PLATE XLVIII.
Plaster Ornaments, used as Upright and Horizontal Bands enclosing Panels on the Walls.
some few scraps of Moorish inscription in the wood-work of a ruined wall still testify to the origin of the Casa de Munarriz. The alcazar, which was twice destroyed by fire, is represented by the façades, the three towers, the patio, and the enormous staircase—perhaps the only parts of the building that were not rebuilt by Charles Quint. The edifice commenced by that monarch, and completed by Philip II., was for long the most splendid and colossal palace in Spain. Staremberg’s troops destroyed the building by fire in 1710; and, a century later, the French troops fired the structure which Carlos III. had recomposed out of the ashes of Charles V.’s alcazar. The Casa de Mesa, the palace of Estevan de Illan, is reduced to a single chamber of exquisite Moorish workmanship; the remaining Moorish part of the Taller del Moro is used as a common workshop; the regal staircase of the alcazar, so wide that a whole army might march up its noble steps, ends in space.
As with the palaces of Toledo, so it is with its temples—the traces of Moorish art are nearly all defaced or obliterated. The mosque, which was replaced by the church of San Roman, possesses the purest mudejar steeple of Toledo, erected by Esteban de Illan, and another, if smaller, Moorish steeple, adorns the Santa Magdalena. A monument, which ranks among the most interesting in Spain, is the Cristo de la Luz, located between the Puerta del Sol and the Puerta Bisagra—a little gem of Moorish-Byzantine architecture, which is regarded as the oldest and most perfect specimen of its kind in the Peninsula. On the walls of this church, which remains to this day a perfect mosque, the conquering Alfonso VI. hung up his shield in 1035 to commemorate the first mass that was celebrated in Toledo after the defeat of the Moors. Until Tarik came to Toledo the mosque had been a Gothic temple, before which hung a cross, bearing an effigy of the crucified Christ. Legend declares that two impious Jews pricked the greatly-venerated body with a dagger, and that from the wound blood instantly gushed forth. The Jews, who attempted to evade the penalty of their folly by hiding the crucifix, were traced by the stains of blood to their house, and torn to pieces by the infuriated Christians. Tradition further asserts that the Jews planned a revenge by poisoning the feet of the restored statue, but that when a woman knelt before it the figure withdrew its foot from her kiss. Many other legends attach to the sacred relic, which was removed from before the church when the city was captured by the Moors, and secreted in a cavity in the wall, with a burning lamp placed before it. When the Moorish dominion came to an end, 370 years later, and the cavity was revealed, the unreplenished lamp was found to be still alight before the crucifix in the wall of the Moorish mosque. From this legend the church takes its name of the Christ of the Light.
This wonderful little monument, which is only twenty-two feet by twenty-five feet, possesses six short naves, which cross each other under nine vaults, and in the centre are four short, stout columns, surmounted by sculptured capitals, from which spring sixteen heavy horseshoe arches. This forest of naves and arches comprises a miniature reproduction of the mosque of Cordova. Arcades, cusped in Moorish fashion, and supported on shafts, pierce the walls; the inevitable “half orange” ceiling domes the centre, and above the principal arch is the shield of Alfonso VI., embellished with a white cross on a crimson ground, which the victorious king handed to Archbishop Bernardo to supply the place of a cross above the dismantled altar. This gem of Moorish-Byzantine architecture, so small yet so perfect,
ARAB FRAGMENT AT TARRAGONA.