In connection with the American traffic of Seville it should be mentioned that in the village of Castilleja la Cuesta, near the city, is the house where Hernando Cortés died in 1547. The place has been acquired by the Duc de Montpensier, by whom it has been converted into a sort of museum. The Conquistador’s bones rest in the country which, with such intrepidity, he won for the Spanish race.
The Civil Hospital of Seville, otherwise known by the ghastly designation of the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas or del Sangre (of the Five Wounds or of the Blood), was designed in 1540 by Martin Gainza. It is a massive stone edifice of two storeys, the lower Doric and the upper Ionic. In the central patio is the chapel in the form of a Greek cross, the façade exhibiting a tasteful combination of the three Grecian styles. The altarpiece is by Maeda and Alonzo Vazquez. The pictures of saints are by Zurbarán, and the “Apotheosis of St Hermenegild” and the “Descent from the Cross” by Roelas.
BUILDINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
About the middle of the seventeenth century there lived at Seville a young gallant, Don Miguel de Mañara by name, whose excesses and escapades horrified even that lax generation. Marriage with the heiress of the Mendozas did not sober him. Of him, at this period of his life, this much good may be said, that he patronised and encouraged Murillo. But one day something happened: quite suddenly the rake changed into a devotee, an ascetic—a saint in the seventeenth-century acceptation of the word. The wine-bibber forswore even chocolate as too tempting a beverage.
What had happened to produce this startling reformation? Accounts vary. Some say that Don Miguel, traversing the streets in insensate rage against some custom-house officials, was suddenly and vividly made conscious of the enormous wickedness of his life. A more picturesque version is the following: Returning from a carousal one night, the Don found himself absolutely unable to discover his house or the way thither. Wandering desperately up and down distressed, and in perplexity of mind, he perceived a funeral cortège approaching. Impelled by irresistible curiosity, he stepped up to the bearers of the bier and asked whose body they were carrying. Came the reply: “The corpse of Don Miguel de Mañara.” The horror-stricken prodigal tore aside the pall, and lo! the face of the dead man was his own. The vision disappeared, and the same instant the Don found himself at the door of his own house. He entered it a changed man.
The church and hospital of La Caridad are the existing fruits of Don Miguel’s conversion. As far back as 1578, there had existed at Seville a confraternity, the objects of which were to assist condemned criminals at their last moments and to provide them with Christian burial. To this association the reformed rake turned his attention. He converted the chapel into a hospital for the sick, the poor, and the pilgrims of all nations, and liberally endowed it out of his ample resources.
The edifice is in the decadent Greco-Roman style, and was designed by Bernardo Simón de Pereda. The Baroque façade is adorned with five large blue faïence designs on a white ground, the subjects being Faith, Hope, and Charity, St James, and St George. Tradition has it that these were made after drawings by Murillo at the azulejo factory of Triana. The church hardly appears to us to warrant the description “one of the most elegant in Seville,” applied to it by Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell. Under the High Altar is buried the founder, Don Miguel. His own wish was to be buried at the entrance to the church, with the epitaph: Aqui yacen los huesos y cenizas del peor hombre que ha habido en el mundo (Here lie the bones and ashes of the worst man that ever lived in this world). His sword, and his portrait painted by Valdés Leal, are preserved in the Hospital.
As a museum of Spanish art, La Caridad possesses great importance. The altarpiece, “The Descent from the Cross,” is the masterpiece of Pedro Roldan. The two paintings near the entrance by Juan de Valdés Leal (1630-1691) are regarded by Herr Schmidt as entitling that artist to rank as one of the greatest masters of realism of any age. This opinion is not shared by a recent writer (C. Gasquoine Hartley), who considers the pictures theatrical, though the execution exhibits a certain power. “In one of them a hand holds a pair of scales, in which the sins of the world—represented by bats, peacocks, serpents, and other objects—are weighed against the emblems of Christ’s Passion; in the other, which is the finer composition, Death, with a coffin under one arm, is about to extinguish a taper, which lights a table spread with crowns, jewels, and all the gewgaws of earthly pomp. The words ‘In Ictu Oculi’ circle the gleaming light of the taper, while upon the ground rests an open coffin, dimly revealing the corpse within.” Murillo said this picture had to be looked at with the nostrils closed. For the two paintings Valdés received 5740 reals.
Of the eleven pictures painted by Murillo for this church, only six remain, the others having been carried off by the French. The subjects are “Moses striking the Rock,” the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,” the “Charity of San Juan de Dios,” the “Annunciation,” the “Infant Jesus,” and “St John.” The first picture, depicting, as it does, the terrible thirst experienced by the Israelites, is known as La Sed (Thirst). Some critics think this is one of the finest of the master’s productions. As is usual in his compositions, the figures are all those of ordinary Sevillian types. “The personality of Christ in the ‘Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,’” says C. Gasquoine Hartley, “lacks the force of the ancient prophet, and the work as a whole is inferior to its companion picture.” The “Charity of San Juan de Dios”—representing the Saint carrying a beggar with the help of an angel—is the best and most characteristic of the six paintings. The “Infant Jesus” and the “St John” are also very fine. For the “San Juan de Dios” and the “St Elizabeth of Hungary”—El Tiñoso—(now at Madrid) together, Murillo was paid 18,840 reals; for the Moses, 13,300 reals; and for the “Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,” 15,973 reals.
The last building which may be said to rank as an architectural monument erected in Seville is the Palacio de San Telmo, now the residence of the Duc de Montpensier. In the year 1682 the Naval School of San Telmo was founded on the site of the former palace of the Bishops of Morocco and the tribunal of the Holy Office. The present edifice, begun, after plans by Antonio Rodriguez, in 1734, was not completed till 1796. The palace adjoins the beautiful gardens of the Delicias. The façade is exceedingly ornate, the decoration being in the Plateresco style. The general effect is pleasing, but critics have been unsparing in their denunciations of the structure. It certainly reflects the debasing influence of the architect Jose Churriguera (1665-1725), who has given his name (Churrigueresque) to one of the most tawdry and tasteless styles of architecture.