The architecture of the Court of the Dolls is purely in the style of Granada. The surface of the arches is covered with minute mosaic work, and they rest upon beautiful brick pillars, sustained by marble columns with delicate capitals, while the double partitions, covered with perforated work, are of brick, wood, and stucco. Delicate tints cover the ornamentation with a beautiful veil, which is like a lovely Persian tapestry. This court is a rectangle with unequal sides; there is a great arch in those looking towards the Hall of Ambassadors, somewhat pear-shaped, between two smaller arches of the same form; in the other two sides there is a large arch and a smaller one, all resting upon graceful columns of different colours, in the capitals of which (believed to belong to the primitive epoch, on account of their resemblance with those of the primitive part of the Mosque of Cordova) there is a freshness and delicacy of line which holds the imagination captive. The
SEVILLE
ALCAZAR—INTERIOR OF THE COURT OF THE VIRGINS, MOORISH STYLE, BUILT 1369—1379.
