A very beautiful arch, richly and tastefully adorned with statues, admits to the Cathedral. This church, described by Fergusson as one of the finest in Europe, was begun by Diego de Siloe, about 1525, and not completed till 1703. The exterior is far from corresponding to the majesty of the interior, though the Puerto del Perdon, already referred to, on the north side, is a beautiful piece of work. The impression produced on entering the Cathedral is rather similar to that experienced on entering St. Peter's. There is an atmosphere of loftiness, luxury, and cold purity—like that clinging to the finest classical works. This is certainly the triumph of Spanish Renaissance architecture. The effect is, of course, utterly different from that of the grand old Gothic fane of Seville. Like all Renaissance churches, as it seems to me, it lacks the devotional atmosphere. The nave, as usual, is obstructed by the choir—where, by the way, Alonso Cano was buried. The dome above the chancel is sublime, the daring of the arches wonderful. The altar is completely insulated by the ambulatory.
Before it are the grand sculptured heads of Adam and Eve by Cano. His also are seven of the frescoes decorating the upper part of the dome. The others are by his pupils. The Cathedral contains much of this irascible and wayward artist's best work. In the chapel of San Miguel is a "Virgen de la Soledad," in whose human beauty and pathos his genius finds its highest expression. In the chapel of Jesus Nazareno, Cano's "Via Crucis" does not suffer by comparison with three works of Ribera and a "St. Francis" by El Greco. The artist's studio may be seen in one of the towers flanking the west front of the Cathedral. He was a native of Granada, and a lay canon of the chapter. He died in poverty at his house in the Albaicin quarter, aged 66 years, on October 5, 1667. He was a man of hasty but not ungenerous temper, and in some of his phases of character recalls Fuseli. Justice has hardly been done to his great talent, of which he himself seems to have entertained an exaggerated estimate.
The minor churches of Granada are not of very great interest. The church of San Geronimo was built by the Great Captain as a mausoleum for himself and his wife, but such of his remains as escaped the ghoulish spoliation of the French have been transported to Madrid. The church is no longer used as a place of worship. The retablo is remarkable, and in it may be traced the dawning of Siloe's ambition to create a true Spanish Renaissance style. The church of San Juan de Dios, not far off, is filled with tawdry rubbish, petticoated crucifixes, etc. Here is buried the titular saint, a Portuguese, Joao de Robles, who in the seventeenth century devoted himself with so much energy to the sick and suffering that his contemporaries esteemed him mad. You may see the cage in which he was confined at the hospital founded by Isabella the Catholic on the arid, ugly Plaza de Triunfo, near the Bull Ring. A column in the middle of the square marks the spot where Doña Mariana Pineda was publicly garrotted in 1831. This lady is the great heroine of Granada. She perished a victim to the reactionary tendencies then prevalent in Spain. Spaniards were then crying "Hurrah for our chains!" and Doña Mariana's house was known to be a rendezvous of the Liberals of Granada. On raiding her house the police discovered a tricolour flag. This was evidence enough, and in the thirty-first year of her age this beautiful and accomplished woman suffered a shameful death. A few years later, when the nation had recovered its sanity, the magistrate who had condemned her was shot, and her remains were transported with great pomp to the Cathedral, where they have been interred close to Alonso Cano's. A monument has also been raised to her memory in the Campillo Square.
There is another story connected with the Triunfo worth telling, though it is not very well authenticated. The remains of royal personages on their way to the Capilla Real were here identified by the officers of the court. The Duke of Gandia was present on such an occasion, and was so impressed by the evidences of mortality when the coffin was opened that he vowed he would never again serve an earthly master. He entered the Society of Jesus, and after his death was canonized under the name of St. Francis Borgia. The story is a curious and suggestive one, as also is that of the duke praying that his wife might die if it were for his soul's good. St. Francis Borgia has always seemed to me an extreme example of other-worldliness.
A dusty road through most uninviting surroundings leads to the Cartuja, or Charterhouse, founded in 1516 by the Great Captain. The cloisters are painted with scenes of the martyrdom of the Carthusian monks in London by the minions of Henry VIII.
The church is an extraordinary edifice. Its style is damnable, but it is gorgeous and dazzling to a degree which compels admiration. The doors of the choir are exquisitely inlaid with ebony, cedar, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell. The statue of Bruno is by Cano. In the sanctuary behind the altar coloured marbles, twisted and fluted, are combined in extravagant magnificence. Some of the slabs are richly veined with agate, and the hand of nature has traced some semblances of human and animal forms. In the adjoining sacristy are some wonderful inlaid doors and presses. They must surely be the finest works of their kind in the world. It is strange that so much genius for detail and so much costly material should have been combined to produce so tasteless a building.