in the alcazar, the high gallery of the Court of the Damsels, and those looking south over the gardens and over the baths of Doña Maria de Padilla. New habitations were then erected, which shone with the art of the Renaissance, intertwined with the Arab adornments of the style called “plateresco.” But the emperor did not confine himself to restoring, re-building, and to erecting fresh works in the old alcazar; nor were the above-mentioned architects the only ones who worked, but he also enlarged and embellished the gardens, and in that which is called the “Lion Garden,” he had built by a certain Juan Hernandez, in the year 1540, an elegant dining hall, of singular architecture—half Italian, half Moorish—which, without doubt, is a worthy dwelling place for a fairy princess of the days of chivalry. This supper hall, or pavilion, has a square plan, and measures ten steps in each frontage; a gallery of five arches surrounds it on each side, which rest on graceful pillars of the rarest marbles with capitals in the Moorish style. A frieze is seen, externally made of arabesques, forming ribbons, cutting each other at angles, and making stars; all the lower part is faced with blue tiles of Triana, with the outlines of the designs in bold relief. Inside there is another frieze in the “plateresque” style, cleverly perforated, and a socle of blue tiles with a border, in which shine the arms of Castile and the imperial eagles. In the centre rises a beautiful fountain with a white marble basin. A facia of blue tiles, in imitation of inlaid tile work, runs around, and between the work one can read the date of its construction and the abbreviated name of the artificer. The dome is of a decadent taste.
The wall which encloses these gardens to the west is decorated in the style called “vignolesque,” with stout pilasters, and a frontispiece of two bodies above the pond in the garden of the “Dance,” and light arches which form a long “loggia” of beautiful effect.
The works carried out under Philip III., and Philip V., and Ferdinand VI. are not worthy of close attention. They constructed the parts which face the gateway of the “banderas,” containing the “apeadero” and the “armeria.” The “apeadero” is a portico thirty-eight yards long and fifteen wide, with two rows of marble columns in pairs. The “armeria,” or armoury, is a spacious apartment above, destined for the object indicated by its name. The epoch of the construction of both is testified to by a stone set in the façade, which bears the following inscription: “Reigning in Spain Philip III., he erected this work in the year MDCVII.; Philip V. enlarged and repaired it, and destined it for the royal armoury in the year MDCCXXVIII.”
Ferdinand VI. only constructed the offices above the baths of Doña Maria de Padilla, repairing the damage caused by the terrible earthquake of 1755.
The greater part of the halls on the upper story looking on the gardens perished in the dreadful fire of 1762; and the Government doubtless fearing the expense which would be incurred by a regular restoration in the original style, ordered all the roofs and ceilings destroyed by the fire to be repaired in the “modern manner.” The unhappy result of this order was to make the ceiling of many of the apartments much too low, and to scrape away many of the ancient arabesques from the walls. In the year 1805 the unhappy idea was conceived of changing the principal entrance, and of white-washing with hideous lime the magnificent stucco work in the Princes’ Hall, and of other ancient apartments. The unfortunate reformation even went so far as to substitute a plaster ceiling, which makes one shudder, for the beautiful Arab bowl-shaped one, and
PLATE XXXIV.
